Anna Gunn, "Breaking Bad" and "Deadwood" actress: Mr. Media Interview, Part 2

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ANDELMAN: A year ago, having a series on AMC would not have been a likely path to success, but I’m guessing that “Mad Men,” which won the Golden Globe for Best Drama, changed that perception. I’m just kind of wondering at what point did you get involved with this relative to “Mad Men” coming on the air?

GUNN: At the time I got involved, I knew that they had another show that they were, I believe “Mad Men” was, yes, it must have been shooting already, but that’s all I knew. I knew a little bit about what the storyline was, and I had a few people that I knew working on it, but that’s about all I knew. So I was excited because of AMC making its foray into the dramatic series world. They are tremendously brave. They’re risk-taking with both of these shows. They’re completely different stories, they’re completely different periods, and they’ve given them such a broad range to reach out, and they’ve given them a real opportunity to explore the true core of these stories. I think it’s really exciting to be a part of that, to be in it at the beginning when they’re making this inroad into that world. And obviously, they’re doing it right, and they’re doing a brilliant job because both of these shows are exploring territory that I think is exciting on television. I think it’s providing a whole new world for viewers, and I’m excited to see what they come up with next, as well.

ANDELMAN: What’s interesting is that their first show really stars people that we really don’t know. The actors were, with the exception of the fellow who’s on “Desperate Housewives” -- or was, I guess he passed away on that show -- really unknown actors for the most part. So it wasn’t a lot of risk there. But you and Bryan in particular, coming in on AMC’s second show not knowing at the time you’re filming how that first one’s going to turn out, a little bit of risk on your part.

GUNN: Yes, yes, there was. But I think when you, as an actor, read material that is as good as this is, it’s a rare thing, first of all, and secondly, it’s what you look for as an actor, and when you’re presented with the opportunity to dive into material that’s as wonderful as this is, it seems foolish to turn your back on it. It doesn’t come along that often. And even though Skyler is not necessarily there for a great amount of the pilot, I saw enough, and I talked with Vince enough that I knew that this was a story that I wanted to be involved in. And so, absolutely, when you’re going into something, and it’s brand new, you think, “Ooh, how is this going to work out? Are people going to tune in?” and all that, it was proved that they did tune in in great numbers, and that was exciting.



ANDELMAN: I want to spend a little time talking about “Deadwood.” We’ve kind of come back and forth to it. I know in our house we loved that show. You joined it, I think, in its second season.

GUNN: That’s right.

ANDELMAN: Was it a culture shock to walk onto that set? I’m sure people are very normal when you’re not filming, but the colorful language, I’ll put that nicely, it’s a little different than when you’re on, I don’t know, “The Practice.” Even “NYPD Blue” was not this blue.

GUNN: It was not this blue, no. No, it wasn’t. For me, it was just, again, well, of course, I watched every episode of the first season, and I loved it. I just fell in love with it, and I loved the freedom of language. People have talked a lot about the language in “Deadwood”: “Was that really the way they talked?” According to David Milch, and he knows absolutely, that’s the way people talked in that world. Mrs. Bullock didn’t talk that way because I wouldn’t have because that’s the kind of character I was playing wouldn’t have spoken that way. She was a true Victorian lady. But the majority of people in that town absolutely talked as blue as that, so to speak. And I always wished that sometimes oh, I wish Mrs. Bullock would loosen up and get into some of that, but that wasn’t who she was so it was absolutely right that she didn’t. But I just thought it was exciting. The first day I shot, we actually shot me coming in on a stagecoach into town, and it was perfect. It just happened to work out that way. And I rode in on the stagecoach, and we came around the corner and drove down Main Street, and there was the town fully alive with these amazing extras tipping their hats at me and saying, “Ma’am, good morning.” I was enthralled because when you’re riding along you wonder how much you’re going to have to create in terms of your reaction to this new place, and it was all there laid out in front of me, and I couldn’t believe it. It was like I was in an amusement park for an actor.





ANDELMAN: Now, I mentioned earlier about the triangle that developed between you and, I guess, Molly Parker’s character of “Alma Garret” and Timothy Olyphant’s sheriff. Did you or David Milch know where that was going when you joined the show?

