A ‘Better Call Saul’ Writer Has Explained The Decision To Not Digitally De-Age *Those* Characters

(This post contains spoilers for the Better Call Saul episode, “Breaking Bad.”)

Saul Goodman made his first appearance on Breaking Bad in “Better Call Saul,” which aired in 2009. Walter White and Jesse Pinkman made their first appearance on Better Call Saul in “Breaking Bad,” which aired in 2022. Got that? Good (man).

Both “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” are wholly or partially set in the same year (2008), but, well, let’s just say that actors Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have aged in the 13 years between episodes. Was there ever consideration to pull an Irishman and digitally de-age them?

“We don’t do a ton of de-aging on the show,” Better Call Saul writer and director Thomas Schnauz told Variety. “There’s a little bit of stuff on the guys’ faces to take a few lines out here and there, but other than that, Aaron is not going to look like an 18-year-old kid or however old Jesse was during this time period.” It’s also a budgetary concern.

Schnauz admits that he “dread[s]” viewers cutting the scene from last night’s episode into Breaking Bad and trying to match the way they look then and now, but it’s not something you can worry too much about. It is what it is. We’re telling a story and you can roll with it or you start picking at: ‘He looks much older than he did in the original scene.’ We decided to go for it, and I’m glad we did.”

If only Vince Gilligan had the foresight to cast Paul Rudd as Jesse. Problem solved.

(Via Variety)