Breaking Bad may have ended back in 2013, but it’s still considered one of the best TV dramas of all time today. If you were watching the show around the time it was coming out, you’ll know that there was a lot of vitriol aimed at Anna Gunn’s Skyler White (yo!), who spent a huge chunk of the show just going up against the protagonist Walt (Bryan Cranston).
Though a lot of fans had hated Skyler with a passion Gunn says that the tune has very much changed over time. Promoting her upcoming show Sugar with Colin Farrell, Gunn tells THR that people have come up to her saying that they have a new view on Skyler after all these years. Gunn explains:
“Now, when people come up to me, it’s incredibly different … There’s still a long way to go, but we have made seismic changes since then… So people come up to me now and say, ‘You were the linchpin for me. You were the conscience of the show. You were what pulled me into the show.’ Or they say, ‘The first time I watched it, I hated that character. But the second time I watched it, I realized, ‘Oh my God, that poor woman.’”
Funnily enough, the opposite can be said for Walt. Though the first viewing has everyone actively rooting for him despite his heinous acts, fans have said that the second viewing makes them more frustrated at Walt as he constantly keeps sabotaging himself in order to get deeper into the game.
Personally, I thought it was kind of a bummer that we didn’t get to see Gunn make a cameo in Better Call Saul, but I’m happy to see her in something else besides Breaking Bad. Hopefully she finds a role as meaty as Skyler in the future.
Check out Sugar now streaming on Apple TV+.