'Breaking Bad': Betsy Brandt talks ending
Betsy Brandt may be devastated Breaking Bad is ending on Sunday, but there are upsides to her new job as Michael J. Fox’s wife on The Michael J. Fox Show. “[The Michael] show doesn’t make me physically ill, whereas I really thought I might throw up on Breaking Bad,” she explained to EW this week. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, my chest hurts. I don’t feel well, I don’t feel well.’ On Breaking Bad we laugh a lot when the cameras aren’t rolling, and on this show we laugh a lot when the cameras aren’t rolling and then I get to laugh when they are rolling too.”
It’s no surprise Brandt’s final moments as Marie Schrader weren’t upbeat. While she’s of course mum on the details of her final scene in Sunday’s finale, “I wasn’t thinking ‘Oh this is the end,'” she said of the filming. “I was thinking about the moment. But then after it was over I just thought, ‘Oh my God. That’s it.’ [And then] Bryan Cranston was there and he was standing out of my sight line off to the side just staring at me and holding his AK-47 [laughs] with like his Heisenberg killer look. It was very, very funny.”
That may have made her smile, but fans shouldn’t expect a similar reaction to the material Sunday night. When asked how many boxes of tissues viewers should have on hand for the final showdown, Brandt replied, “I think you’re going to need a lot. Regardless of how it ends – and the ending is good, it’s really good – [but] one of the things I’m most proud of on this show is the story and how much everyone has grown to love these characters. My character isn’t the easiest person to love. And listen, there are people that don’t love her, but there are so many people who do and I love them all. My ending would probably be completely Pollyanna so it’s good I don’t write the show because I want them all to win. I want them all to survive and win.”
Since it’s Gilligan and Co. and not Brandt scripting the final hour, that’s unlikely to happen (start emotionally preparing for a bloodbath now), but Brandt did tease what she hopes for Marie and Skyler’s final finale moments: “I hope they both make it and if they do I hope that they can find some way back to each other,” she said. “I don’t think Marie would ever be able to forgive and forget with Skyler, what she did, but I loved their relationship and if one or both of them doesn’t make it, I hope it’s respectful.”
While Marie — along with everyone else — has been put through the wringer this season, Brandt said her hardest scene to film wasn’t the goodbye phone call to Hank or her painful fight with Skyler over Holly. “My hardest scene was the restaurant scene. [begins to cry] I’m sorry. It’s just that the ending is Sunday, and I keep crying. [The hardest part was when] I told Walt he should kill himself. I told Bryan [afterwards], ‘Can I hug you?’ I said it over and over again, and I felt so sick. I hate looking [Cranston] in the eye and meaning it when I say it. And he was very sweet. And I love him. He’s such a a great actor, a great man and a great friend….It would be much easier to walk away if there weren’t such great memories. Vince Gilligan, he made this show about a high school teacher who cooks meth and it changed all of our lives.”
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