Vince Gilligan is responsible for creating one of the signature antiheroes in all of TV history with Breaking Bad, but now, even he thinks that Hollywood spends too much time focused on bad people. In a speech accepting the Writers Guild Award’s top writing honor, the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, Gilligan said that Hollywood should spend more of its energy telling stories about good people.
“Walter White is one of the all-time great bad guys,” Gilligan said. “But all things being equal, I think we I’d rather be celebrated for creating someone a bit more inspiring. In 2025 it’s time to say that out loud because we are living in an era where bad guys, the real life kind, are running amok. Bad guys who make their own rules, bad guys who, no matter what they tell you, are really out for themselves. Who am I talking about? Well, this is Hollywood, so guess.”
Gilligan said that stories about bad guys have now become too appealing and that many of them send the wrong message to their audience.
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“I really think that, when we create characters as indelible as Michael Corleone or Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader or Tony Soprano, viewers everywhere, all around the world, they pay attention,” he said. “They say, ‘Man, those dudes are badass. I want to be that cool.’ When that happens, fictional bad guys stop being the cautionary player that they were created to be. God help us, they’ve become aspirational. So maybe what the world needs now are some good, old-fashioned, Greatest Generation types who give more than they take. Who think that kindness, tolerance and sacrifice aren’t strictly for chumps.”
One of the longest-running critiques of Breaking Bad was that, even though Walter White was obviously a bad dude in the world of the show, far too many people saw him as aspirational. Now, it seems Gilligan is taking those critiques to heart, and trying to tell a different kind of story.