Before he shocked audiences with his darker turn as Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” Cranston won their hearts as the loveable Hal on “Malcolm in the Middle,” a role he is reprising in “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” on Hulu and Disney+. Hal was the good-hearted dad of the series’ central family, regularly embarking on his own misadventures. Before Cranston’s casting, though, Hal was going to be much more reserved.
Speaking to The Independent about “Malcolm in the Middle,” Cranston and series creator Linwood Boomer discussed Hal’s origins and how Cranston himself changed the character. “My character in the pilot had maybe five lines,” Cranston said. “He was the kind of guy who was absent from his family –- he kept to himself and was always looking for ways to escape. If brought into focus, he could go ‘Oh no, we need to do the right thing,’ and protect his children –- but otherwise, Hal just sort of went off into his own comfort space.'”
According to Boomer, Hal was originally supposed to be a much less hands-on dad, but Cranston inspired him to switch things up. “We cast Bryan late,” Boomer shared. “I didn’t write [the role] correctly. Bryan’s take was so much better. I originally envisioned this incredibly remote, almost ghostly presence. Bryan’s take was someone who was always building a rocket ship in his head. Instead of being this actively disengaged person, he was just busy thinking of other things. It was completely different and so much funnier, while still functioning the same way.”
Bryan Cranston found the comedy in Malcolm in the Middle’s Hal
Bryan Cranston’s interpretation of the character effortlessly lent itself to stories in which Hal found himself in the strangest scenarios. Whether that was taking up race-walking, befriending a group of bodybuilders, or quitting his job to create a giant painting, the B-plots involving Hal were some of the series’ most memorable storylines.
“They put me in positions where I was seeking refuge in the garage or having a little project. It was fun to do,” Cranston said of Hal’s role in the series. Obviously, his “little projects” had a tendency to spiral wildly out of control. Cranston expanded on how he brought so much life to Hal. “I try to look for the emotional core of every character and if I can find that, it can go to so many different places. For Hal, it was fear — and once I got hold of that, I was off and running. He was afraid of being a bad parent, afraid of losing his job, afraid that his wife may leave him… then he was afraid of heights, afraid of spiders, afraid of loud noises. It gave me a lot of room to create comedy from a legitimate place because people are afraid of things.”
“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” will be available to stream in April 2026.