Aaron Paul talks El Camino and whether or not he’d play Jesse again

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

MAJOR SPOILERS for EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE. Consider yourself warned. It had been six years since Breaking Bad wrapped up a brilliant five season run, but series creator Vince Gilligan brought us back to the world of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) last Friday with EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE. Picking up immediately following the events of Breaking Bad's series finale which found Jesse making a dramatic escape from captivity, EL CAMINO follows Jesse as he attempts to come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future.

Vince Gilligan managed to keep most of EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE under wraps until the final moment, leaving fans ready for some big surprises in terms of returning characters. Not only did we catch up with Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt Jones), but EL CAMINO also featured the return of Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Ed Galbraith (Robert Forster), Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons), Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter), and of course, Walter White (Bryan Cranston). While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Aaron Paul dove into the biggest of those cameos as well as explained how the project came about, saying that when Vince Gilligan first pitched him the idea, it came as a bit of a shock.

In all honesty, it was shock, first of all. But right after the shock it was just nothing but an enthusiastic yes. That’s how much I trust Vince. Yes, I think the way Breaking Bad ended was perfect. I think the show is perfect. I’m a little biased, of course, but I don’t think that you could have done anything more on this show. He just nailed it. With that said, if Vince wants to continue this story, he’s doing it for a reason. He doesn’t want to mess with his legacy. There’s a legacy for him to uphold here with Breaking Bad. And he’s the last person that wants to tarnish that. He told me in the first call, “Look, I don’t want to do this unless it’s perfect. There’s no reason for me to.” And then seven months later, he finished the script and he told me, “It’s pretty damn good.” [Laughs] So I trusted him.

Paul went on to describe his first day on set as "very odd," but added that it was "beautiful" and "surreal" to jump back into characters which had completely changed all of their lives. Sharing the screen with so many returning cast-members was something of a family reunion, but none more so than Aaron Paul's scene with Bryan Cranston, which took place in a diner around the time of season two episode 'Four Days Out.' "That was very different to jump back into, but it was also incredibly easy to find that particular skin again. It was so nice to be able to play Jesse in his happier days. He was still very much in love with Jane. It was before heroin came into the mix. It was a simpler time," Paul said. "Walt still had the looming death on the horizon — or so he thought — but it was so nice to be able to get in that wardrobe and sit opposite one of my nearest and dearest friends, my mentor, and play these roles again that completely changed our lives forever. It was really such a blessing." Paul also said that filming this scene required some STAR WARS-level secrecy. "I have such funny videos of Bryan and I walking in our sort of Star Wars cloaks, walking from our trailer to the SUV that takes us to set. It was pretty great. I also thought that maybe those clothes drew a lot more attention to us? [Laughs] But I don’t know. Obviously, it worked. I know they flew in Bryan on a private jet so he wouldn’t have to deal with the public at the airport. Obviously, we were never seen out in public together," Paul explained, adding that another method which was employed to keep the big secret was populating the diner with crew members and family of crew members, people who could be trusted not to leak information.

The final moments of EL CAMINO found Jesse successfully making it to Alaska, with the help of the late, great Robert Forster, in order to start a new life. "It really is so nice to see a glimmer of hope in Jesse’s life, and there’s a subtle layer of peace that just kinda falls over him as he’s driving into Haines, Alaska," Paul said. "It’s honestly the same sort of closure that I forced myself to create for him. But just much more layered. I always hoped that he would find himself in the middle of Alaska, and now he is." As far as whether Aaron Paul would be down to reprise the role of Jesse Pinkman once again, perhaps on Better Call Saul, the actor was quick to answer.

If Vince asked me to jump onto Saul, I would do it in a heartbeat. And I would know it’s for very good reasons. So we’ll see. Look, we talk about it all the time, we really do, and we want to do it for the right reasons. We don’t want to just throw you in a scene that doesn’t make sense. Obviously, we would love to give that to the fans of Breaking Bad and the fans of Better Call Saul, but we don’t want fans to kind of scratch their head and they’re like, “Well, why did that happen?” [Laughs]

EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE is now available on Netflix, so be sure to check out a review from our own Alex Maidy!