After five seasons ofBreaking Badand six seasons ofBetter Call Saul,Vince Gilliganis ready to introduce a new lead character that’s more of a traditional hero. WithBreaking Bad, Gilligan created Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a chemistry teacher who turns to cooking meth after he’s diagnosed with cancer. The spinoff seriesBetter Call Saul, which Gilligan co-created with Peter Gould, similarly followed a protagonist who does some pretty terrible things, making Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman a bit of an antihero.
In a new interview with theNew Yorker, Gilligan says he longs for the days of when television had more clean-cut heroes in the lead roles. Back in those days, the main character didn’t necessarily need to have a spiral and could remain pretty much the same throughout the series. In fact, the legendary TV creator reveals that all he finds himself watching these days are those classic television shows that feature the kind of protagonists that really don’t seem to exist much anymore.
“Yeah, there’s a real pleasure to watching shows like that. Honestly, that’s all I watch these days. I love the old stuff. I love old episodes of Emergency! and The Rockford Files and Columbp and The Twilight Zone and Hogan’s Heroes. It’s comfort food for my brain. I hope that kind of storytelling never goes away.”
From there, Gilligan reveals that this has him feeling inspired to write a more classic hero to lead his next TV show. At this point, bringing a hero like this into the fray would actually help the new show stand out after antiheroes have risen in popularity in more recent years.
“For my next show, I’d like the lead character to be an old-fashioned hero, an old-fashioned good guy. Jim Rockford is kind of rough around the edges, but he always does the right thing. Fifteen years ago, when I was conceiving of Walter White, I looked around and thought, Well, what is current TV? It’s mostly good guys. But now I’m looking around, thinking, Gee, there’s an awful lot of bad guys on TV, and not just on shows but on the news. It feels like a world of sh*theels now, both in fiction and in real life. I think it’s probably time again for a character who doesn’t go for the easy money. I’d be very happy if I could write a more old-fashioned hero, someone who is not out for themselves at every turn.”
Related:Breaking Bad: Jonathan Banks on Mike Ehrmantraut’s Biggest Mystery
There are no plans to delve any further into the world ofBreaking Badafter theBetter Call Saulfinale. Vince Gilligan has consistently been open about this, feeling that he wants to try something new to prove that he’s not a one-trick pony. With his determination in writing a character who’s more of a hero, that also sounds less like the people we typically meet in theBreaking Baduniverse. But with that said, Gilligan hasn’t completely shut the door to going back there some day.
“I can definitely imagine revisiting it,” Gilligan previously admitted to Rolling Stone. “Selfishly, I’d like to do so, to keep this thing going. But without naming any names, I look around at some of the worlds, the universes, the stories that I love, whether they’re on TV or in the movies. And I think there’s a certain point, and it’s hard to define, where you’ve done too much in the same universe. Just leave it alone.”
He added, “The main thing I’m scared of is becoming too much of a one-trick pony. Yes, I could do more with this universe. And maybe someday I will, especially if I fail at everything that comes next. ThenI’ll come crawling back. But right now, whether there’s more room to grow or not — and there probably is — I feel like it’s time to do something new.”