GUNN: We knew a little bit. I’m sure David knew more as a creator should always know more than the actors, and they share what they will with you. But I knew to a certain degree and especially since watching the first season that he and Alma had fallen in love, but you don’t know what kind of love it is. There are various shades and degrees of that, and so you don’t know. Was it lust? Was it really deep love? You don’t know what you’re fully doing with that. And then as the second and third seasons unfolded, as you say, the triangle that was set up just got more and more interesting because nobody was trying to intentionally mess up anybody else’s life. Mrs. Bullock didn’t come to town in order to take somebody else’s man. She was in survival mode. She had a son, and she needed to be provided for, and he stepped up and said “I’ll marry you,” and she said, “Okay, great.” And even though she didn’t know this person, you have to do what you have to do to survive and to live, and she needed a father for her son, mainly. That was the main thing driving her. She wanted a father for her son. She knew he was a good man, and she knew he’d be a good father. And as for the kind of man he’d be as a husband, that was a complete mystery. And there were a lot of things to deal with, and she knew almost immediately, as you saw in that first episode, as soon as she saw Alma Garret, and she saw them looking at each other, she knew. She knew.

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

GUNN: The way she chose to deal with that and the way that Tim, who played Sheriff Bullock, dealt with it was just so fascinating cause they don’t have a language to even speak to each other, much less speak to each other about that. She very quietly and methodically found her way into his life and into that town as she became the teacher for the kids of the town. There was no schoolhouse before that. So she very quietly but purposely and strongly made herself a part of that community and also just refused to be daunted by the situation she was handed in terms of she comes to town, married to a stranger, and he’s having an affair, or she knows something’s gone on between him and this other woman. Then it starts to be revealed, more starts to be revealed, to her about this isn’t just a woman who is some hussy, this is a person in a situation of her own, and that’s what made it so interesting. Again, it’s dealing with issues of morality and how people wrestle with that and how it may seem black and white at the beginning and then shades of gray are introduced, and that’s what’s fascinating about these stories.

ANDELMAN: It’s a show, “Deadwood,” that people were absolutely repulsed and fascinated by.

GUNN: Yes.

ANDELMAN: Because of the language or any other issue. Was it a hard show to work on?

GUNN: In terms of what - the language? Or in terms of…

ANDELMAN: Well, I keep coming back to the language cause that’s very apparent. A lot of sexual situations. It was just a very strong-mannered show. I just wondered if it was tough to be on that set everyday for any reason.

GUNN: I think that because I wasn’t there all the time, it would’ve been a different experience possibly if I had been there, but every day I was there was exciting to me because, again, I didn’t have, it wasn’t ever necessarily a huge role. There were a few episodes where I was working more, but every day that I came in it was just an exciting time, and I just sort of embraced every day that I was there. Difficulty sometimes and, yes, it was not just the language in terms of it being coarse language cause I didn’t have to deal with that. It was beautiful, poetic language, and quite frankly, even the coarse language was detailed and written in such a way, and I think…Am I allowed to swear?

ANDELMAN: Absolutely.

GUNN: Okay. You never know. But I think Ian McShane said, “If you put one ‘fuck’ in the wrong place, you’re fucked.” Something like that. I’m probably misquoting again… I said how brilliant Vince was, and then I misquoted him immediately by saying Bryan’s line was “I am alive” instead of “I’m awake.” But anyway, it’s true that with any of the language that David wrote. I think he’s a poet, and it’s like Shakespeare. There’s a rhythm to it. There is a flow to it, and there is a purpose to it, and it’s very important to get every word right and to get it in its right place. Sometimes we would get the material late, and sometimes he’d change things because he would just see something in the rehearsal and go, “Oh, you know what? That doesn’t work. Let’s put this in instead.” So you sometimes would have to learn things rather quickly. That was nerve-wracking sometimes. It was scary sometimes. Absolutely. But, again, I’m excited by things like that because I see them as challenges, and I see them as opportunities to embrace that kind of fear and go, “Ooh, I don’t know quite what I’m doing, I’m skating on thin ice, but I’m just gonna go.” So that, I think, was sometimes challenging.



This sounds like such a little thing, but we were in the true period costumes of the time. And we were out shooting at Melody Ranch, which is basically high desert here in California, and in the summertime when we started, it was blazing hot. It was unbelievably hot, and there were a few days in the beginning when I first started that it was something like 105 to 107 degrees. And we weren’t getting air-conditioning in the buildings, and you’re wearing three or four layers, five layers of wool and petticoats and corsets. And we were thinking, “We’re in our own personal saunas. Oh, my God.” And so you had to just deal with the elements, for me more than anything I’ve ever shot. You were dealing with the elements, but it just seemed right because you would be dealing with the elements, and that’s what they were dealing with. You take all that on and incorporate it, I think.

