Bryan Cranston Announces Temporary Retirement From Acting, And His Reasons Are Surprisingly Wholesome

Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston announced his unexpected retirement from acting in a recent interview with GQ. But the reason behind his retirement is surprisingly wholesome: Unlike his on-screen alter-ego Walter White, Cranston is stepping away from the spotlight (and the consierable money that comes with it) in favor of spending more time with his family–especially his wife, Robin.

“I want to change the paradigm once again,” Cranston said regarding his marriage. “For the last 24 years, Robin has led her life holding onto my tail. She’s been the plus-one, she’s been the wife of a celebrity. She’s had to pivot and adjust her life based on mine. She has tremendous benefit from it, but we’re uneven. I want to level that out. She deserves it.”

“My wife is so sensitive and so beautiful and lovely, and she gets her little feelings hurt and she’s just quiet, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’ve wounded a bird, oh man,'” he explained, adding that he has grown to be “pretty free in saying ‘I’m sorry.'”

But it’s not just his wife who he wants to spend more time with–Cranston is immensely proud of his daughter, 30-year-old Taylor, and wants time to watch her flourish and grow.

“She’s very independent and very conscientious of not having any association or hint thereof of nepotism,” Cranston said of his daughter, who has adamantly declined to let her father help her get her foot in the door when it comes to acting.

But there’s another member of the family who Cranston wants more quality time with in his retirement: his Breaking Bad co-star, Aaron Paul. The two grew close during the filming of Breaking Bad, and it seems their bond has only strengthened over the years. In 2019, after agreeing that they deeply missed working together, the pair created a mezcal company named Dos Hombres. Now, they’re officially a family–Paul and his wife asked Cranston if they could name him as the godfather to their son, Ryden, who was born in 2022. Cranston gleefully accepted, and it seems that the two families spend quite a lot of off-screen time together these days. It’s those peaceful moments of kinship that Cranston seems to be seeking as he enters his retirement.

But the actor’s fanbase need not mourn his exit from acting–not yet, anyway. Though he shot down the idea of working on a Breaking Bad “reunion production” of some sort, he still has several upcoming projects, and doesn’t plan to retire until 2026, when he will sell his half of Dos Hombres, close down his production company, and head to France with his wife for “a minimum of six months.” The actor aims to live in a small village, and spend his early 70’s focusing on passions both new and old: learning French, gardening, cooking, and of course, spending quality time with his wife.

Still the way the actor words things, it seems more like a temporary arrangement, a break from the norm rather than the final chapter of a saga. It’s unlikely fans have seen the last of Cranston.

“I want to have that experience,” he said of the upcoming French excursion. “I want to go for day trips and have the fire in the fireplace and drink wine with new friends and not read scripts.”

On the show, Walter White often justified his selfish deeds by claiming he “did it all for the family,” but it seems the actor who played him is taking a more genuine approach when it comes to family life. Unlike Heisenberg, it seems Bryan Cranston truly is a family man at heart.