Bryan Cranston Knows Exactly How He’d Want Walter White to Show Up on ‘Better Call Saul’

And it makes total sense.

With the news that major Breaking Bad villain Gus Fring would be part of season 3 of AMC’s hit BB prequel Better Call Saul, it’s only natural for fans to be curious about who might show up next. In particular, they seem to wonder about Bryan Cranston’s high school chemistry teacher turned drug lord, Walter White. 

With the caveat that even though I’ve written a couple of official Better Call Saul tie-in books I have no inside information whatsoever, it’s worth pointing out that it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Walter to show up in Saul. At least not in a major way.

The show depicting Bob Odenkirk’s “criminal. lawyer.” as he evolves (or devolves, depending on your perspective) from small-time defense attorney Jimmy McGill to sketchy, locally famous legal wizard Saul Goodman is mostly taking place at least a few years before the events in Breaking Bad. At that point in Vince Gilligan’s and Peter Gould’s fictional Albuquerque, NM, Walter White was still a chemistry teacher, unaware of events to come. 

Of course no one is more keenly aware of this than Bryan Cranston, and that’s why he clued Nerdist in on the perfect way to give us a glimpse of Walt before he became The One Who Knocks.

Cranston admitted to Nerdist that “you could” see him on the show and that he actually thinks “it would be fun”—though he hasn’t been asked to do it yet. While he also said he figures Vince Gilligan wouldn’t go for “a stunt cast kind of thing,” the actor did come up with a clever, subtle idea:

Cranston’s idea for a Walter White cameo is literally just that: a casual cameo.

“What if it’s just a brush-by?” he said. “Just two guys in a market. ‘Are those ripe?’ ‘I don’t know.’ And we don’t even register that we knew each other three years before we see each other again. That’s life. It’s actually very honest that this happens. So the bottom line is I would do it in a second. If Vince wanted me to be on the show, I’d be on the show.”

If you’re a hardcore fan, admit it: that moment would probably give you a goosebump or three. And Cranston’s right: life is full of odd passing coincidences people sometimes don’t even notice until later, if at all. 

Of course Better Call Saul has flash-forward moments in which we see Saul in his post Breaking Bad persona as “Gene,” a sad-faced Cinnabon manager in Omaha, and those could provide opportunities to see characters from the original show as well, but we’re pretty sure Walt is past caring by then.

Season 3 of Better Call Saul premieres April 10. 

h/t Nerdist