You brought this up before that in terms of playing Mrs. Bullock, playing Martha, the challenging part for me was sometimes feeling like there were only maybe one or two scenes sometimes in an episode where I had an opportunity, where I was appearing. You have to really make the most of that time without making it a huge deal because not every scene is a big trumpet-playing, fanfare sort of scene. You just have to find your moments. You have to find ways to reveal things that are really essential to the character, and when you don’t have a lot of time to do that, that’s a real challenge as an actor.

ANDELMAN: I’d love to go on another hour with you about “Deadwood” and “Breaking Bad.” I wonder if we can just steal you for just a couple more minutes.

GUNN: Sure.

ANDELMAN: I’m kind of guessing that you don’t surf.

GUNN: No (laughs), I do not as of yet.

ANDELMAN: “Where is he going with that one?” An awful lot of actors from “Deadwood” wound up on David Milch’s next series, “John from Cincinnati,” and I wondered if you had that opportunity.

GUNN: No, I didn’t. I don’t know that there was necessarily anything in there for me. What’s wonderful about David is that when he works with actors that he connects with that he, for whatever reason that he likes, he remembers them. And like I said, he remembered me from, at that time, from sort of nine years ago from a role I had done, a guest-starring role, on “NYPD Blue,” and I’d also been on “Murder One.” I’d seen him throughout the years a few times at auditions, and then I came in for Martha, and it was pretty clear that it was a good fit. He knows that intuitively and instinctively, and when he knows that an actor is right for something, he’s pretty genius, I think, at casting. He really gets the internal workings of a person and knows how to make them work within a character. I think that that’s what he did with people from “Deadwood” and people that he knows, and he’s comfortable working with people that he knows. You already have a language and a way of working that’s established, and it makes it a lot easier. You have a shorthand.

ANDELMAN: I was gonna say “Deadwood” ended rather abruptly. I remember seeing a quote from Tim Olyphant where he had said, “It’s a little bit of a problem because I just bought a house, and then David called and said we’re not going to continue the show.” Were you also surprised by the way it ended? And do you see any hope that there’ll be those, there was some talk for a while, a couple of two-hour movies to kind of wrap it up. Do you see any hope of that happening?

GUNN: I keep hoping for that because I think that would be so wonderful, and I know that so many people who loved the show and watched the show were so sorely disappointed that they didn’t get to see what happens with these people and with this town. I keep hoping, although a lot of time has gone by now, that that will still happen because I think that would be a wonderful thing. I don’t know logistically how it’s possible, but I suppose anything’s possible really. And, yes, I would love to see that go on. And it was abrupt, and it was a bit shocking for everybody. I think we all really wanted to explore the next step of these characters cause they’re such interesting characters, and you get attached to them. You get attached to where they’re going, and then all of a sudden, you have to put the brakes on.



ANDELMAN: We watched “John from Cincinnati” fairly loyally and kind of wondered if one of the reasons that so many characters from “Deadwood” wound up there had something to do with Milch feeling guilty for pulling the rug out from everyone’s income.

GUNN: Oh yeah. I’d like to say, “No comment.”

ANDELMAN: Okay.

GUNN: Actually, I really can’t. I don’t know about the internal workings of what happens in terms of that. But, absolutely, when you’re an actor, and you’re going from episode to episode, and you’re supporting yourself that way, and you’re counting on something to continue, and then all of a sudden it doesn’t, yeah, it’s shocking, and it’s a little difficult. But that’s the nature of the game so you learn to roll with those kinds of things, too.

ANDELMAN: Let’s wrap up with a question about “Breaking Bad.” You’ve obviously completed filming the first season. Do we know yet now that the first one has aired -- have you heard anything from AMC, your agent, anyone down the line about what the future there might be?

GUNN: I have not heard anything yet. The wonderful thing that I have heard is that the show premiered very, very strongly. We had a lot of viewers. And people and the critical response has been extremely, extremely positive. And just from people that I know who’ve watched it and even people I don’t know, they’ve been really, really positive about it. So I’m very hopeful and feel very strongly that we’ll go on with the second season, and I hope that happens.

© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.