One is a chemistry teacher turned crystal meth cook; the other is the 36th president of the United States. Yet Walter White and Lyndon B Johnson have something in common: the actor Bryan Cranston.
The Breaking Bad star will make his Broadway debut tonight as Robert Schenkkan's new play All the Way begins performances at the Neil Simon theatre in New York.
Schenkkan, a former Pulitzer prize winner and Star Trek actor, has written about the first year of Johnson's presidency, stretching from the assassination of John F Kennedy to Johnson's victory in the following elections. The play also focuses on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It's a demanding role: Cranston is on stage for almost the entire three-hour running time. The actor, who has likened the part to King Lear, has reportedly taken a vow of silence on Mondays, his one day off each week, for the duration of the five-month run. The New York Times has reported that he will wear a "prosthetic nose, earlobes and chin" on stage – though a spokesperson for the show has since denied that – in addition to two-inch heels that bring him closer to Johnson's 6ft 3in frame.
Cranston, who won three consecutive Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for Breaking Bad, previously starred in a Los Angeles production of Sam Shepard's The God of Hell in 2006. Before Breaking Bad, he was best known for the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle.
Schenkkan has said that playing Johnson requires elements of both Cranston's famous television roles. "Bryan has the two things you want in the actor who plays LBJ," the playwright told the New York Times, "He's incredibly charismatic and charming and funny. And he's also terrifying."
Cranston's performance has already triggered some positive critical noises, on the back of an out-of-town tryout at the American Repertory theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last September. The critic Charles Isherwood wrote that "he cuts a vigorous, imposing figure" while Variety's Frank Rizzo wrote that his performance "builds increasing power and danger like a runaway train".
