Bryan Cranston has his Emmy-winning turn on Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's widely acclaimed The Studio to thank for his inaugural shrooms experience.
Jimmy Kimmel scored this revelation during his recent interview with the Breaking Bad alum and Oscar-nominated Trumbo actor, citing a key moment of hilarity in the Rogen-led Apple TV+ comedy that caused him to wonder whether Cranston himself had ever dabbled in shroomery. On the show, no doubt one of the year’s best comedies, Cranston plays Griffin Mill, the CEO of the fictional Continental Studios.
“I hadn’t until The Studio came along,” Cranston, who took inspiration from the late Robert Evans in his performance as Griffin, told Kimmel. “So I’m playing this character who is wiped out and I had never had any experience in that. Not many drugs at all, as a matter of fact. So I didn’t know really how to behave. I was asking Seth Rogen and Ike Barinholtz, ‘You guys are huge druggies. What can you tell me?’ And he said,’ You would start out with microdosing.’”
Cranston said he then had the practice of microdosing explained to him, which eventually led to him trying it out for himself during production for The Studio in Las Vegas.
“We all decided to go to the Sphere to see the Grateful Dead,” Cranston recalled. “If God wasn’t telling me to do microdosing, what was he telling me? So Catherine O'Hara and I were clutching each other like, ‘You going to try it? We’ll try it together.’ We were nervous, and Ike Barinholtz was our drug dealer. Can I say that? He said, ‘I’ll take care of you.’”
Tiny chocolates ended up being the shrooms delivery vessel for Cranston, though it sounds as though a higher dose may have been in order.
“I took it. Nothing,” Cranston said. “I didn’t feel anything. It felt like maybe I took three sips of wine. It was nothing. Nothing! ... Now I'm angry."
As The Studio fans will note, the key Cranston scene referenced above finds Griffin fully immersed in a state of shrooms-fueled fucked-upness. Both the “CinemaCon” and “The Presentation” episodes, in fact, feature Cranston’s character in this state.
The series is expected to do very well at this Sunday's Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze. Apple’s comedy is up for potential wins for Outstanding Comedy, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, and more. Rogen and Goldberg, meanwhile, scored a nomination for their direction on “The Oner,” featuring Past Lives actress Greta Lee.