It had been a minute since Anna Gunn felt the anticipation of an intriguing script hitting her inbox. Understandably, the incomparable writing she received for a combined decade on Deadwood and Breaking Bad set a high bar. But then the Colin Farrell-led Apple TV+ series Sugar came along.
Created by Mark Protosevich and executive produced by Audrey Chon/Simon Kinberg, the neo-noir show ended up being one of a couple recent Breaking Bad reunions for Gunn. Co-heads of Apple TV+ programming, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, served as presidents at Sony Pictures Television when Vince Gilligan walked through their doors with his Breaking Bad pilot script, and on top of having a hand in Gunn joining Sugar, the two executives have been busy recruiting their former Breaking Bad collaborators to their acclaimed streamer, including Gilligan and his still-untitled upcoming series; Jonathan Banks and director-EP Michelle MacLaren for Constellation; and Aaron Paul on Truth Be Told season one.
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Gunn’s Breaking Bad casting directors, Sharon Bialy and Sherry Thomas, were the ones to initiate her casting on Sugar, which counts Breaking Bad writer-producer Sam Catlin as a writer-EP. Catlin wrote the Rian Johnson-directed Breaking Bad episode, “Fifty-One,” which landed Gunn her first of two Emmys.
Set in modern-day Los Angeles, Sugar chronicles the empathetic yet highly dangerous private investigator, John Sugar (Colin Farrell), and his latest case involving the missing granddaughter (Sydney Chandler) of a legendary Hollywood producer named Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell). Gunn plays Margit Sorensen, a former B-movie star turned ex-wife of Siegel’s B-movie producer son, Bernie (Dennis Boutsikaris), and now she’s attempting to orchestrate an implausible Oscar-winning comeback for their former child star son, David (Nate Corddry). Gunn and Boutsikaris bonded over the Breaking Bad universe, as the latter recurred as Rich Schweikart on Breaking Bad’s prequel/sequel, Better Call Saul.
Besides attractive writing and familiar faces, Gunn couldn’t pass up the chance to work with Farrell, who she compares to Breaking Bad leading man, Bryan Cranston.
“I used to say to [Colin], ‘You’re a true gent,’ and he really is a real gent. I feel so lucky that I’ve had such remarkably wonderful scene partners,” Gunn tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I always used to say that working with Bryan [Cranston] was like playing tennis with a great tennis player. You hit the ball with a great spin over the net, and then they return it in a way that maybe you didn’t expect and you have to dive. So I felt that way with Bryan, and I felt that way with Colin.”
In late February, Gunn had a full-fledged reunion with her Breaking Bad castmates at the 30th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. They were there to commemorate the 10th anniversary of when Breaking Bad’s final season won the SAG Award for best ensemble in a drama series. Gunn and company also presented this year’s award to Succession’s ensemble for their final season.
As dreamlike as her Breaking Bad experience was, Gunn will forever be reminded of her encounter with the toxic side of fandom. It’s something that’s always plagued any beloved form of mass entertainment, but it’s become far more prevalent since the emergence of social media. The Santa Fe native wrote a New York Times op-ed in the middle of Breaking Bad’s final season, detailing her account of the misogynistic attacks on her character, Skyler White, as well as the threatening messages that crossed a line and targeted her on a personal level. Unfortunately, it’s a problem that many of her contemporaries also faced in the age of the antihero and the spouses who dared to keep them in check.
In the 10-and-a-half years since Breaking Bad’s series finale, Gunn feels relatively more optimistic about the state of female actors and characters on television.
“Now, when people come up to me, it’s incredibly different … There’s still a long way to go, but we have made seismic changes since then,” Gunn says. “So people come up to me now and say, ‘You were the linchpin for me. You were the conscience of the show. You were what pulled me into the show.’ Or they say, ‘The first time I watched it, I hated that character. But the second time I watched it, I realized, ‘Oh my God, that poor woman.’”
Johnson also helmed Gunn’s second Emmy-winning episode, “Ozymandias.” Written by Moira Walley-Beckett, the series’ antepenultimate episode is widely considered to be one of the greatest hours of television, and it features several climactic sequences including one where Walt (Cranston) abducts baby Holly after Skyler and Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) refused to go on the run with their criminal patriarch. The sequence concludes with Skyler pursuing Walt outside their home and collapsing to her knees as Walt drove off with Holly in a beat-up pickup truck.
