Day 11

BREAKING BAD TOUR!!

Alburquerque

Super excited today! We booked this before we left London and it really is a must do, if you are a Breaking Bad fan of course!

We met our tour guides, Frank Sandoval and Brendan, at the fabulous RV which was an exact copy of the one in the series. They were both extras in the series. One was a DI who worked with Hank and the other a runner who whistles past Jessie, nearly knocking him over, in season 4. Non-speaking roles but it was great to hear their stories and cool to see the clips with them in!
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6526402/

The tour took us past many of the film locations, and they showed us film clips bringing them to life in between. The RV was set up like the maths lab, along with extras such as Salamanca’s bell!

Highlights had to be Walt’s house, Jessie and Jane’s houses, Los Polos Hermanos, the car wash and the laundry/ superlab. We went in the last three which was incredible!

Here’s a little trivia we learnt!

• The scene where Walt throws the pizza on the roof of his house was done in just one take
• Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn cried for 10 minutes after filming Jane’s death scene. Bryan said it was the hardest scene he had ever shot.
• The cleaners in the laundry/ super lab were real laundry workers, who got paid too. As they spoke, they also got their equity cards. The illusion was that there was a downstairs maths lab, but this was shot in a studio elsewhere.
• Walt’s house was just used for outdoor scenes. Often the owner, who we met, was indoors baking cakes to stay out of their way. It has overtaken Tony Soprano’s house as the most visited film location, with up to 1700 drive pasts a day, apparently.
• Jessie’s house (next door to Jane) is currently available to rent, but people are spooked to live there.
• Jessie’s worst day episode (when he ends up breaking into the RV in the compound to sleep as he can’t get anyone to put him up) was originally intended to have him chased by a pack of dogs. When they got to the set, Vince Gilligan spotted a compound opposite storing portaloos, and decided that him falling into one would be even worse!
• Badger’s death (shot by the boy on the bike) had to be re-shot. They had him wearing white for effect, and he was originally shot in the neck. They thought it was too gory so they had him shot in the stomach instead.
• The crew drank champagne and cried when the RV was crushed.
• The RV used in the opening episodes (kitted out as a lab) was so wrecked by driving across bushland, that it had to be towed everywhere after then. Another identical RV had to be acquired for the driving shots.
• The scene when Walt rushes out of the car wash to get to Jessie, driving as 80 mph across a narrow bridge was driven by Bryan Cranston as he didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and liked to do his own stunts.
• Aaron Paul was just like the character Jessie and was constantly hungry.

Just time for a walk around the pretty old downtown in Albuquerque, before hitting the road to head for Santa Fe, around 60 miles north east and our stop for tonight. What a great day!