Yesterday we covered excerpts from Bryan Cranston’s new memoir in which he admitted fantasizing in graphic detail about murdering an ex girlfriend he claims was stalking him. I asked if this was normal, because I have had similar thoughts about an ex but up until that point I never thought of actually admitting to them. It turns out that this wasn’t the first time Cranston had talked about murdering someone, presumably. In the 1970s, when he was traveling cross country with his brother and taking odd jobs, a coworker they both hated (whom everyone hated according to Cranston) turned up dead right after Cranston and his brother had moved on from that job. Cops asked if anyone wanted to do the man harm, the answer was that everyone did but that two people had just left right around the time the guy turned up dead – Cranston and his brother. He told this story on The Tonight Show and the video is below.
We took a two year motorcycle ride across the US in the mid 70s. We picked up jobs here and there… We were in Daytona Beach staying for a while trying to earn some money. We got a job [as waiters] at a polynesian restaurant called The Hawaiian Inn. The head chef was a guy named Peter Wong. Peter was a good chef and a horrible person, the first person I’ve ever met who I’ve realized ‘Oh my God, I hate this guy…’ Not a nice guy, miserable and mean.
So during the waiter meetings… we’d all talk about how each one of us would kill Peter Wong. So I said I would slice him up, nice tender slices. We’re joking around.
The season comes to an end, my brother and I hop on our motorcycles [and] take off again to go up north. Policemen come into the Hawaiian Inn… they said “Anybody ever talk about hurting or killing Peter Wong?”
“Yeah, all of us.”
“Anybody who’s no longer here who talked about killing Peter?”
“Well the Cranston brothers… left about a week ago.”
“That fits the timeline.”
Because Peter was murdered and they were looking for us. They put an APB out on our motorcycles.
[From The Tonight Show]
So how did he get out of it? That was an expert way to tell that story so that people will buy his book. Am I the only person who wondered whether Cranston did it? I’m sure he didn’t – it just crossed my mind because he was so convincing as cold blooded killer Walter White and because he’s such an incredible actor. If anyone could murder someone, convince the cops he was innocent and then use it as a personal anecdote on a talkshow it’s Bryan Cranston. Although it’s news to me, he did tell this story before, last year on Ellen. Cranston said “I didn’t murder him, though. I murdered someone else.” He needs to win an Oscar already. You know I couldn’t remember whether he won or not this year, because again I conflated his character in Trumbo with the actual man. That’s how good of an actor he is. Good enough to kill a man and convince cops he was innocent.
photos credit: WENN.com
I love him but he is one shady dude. It’s something in his eyes.
Perfect casting for BB.
I used to like Fallon a lot but lately I can’t stand his fakery and over enthusiasm; and not for nothing after hearing a story like that the correct response is “wow, that’s wild”, not laugh at someone’s murder no matter how much of an a-hole he was.
Fallon’s been like that for years. His viral vidros were okay, but he was akways a bad interviewer.
I feel much the same way. I enjoyed him on the Tonight Show at first, because it was funny and light-hearted. But now I find that his interviews always leave me wishing he had asked at least a few interesting questions, and the games are getting old, and I kind of feel like I’m watching a show geared towards teenagers! I think he could afford to mix it up a bit, and make it more adult.
But where he really lost me was with his interview of Trump. I’ve completely switched to watching Seth Meyers now. He’s a much better interviewer, and his political humor is pointed and mature.
If it makes you feel any better, I gave serious consideration to taking a hit out on my abusive ex when he spread professionally damaging lies about me after I kicked his sorry ass to the kerb.
Sorry police forces of the world if you’re reading this, but it wasn’t moral considerations that stopped me; it was the fact that I’m such a law-abiding, suburb-dwelling vanilla latte of a person that I wouldn’t have the first clue how to go about hiring a contract killer.
Also no money, heh.
That was long ago. It’s too bad how a person’s past can never escape them, and potentially cast them in a negative light years later.
My fantasies run more to winning the lottery and laughing in my relatives’ faces.
Same here! There were MANY times I fantasized about killing my horrible ex (and used to joke the police might give me a medal for doing the world a favor). The only thing that stopped me was serious consideration that ultimately I would likely be caught and have to live in a whole other prison for the rest of my life. But believe me I did thorough research on self defense laws in my state. Thank god he went to jail all on his own.
Cranston’s a great actor, but I’m never sure what to make of him as a person.
Incidentally, there was a minor celebrity over here (he was a panelist on Eggheads) that got arrested recently after he wrote that he killed a man in his autobiography. So if you must commit a heinous crime, perhaps best not to describe it in detail in a book!
Oh yes! CJ de Mooi! He said he pushed a drug addict into an Amsterdam canal.
I love him but I gotta say I haven’t fantasized about killing anyone (my revenge fantasies generally involved meeting and marrying a hot new piece), and I definitely haven’t joked with co-workers about the ways we’d murder a hated colleague. I’m also starting to realize why he did such an amazing job as WW, he clearly has a dark side to tap into.
Not sure anyone’s murder should be fodder for jokes, no matter how awful they were. And why bring up that the guy was awful? He probably has family that are going to read about it or see this clip and be devastated that their murdered loved one is being excoriated for no other reason than for someone to get laughs on a crap tv program. Cranston could have told the story without naming the victim or emphasizing that the dead guy was such a supposedly horrible person. “There was someone I didn’t like, who I had made comments about killing, and later cops suspected me when he turned up dead.”
yes but that’s a boring story and dude’s a story teller!
Sorry but dud’es a creep. There’s just something off about him. There is a smugness to his acting that is a turn-off for me. (mho)
Mr Cranston seems to have a pretty dark sense of humor. As for the ex-girlfriend thing, I mean…there’s an abysmal difference between dreaming or imagining oneself killing someone, and actually doing it.
In this case, I think my fellow CBers are judging him harshly because he is a man. I don’t know the details, but if he really had a real stalker, I wouldn’t blame him for harboring real agression towards that person. Real stalking is invasive, violating, & traumatic.
If he were a female celeb saying she had thought about having her stalker killed, everyone would sympathize.
Maybe he was joking, I don’t know. But my understanding is that real episodes of stalking leave their victims truly traumatized and also, because the laws don’t really protect them, feeling quite impotent and unable to take action. I wouldn’t blame someone in that circumstance for harboring some revenge fantasies, as long as it’s just that- fantasies. Maybe we could give the guy a break. Just because he (brilliantly) played a murderous sociopath does’t mean he IS one!
I think everyone’s making a big deal out of nothing. He’s just trying to sell his book.
I love Bryan Cranston. And even though he’s done so much serious acting since, I will always see him rollerskating to Funkytown as Hal in my mind whenever he is mentioned! That’s just how amazing and diverse he is!
OMG that is one of my favorite moments in TV EVER!!!!!!!!!!
Mine too! Did you see him when he was rollerskating to Daft Punk’s Get Lucky with Steven Colbert? Another of my all time fave TV moments. I was clapping like a fool because I didn’t think I’d ever be lucky enough to see him rollerskating on TV again! lol
God, me too. It still boggles my mind a bit that he managed to shake off that role and have such a successful acting career, because in my head he is still Hal.
Funny – he seems like such a nice guy, but there’s a real darkness in him, huh?
I’m uncomfortable.
Not loving it
He is so sexy.
A) I think he is marvelously flexible as an actor
B)) the best comedians, IMHO, have a developed dark humour
C) his graphic imagination I can relate to…just hope he side eyes himself over it, as I do
D) I am betting that Peter Wong was not the dudes real name
E) I am still feeling squicky despite identifying with his humour.
Egads.