Cranston repeatedly pranked Paul into thinking his character was being killed off the show.
AMC
A writers’ strike in 2007 and 2008 caused showrunner Vince Gilligan to consider killing off Jesse during the show’s first season.
The character ended up surviving the show’s entire run, but Paul told The Hollywood Reporter that “through the next season, season and a half,” Cranston would mess with him and lead him to think that Jesse was getting axed.
Paul said that anytime he picked up a script, he thought, “This is the time.”
“He would say, ‘Hey, did you read the next script?'” Paul recalled. “And I’d go, ‘Nah, did you get it?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh.’ And he just would give me this big hug.”
Paul said Cranston would continue lying by saying, “‘Hey man, you know, it had to end sometime, but at least you go out, like, guns blazing,’ or something like that.”
“He was very susceptible and sweet and he was only mid-20s then,” Cranston explained during an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” in May 2019. “I used to say to him, ‘Hey man, it’s been great. It’s really been great and you’re gonna use this time to go on to other things.'”
Then he’d make Paul believe his character was being killed off and “he just bought it,” Cranston said.