Albuquerque’s stormy weather prolonged the filming schedule that day, and with production delaying lunch to accommodate the one remaining shot of Skyler falling to her knees in anguish, Gunn was highly emotional as she attempted to button up matters. In a now indelible image from Breaking Bad’s final season documentary — No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad — Johnson proceeded to comfort her in between takes, which made all the difference.
“I just needed a calm, reassuring hand. I actually remember saying to him, ‘Can you just hold my hand for a second?’ And Rian, without a word, held my hand. I don’t think we said anything, but just by his presence, he knew what I had to do and how hard it was,” Gunn recalls. “So, whatever that moment was [between us] infused me with what I needed. They had [the shot], but I know when they have it, and I knew they didn’t have it. So I asked for one more, and we got it on that last one. So I’ll forever be grateful to Rian.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Gunn also addresses whether she would’ve reprised her role of Skyler White on Better Call Saul, before describing her spoiler-free response to Sugar’s highly publicized impending twist.
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As soon as I started watching Sugar, I noticed three familiar names: Sharon Bialy, Sherry Thomas and Sam Catlin. Were your former Breaking Bad collaborators a big part of your commitment?
Yes, they definitely were, especially [casting directors] Sharon and Sherry, who have honestly been such incredible champions of mine, mostly for Breaking Bad, obviously. But I met Sharon in my very early days of being in Hollywood, and she just took me under her wing and we got to be friends. So she’s just been a champion of mine through all these years, and I was just so grateful that they brought this to me.
Sam’s wife, Julie Dretzin, also known as Skyler White’s divorce attorney, pops up later as well.
Yes, exactly! Sam’s a wonderful writer and wonderful human being, so that was wonderful as well. And, of course, [Apple TV+ co-heads of worldwide video] Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were over at Sony in the Breaking Bad days, so I love them as well. There were lots of names and lots of folks that I had worked with before, which made it feel very welcoming and familiar.
Lots of Breaking Bad folks have made their way to Apple TV+ of late, and it’s clearly tied to their leadership. So, character wise, what itch did Margit Sorensen scratch?
I think I was just fascinated by the idea of this family that is Hollywood royalty, basically. Margit was married to Bernie, who’s played by the wonderful Dennis Boutsikaris. She was Bernie’s first wife, so she has that crown, I guess. (Laughs.) She also starred in some of his action films in the ‘80s before she gave that up, and then she pretty much devoted her life to her son, David, and his career. So she continues to be about reviving his career in a sequel to a film he did when he was a boy. I also loved the fact that Bernie and Margit are still close friends and their divorce was amicable. They both really want the best for their son, even if they have different methods and different ways of going about it. She’s also friendly with his current wife; he’s had quite a few wives. (Laughs.) But it really was the writing, the creative team and the talent that was already attached. I’ve thought Colin Farrell was incredibly brilliant since I saw him In Bruges years ago. So, to work with Colin and Jamie Cromwell and Amy Ryan and Dennis was wonderful.
Did you and Dennis Boutsikaris bond over your mutual ties to Q Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico? [Boutsikaris appeared on 15 episodes of Better Call Saul, which shot at the same studio as Breaking Bad.]
Yeah, we did. We had a lot of walks down memory lane in terms of Albuquerque and the studios and all of that. I actually grew up in Santa Fe, and my dad still lives there, so I go back quite often. I’m actually going back in a week or so to see him. So my heart is still very much in New Mexico, even though I split my time now between L.A. and Santa Fe.
As you just mentioned, Margit used to be a B-movie star, before turning into a stage mom of sorts. And now she has grand delusions that her former child star son turned wayward adult son is going to mount an Oscar-winning comeback. I’m sure you’ve encountered momager types in the past, so did you have plenty of real-life inspiration for her?
(Laughs.) Yes, that’s all I’ll say about that.
For a significant stretch of your career, you enjoyed the best writing television has ever seen courtesy of David Milch and Vince Gilligan’s writers rooms. Has that standard made you rather particular about the writing that comes your way now?
