On the first day of classes, students lined up and waited in the Gainesville heat to see the man who played a chemistry teacher-turned-drug lord on TV.
Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston spoke to thousands of UF students about his acting career, behind-the-scenes memories and life advice Thursday evening in the O’Connell Center.
The Accent Speakers Bureau, a Student Government-run speakers bureau at the university, has brought influential personalities to campus since 1967. The agency has hosted celebrities like Ke Huy Quan, Sal Vulcano and Tim Tebow.
Cranston’s more famous roles include his three-time Emmy-winning turn as Walter White in “Breaking Bad” and Hal in “Malcom in the Middle.” He’s also collected two Tony Awards and a Golden Globe along the way.
The arena was charged with anticipation and filled with excited murmurs as students overflowed the seats, waiting for Cranston to arrive.
When Cranston walked onstage, excitement pulsated through the room. Students jumped out of their seats, erupting into loud cheers and applause. He laughed, pointing at a student wearing a black top hat reminiscent of his “Breaking Bad” character.
Another student even came dressed up in a hazmat suit, another nod to Cranston’s “Breaking Bad” persona. Others made posters depicting Walter White in his iconic black top hat and sunglasses.
According to Nathan Feuerberg, Accent’s chair, over 4,000 students came to hear Cranston speak. Many of them are avid fans of his work, such as Julia Vega, a 20-year-old junior sociology major. She said she admires his path to the screen.
“I think he’s a really great character actor. I love his journey, too —, I know he started acting at a relatively young age,” Vega said.
Ted Spiker, the department chair of the College of Journalism and Communications, interviewed Cranston about his early acting career, trying new things and connecting to his roles.
Cranston recalled how he fell in love with acting in a college class in which, for an assignment, he played a couple with a girl he had a crush on. Enchanted by a stage kiss and thinking she would like him back, he asked her out, only to be embarrassingly rejected, he said.
“I thought, ‘Oh my god!’” he said. “This is a whole world I have to explore!”
He also spoke about his brief career as a stand-up comedian, which he said was not his end goal.
He’s had some unsuccessful performances, he said — but still advised students to jump into something that scares them.
“Just have the courage to step on stage not having a clue what you're about to say… I was challenged by the idea,” he said. “What if I wrote my own material and did it? And I did it for nine months just to prove that I wasn't afraid of it anymore.”
He said he had to prove to himself that he could do it, and that he wasn’t afraid of failure.
“It's a wonderful thing to be able to put yourself in the position of being a beginner,” he said.
Recently, Cranston worked on a few more acting jobs before planning a brief pause from the screen in 2026, during which he will spend more time with his wife, he told Entertainment Weekly.
He most recently appeared in “The Phoenician Scheme,” a Wes Anderson-directed film that premiered in theaters on June 6. There is also a Malcolm in the Middle reunion in the works, Cranston told the Associated Press earlier this year.
Daniel Mariscal, an 18-year-old UF nutritional science freshman, said he liked advice Cranston gave about selling yourself in an interview with confidence instead of desperation.
“A lot of times, we go into an interview nervous because we're like, ‘Are they going to like me? Are they not going to like me?’ But it’s about going into it with that mindset,” Mariscal said.
Cranston gave more than one tip to students during the event. Sebastian Larrauri, an 18-year-old UF industrial engineering freshman, loved his advice about always being a beginner.
“This past year I’ve tried a lot of new things, so I’ve been a beginner, and I think it's really cool that he formulated it in a good way,” Larrauri said.
In between comical segways and behind-the-scenes stories, Cranston advised students to always jump at opportunities wearing “quiet confidence,” even when things do not go as planned.
“When something happens that you take in as horrible, it may be life prepping you for something greater,” he said.
Contact Angelique Rodriguez at arodriguez@alligator.org. Follow her on X @angeliquesrod.
