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Spoilers below forEl Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.
Of course, his escape isnt easy.
Why did he change his mind?
Because, he says, sometimes you just got to give folks what they want.
Hooks 1978 Sharing the Night Togetherto soundtrack the sociopathic adventures of Jesse Plemonss Todd.
AfterBreaking Badended, you said that Jesse Pinkman was free, that he successfully got away.
All these years, you maintained that.
But I wondered if you had second thoughts as you started to write the movie.
Were there other possibilities you considered?Yes, I did.
I like irony in storytelling.
I love ironic twists.
And the thing he wanted most to do was escape.
At the end of the movie, hed be locked in a jail cell somewhere in Montana or someplace.
And he would be at peace with it.
It was all this very interior, emo-key in, very dramatic stuff.
I pitched it to my girlfriend, Holly, and she said, Are you out of your mind?
You cant have him in a jail cell at the end.
You got to let him get away.
People will riot.I said, No, dont you get it?
And then I said, No offense, youre not a writer.
I respect you, of course, and I love you.
But youre not a writer.
They said, Are you crazy?
Hes got to get away at the end.
As the saying goes, if enough people tell you youre drunk, you gotta sit down.
So I dispensed with that idea.
Had you worked out who this new character was going to be?I hadnt quite worked it out.
I didnt actually start writing it, but I had some pretty definitive ideas.
I spent a couple of weeks on that.
But Im glad I discarded it.
Sometimes you just got to give folks what they want.
You think to yourself, Well, thats too simple.
Getting away is what everybody expects, so maybe I got to go the opposite way.
Jesse has just suffered so much.
In the movie, we see even more of his suffering.
So I, for one, am so glad hes in Alaska.Good!
Im glad youre glad.Holly and Peter and the writers saved me.
I found Todds role in the movie so interesting.
You just figuratively beat your head against the laptop until you get it.
The original idea was Uncle Jack riding shotgun, so to speak, with Jesse.
Its kill or be killed.
But I kept thinking about it, and I thought, God, what a bummer that would be.
He can fake it, but he doesnt innately feel empathy for other people.
And then hell say, Gee, I feel bad about that.
Then in the next instant, hell be thinking about something else.Its like killing a mosquito to him.
But in the end, hes weirdly likable and its the damnedest thing.
AndJesse Plemonsplayed the hell out of that part, so we went in that direction.
Todd drives to the burial site singingSharing the Night Together.
That was the point of the whole scene.
What do you do when youre driving by yourself and youre happy?
You sing along to the radio.
And then it was a matter of finding the right song.
For a while, it was going to be a Donovan song that I like a lot.
That was completely Jesse Plemons.
That was not scripted.
and we start rolling and he starts singing.
We were all laughing so hard.
When he does the horn honk, I almost fell out of the truck I was laughing so hard.
He nailed it in one take.
It was such a thing of beauty.
And our camera operator, thank God, he can contain his laughter, because he operated it perfectly.
Over the years [I thought], God, this gets prettier every time I fly over it.
I got to put this in a movie someday.
And so luckily we were able to.
Its not like I gave them any kind of brilliant direction.
But then you just get out of their way.
I am not kidding you.
The damnedest thing Id ever seen.
I asked him how he did it and he just shrugged, I dont know.
Its the job, I guess.
God, is he good.
Aaron is so good.
The pizza conversation is so uncomfortable.
I wanted to yell, Stop![Laughs.]
That was my favorite day.
Some fans speculated that Walt was still be alive.
Of course he wasnt!
I just wanted people to see Walt again because there is noBreaking Badwithout Walter White.
I wanted to give a little gift to the fans.
Really, thats what it all came down to.
But then I thought, Hell, thats what the whole rest of this movie was about!
Go back to when they annoyed each other, but basically they had respect for one another.
And that moment came in 4 Days Out [from season two].
Itll fit in quite nicely because we got the costumes right and everything.
In a way, that makes me sad for him too.
This guy is so brilliant.
He came close to winning a Nobel Prize.
And its good to be the best in the world at something.
It is a moment where I feel for him, too.
And Marie and Hank and Walt Jr.and Gus Fring would have been great.
Saul Goodman would have been great.
But honestly, the movie would have felt overstuffed if we had put all those folks in.
At the end of the day, its very much Jesse Pinkmans story.
We see it through Jesse Pinkmans eyes.
Their lives have definitely taken a turn for the worse.
Which is family, love, self-respect, and all these other things that Walter White loses.
And I think that little family unit prevails.
It just may not be as dramatic as Jesse running around shooting evil welders.
I think theyre out there persevering.
The Wild West shootout was very Heisenberg of Jesse.I think Walter White would have been proud.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