I would say so, yeah. I was, for lack of a better word, spoiled with writers of that caliber, and I had two of the best in the business. Reading the part that David created for me in Deadwood … I had worked with him way back on just a little guest starring role in NYPD Blue, and he remembered me all those years and brought me in for a few things that I just wasn’t right for. And then he felt that I was the sort of template for Martha Bullock, and he had me in for that. So it was wonderful to join a show like that, and then to pretty quickly go from that to Breaking Bad was head spinning because the pilot of Breaking Bad was so incredibly written.
And when I read Sugar, it was a similar feeling. The writing was so good, and the characters were so fascinating and so well drawn. It had me on my toes as a reader, whenever I got a script. And that’s the same way I felt, honestly, whenever I got a Deadwood or Breaking Bad episode. I couldn’t wait. We’d get one delivered into our inboxes and everyone would go, “Oh, we just got 103 or 104. Did you get it?” And all of us couldn’t wait to get home and read it. So I felt very much that way about this project as well, and I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. So it was really refreshing, and it brought back a kind of excitement to me that I had not had in a little while, certainly in a TV series.
You’ve had a bevy of great scene partners, so did you recognize rather quickly what makes Colin Farrell, Colin Farrell?
Yes, he’s so extraordinarily dialed in, and he’s so intelligent. I used to say to him, “You’re a true gent,” and he really is a real gent. He’s kind. He’s caring. He’s always on. He was not only starring on Sugar but also producing it, and he was always on his toes. It seemed like he was always everywhere at once and could answer anybody’s questions. So I can’t say enough about him. I really do feel so lucky that I’ve had such remarkably wonderful scene partners, and we clicked right away.
I always used to say that working with Bryan [Cranston] was like playing tennis with a great tennis player. You hit the ball with a great spin over the net, and then they return it in a way that maybe you didn’t expect and you have to dive. I find that kind of acting very exciting. In the moment, everyone has done their homework. They know who they are, they know who these characters are, and then you can really play with it. So I felt that way with Bryan, and I felt that way with Colin.
Well, I must say that it was nice to see you on stage with your Breaking Bad castmates at the SAG Awards recently. I can’t believe it’s been 10-and-a-half years since the series finale.
I can’t either.
When was the last time you were all in a room together?
The last time, as an entire group, would’ve been San Diego Comic-Con in 2018. We had a reunion of sorts, because it [roughly] coincided with the 10-year anniversary of the [January 2008] pilot. We, of course, missed Giancarlo [Esposito] at the SAGs, but I’m pretty sure we had everybody at Comic-Con, which is so frenetic, really. You just feel like you’re running around from one place to the next, but we did have a nice private dinner with the Better Call Saul cast as well. So it was really nice to break bread with both shows, and have Vince and all the writers there. But that was the last time we’d seen each other, and when we saw each other for [the SAG Awards], it really was wonderful. We had such a great time, and there was lots of laughing and crying and sentimentality, even though none of us are particularly [sentimental]. The joking around has remained, but we’ve all realized, just as we did then, how lucky we were and are because of that show.
My independent coverage as a fan of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is how I ended up writing for THR, and so it was always upsetting that people who claimed to love the same thing as me would treat you in the despicable way they did. I know it kept the writers up at night. I’ve heard a number of Breaking Bad-affiliated people say that it was a dream experience, minus that very big exception. Now that you’re 10-plus years removed, has your perspective evolved at all? Or do you pay no mind to it anymore?
Well, it’s not that I don’t pay mind to it. What I’m proud of is that I wrote an op-ed about it for The New York Times in 2013, when our last season was airing. I am not on social media. I’ve never been a social media person. So, for a while, I really wasn’t aware of what was going on online until people started letting me know. And then, of course, I thought, “Well, what is this that they’re saying? I will look into that,” which was probably a mistake. But it’s a mistake that led to a great deal of soul searching and me thinking, “Well, is it me?” And I think the writers went through the same thing: “Is it the way we’ve written her?” Vince would sometimes say, “My gosh, no matter what we do with Walt, no matter how bad he breaks, people are still going, ‘Yay!’ They’re still in his corner and they’re still behind him.”
