Vince Gilligan is answerable for creating one of many signature antiheroes in all of TV historical past with Breaking Unhealthy, however now, even he thinks that Hollywood spends an excessive amount of time centered on unhealthy individuals. In a speech accepting the Writers Guild Award’s prime writing honor, the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Tv Writing Achievement, Gilligan stated that Hollywood ought to spend extra of its vitality telling tales about good individuals.
“Walter White is among the all-time nice unhealthy guys,” Gilligan stated. “However all issues being equal, I feel we I’d moderately be celebrated for creating somebody a bit extra inspiring. In 2025 it’s time to say that out loud as a result of we live in an period the place unhealthy guys, the true life sort, are working amok. Unhealthy guys who make their very own guidelines, unhealthy guys who, it doesn’t matter what they let you know, are actually out for themselves. Who am I speaking about? Nicely, that is Hollywood, so guess.”
Gilligan stated that tales about unhealthy guys have now grow to be too interesting and that a lot of them ship the flawed message to their viewers.
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“I actually assume that, once we create characters as indelible as Michael Corleone or Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader or Tony Soprano, viewers all over the place, all world wide, they concentrate,” he stated. “They are saying, ‘Man, these dudes are badass. I need to be that cool.’ When that occurs, fictional unhealthy guys cease being the cautionary participant that they had been created to be. God assist us, they’ve grow to be aspirational. So possibly what the world wants now are some good, old school, Best Technology sorts who give greater than they take. Who assume that kindness, tolerance and sacrifice aren’t strictly for chumps.”
One of many longest-running critiques of Breaking Unhealthy was that, although Walter White was clearly a nasty dude on the planet of the present, far too many individuals noticed him as aspirational. Now, it appears Gilligan is taking these critiques to coronary heart, and attempting to inform a special type of story.
