‘Breaking Bad’ Creator Vince Gilligan Haunted By Jesse Pinkman’s Perfect Teeth

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan doesn’t have any major regrets about his wildly successful television series. However, there is one thing he’d probably do a little differently if given the opportunity: Mess up Aaron Paul’s teeth.

During his recent year-end interview with the folks over at Entertainment Weekly, Gilligan opened up at-length about the award-winning show. When asked if there was anything about the series that “haunted” him to this day, Vince couldn’t think of anything overly problematic. Except Jesse Pinkman’s teeth, that is.

“I wish Jesse’s teeth had been a little more realistic, a little more messed up. Aaron Paul has perfect teeth, and Jesse Pinkman, on the other hand smoked a lot of meth, and that smoke eats the enamel right off of teeth,” the Breaking Bad creator explained.

He added, “And furthermore, this poor kid got beat up two or three times a season, and his teeth were still absolutely perfect. So if we could’ve done a little something to them… But on the other hand, Aaron is such a good-looking guy that maybe that counts as poetic license that we kept his teeth looking nice.”

Now that Breaking Bad is all wrapped up, Gilligan is presently putting his energy towards the proposed spin-off Better Call Saul. If you’re expecting more of the same from the new series, then you’d better rearrange your expectations a little beforehand.

Gilligan said one of the major problems with developing the show is that Saul Goodman (Bob Odernkirk) is a guy who is comfortable in his own skin and “happy-go-lucky,” which makes him a bit different from Walter White. As a result, the writers will have to figure out how to make the series engaging for viewers.

“[That] makes for tricky drama. When I say drama, even in a comedy, you want drama, you want tension and conflict, and a character that at heart seems at peace with himself is intrinsically undramatic. So we’ve been thinking about how to address that issue,” he said.

Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk agrees that the spin-off should give fans a wholly unique experience. In his opinion, the show should provide something “fresh” and original.

He added:

“It’s not gonna be ‘Breaking Bad 2.0’ or whatever. It’s a different show and it’s gonna have a different energy and we’re not gonna try to just extend Breaking Bad. That can’t be done. That show is great, it’s done, it’s all wrapped up and delivered, and now we’re gonna do something fresh and new with a character that is rich and funny, and everyone’s excited about it. And we wanna make sure the audience sees right away that it’s not a continuation of ‘Breaking Bad,’ but rather its own thing that hopefully is gonna be entertaining on its own terms.”

Were you bothered by Jesse Pinkman’s perfect teeth on Breaking Bad?