So I really just had to go through that ring of fire, for lack of a better phrase, to understand that a lot of it was, frankly, misogynistic. A lot of it was the way that female characters were treated, and I think we’ve come a long way since then. If I may call them my sisters, I’m really proud of all the actresses who’ve spoken up and continued to pave the way and created their own antihero characters for themselves. So I really felt the need to say something about it at the time, because I have two daughters, and it was important for me that they know. They were very young at that point, and to my knowledge, they were not watching the show. (Laughs.) But it was confusing to all of us.
Nobody ever came up to me in person and said, “Oh my God, I hate you!” People don’t do that. They save that stuff for the internet because, for the reasons that we all know, it’s anonymous and it’s hidden and people can let it fly. So they say things that they would never say to a human being’s face, but it did become upsetting at times. And it did become alarming when it turned violent. Sometimes, the comments could turn threatening or violent, and that concerned me. So I just didn’t want to feel bullied by all that, and I felt that it was my responsibility to stand up and answer to it, which is what I did.
And now, when people come up to me, it’s incredibly different because of all the seismic changes that have happened. There’s still a long way to go, but we really have made seismic changes since then. So people come up to me now and say, “You were the linchpin for me. You were the conscience of the show. You were what pulled me into the show.” Or they say, “The first time I watched it, I hated that character. But the second time I watched it, I realized, ‘Oh my God, that poor woman.’”
When Better Call Saul was on the air, there was always speculation as to which Breaking Bad characters would cameo, and I always believed that you’d decline any opportunity to reprise Skyler in order to not put yourself in harm’s way again. Do you also think you would’ve respectfully said no for that reason?
I don’t know. I would write something different now because it’s 10-plus years later, but by standing up and speaking my piece at the time, I felt like I had done what I needed to do and said what I needed to say and made peace with it in that way. It also felt to me like people were caught up in that particular zeitgeist way back then, and then things evolved to where people understood more. So I don’t know that I would’ve been particularly afraid of [a Better Call Saul cameo], but I don’t know that the writers could ever quite figure out a way to make that happen. The writers also felt so badly. Sometimes, they’d come to me and say, “We’re sorry!” So it’s a weird phenomenon. People love the antihero. They want to be the one saying, “Screw you,” to their boss, and, “I’m going to do what I want.” But Skyler was the only one calling out the lie.
Many images of Skyler are burned into my brain, but one of them is not even part of the show. It’s when Rian Johnson comforted you in the middle of the street after Holly is abducted by Walt in “Ozymandias.” Is that a gesture you will never forget?
Yes, but how do you know about that? Is there a picture of it?
There’s documentary footage from the final season.
Rian directed both the episodes [“Fifty-One” and “Ozymandias”] that I won my two Emmys for, which I think is pretty interesting. [Writer’s Note: Sugar writer-EP Sam Catlin penned “Fifty-One.”] They were beautifully written episodes, and Rian is a really calm presence. He’s an incredibly smart and intuitive man. He really understands how actors work, and that moment [in the street] required so much of me. We hit bumps in the road all day. It was blizzarding and the road iced over, and there were all sorts of things that kept putting it off and putting it off. So I had to stay in that place for quite a while and be ready to chase Walt down the street.
So they called “grace,” which means that lunch is going to be late, and we had to get one more shot before we all got to go to lunch. And, as an actor, you feel that pressure and you want to deliver. So I just needed a calm, reassuring hand. I actually remember saying to him, “Can you just hold my hand for a second?” And Rian, without a word, held my hand. I don’t think we said anything, but just by his presence, he knew what I had to do and how hard it was. So, whatever that moment was [between us] infused me with what I needed. They had [the shot], but I know when they have it, and I knew they didn’t have it. So I asked for one more, and we got it on that last one. So I’ll forever be grateful to Rian.
Lastly, there’s a twist on a later episode of Sugar that is so shocking that I howled in response. Did you have a similar response when you read that moment?
Yes, I gasped. (Gunn mimics her original gasp.) I was reading the script in whatever recumbent position I was in, and it brought me to my feet. I remember that distinctly.
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Sugar is now streaming on Apple TV+.
