“Breaking Bad” star Anna Gunn has noted a shift in the perception of her character, Skyler White, more than a decade after the show’s final season aired. Gunn, 55, played Skyler, the wife of Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, from 2008 to 2013, earning two Emmys for her performance. Yet despite the accolades, Gunn faced relentless misogynistic trolling during and after the show’s run.
In 2013, just a month after the show’s finale, Gunn wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, where she criticized the vitriolic response toward her character. She remarked how the “hatred of Skyler blurred into loathing for me as a person.” Now, speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Gunn mentioned that opinions of Skyler have transformed significantly.
Today, “Breaking Bad” fans approach her with a new perspective on Skyler, describing the character as the “linchpin” and the “conscience of the show.” They credit Skyler’s role as one of the reasons they continued watching for all five seasons. “Now, when people come up to me, it’s incredibly different,” she said. “There’s still a long way to go, but we have made seismic changes since then.”
Gunn also shared that viewers have admitted to changing their minds about Skyler after rewatching the series. “[Fans] say, ‘The first time I watched [Breaking Bad], I hated that character. But the second time I watched it, I realised, ‘Oh my God, that poor woman.’”
“Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan has acknowledged that the negative reaction toward Skyler has continued to trouble him, even years after the show’s conclusion. “Back when the show first aired, Skyler was roundly disliked,” he told The New Yorker. “I can tell you it always troubled me, because Skyler, the character, did nothing to deserve that. And Anna certainly did nothing to deserve that. She played the part beautifully.”
Gilligan has spent time reflecting on why the character faced so much animosity. He acknowledges that the storytelling through Walter White’s perspective may have contributed to Skyler’s unpopularity. “I realise in hindsight that the show was rigged, in the sense that the storytelling was solely through Walt’s eyes,” he explained.
Despite the reexamination of Skyler’s role in the story, Gilligan admits he is “still thinking” about the “animosity” towards Skyler “all these years later.” Even the show’s villain, Gus, portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito, didn’t receive the same level of hostility Skyler did. “It’s a weird thing,” he said. “I’m still thinking about it.”
