If you stand still too long, people will peg you — at least according to Bryan Cranston. “I like to keep people guessing,” he tells TODAY.com in a sit-down interview. That’s why the “Breaking Bad” actor says he prefers to “keep moving around” instead. “If I’m playing a lot of dramatic roles recently, I will look for comedic roles and I keep swimming back and forth so that I’m not pegged as any given one person,” he says. It’s that versatility that’s earned Cranston six Emmy Awards, two Tonys, a best actor Oscar nomination and a host of other accolades. And, at 69, he shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Cranston currently appears in the latest Wes Anderson film, “The Phoenician Scheme,” along with starring in “Everything’s Going to Be Great,” a new drama for which Cranston learned how to play the bagpipes. If that’s not enough, he’ll soon be crossing the Atlantic to perform on London’s famed West End in the Arthur Miller play “All My Sons,” starting in November. “I do love it. I have a relationship with this,” explains Cranston. “It takes a committed relationship, that you’re committing to this as your life, just like you would in your personal life. And if you do so, you have a chance to be successful in your personal life or your business life.” No stranger to success, Cranston got his start doing bit parts in a variety of TV shows and movies before landing the breakout role of Hal Wilkerson in “Malcolm in the Middle” in 2000. It's a role that earned him a handful of Emmy nominations and made Cranston a household name. However, it was the brief part he played in a 1998 episode of “The X-Files” that put Cranston on the radar of one of the show’s writers, Vince Gilligan. Eight years later, when Gilligan went to cast Walter White in his new antihero show, “Breaking Bad,” he remembered Cranston and rang up the actor’s agent. That decision would forever cement their legacies in television history. 'You’re Only as Good as You Dare to Be Bad' With a storied career in film, stage and television (both behind and in front of the camera), Cranston says he continues to seek out unique roles and opportunities that speak to him on a personal level. “My real life is filled with a variety of different characters. I’m sometimes sincere, sometimes silly, sometimes moody, sometimes romantic ... and so there are different facets of ourselves that you are familiar with in your own life. Sometimes you’re sad, sometimes you’re joyous,” explains Cranston. “So, I curate the roles I do. I look for roles that I can be different or something that challenges me that, 'Ooh, that’s really not like me at all,' so I need to dive into that and see what comes of it,” he says. In fact, it’s his willingness to take risks that’s gotten him this far, and it’s based on advice he once received. Though Cranston can’t quite remember exactly where he got it from, he says that outside of being kind, working hard and showing up on time, it's the best advice he's ever gotten. “You’re only as good as you dare to be bad, right? If you take chances that you could fall on your face, you could fail, it’s that point that you can also turn and have it really work. So, don’t play safe. Extend yourself, take chances, take risks and see what happens,” Cranston tells TODAY.com. Is that the advice he gives his daughter, actor Taylor Dearden? “First of all, as her dad, she does not want my direct advice,” he says with a laugh about Dearden, whom he shares with wife Robin Dearden. The 32-year-old currently stars in the Max hospital drama “The Pitt,” a role for which she’s garnered glowing reviews. “Taylor is a wonderful, hardworking actor,” Cranston told Craig Melvin during a recent segment on TODAY. “She grew up in this business with my wife and I being actors. And so, we’re so proud of her.” ‘I Need to Outwork Everyone’ While Cranston may not dole out much career advice to Dearden, he tells TODAY.com that he does what he can to be a solid role model instead. “The only thing that I can relay to her is how I have been for her 32 years on this planet and try to live a good life and be an exemplar to her, as she can look at and say, ‘Well, this is how he did things and that seemed to work for him.’ Or, ‘Oh, he tried that and that didn’t work, so I’m going to do something different,’” he explains. “That’s basically it. Just live a true life and let your kids see that and hopefully they’ll make their own proper decisions.” That mindset likely comes from his parents, who Cranston says were instrumental in instilling his own work ethic. “Both my mother and father were hardworking people and they came from very humble, hardworking families, (they were) children during the Depression. It was, go out there every single day, try to find a job. That’s what their parents were faced with. And so it carries on,” says Cranston. With his parents as his example, Cranston says he learned early on that if he wanted to make a career out of acting, he needed to be fully committed. “I realized as a young actor that there were always going to be actors who were better than me. At the same time, there were always going to be actors who weren’t as good as me. And the only thing I can control is how hard I worked,” he explains. “I know I can outwork people and that was my motto — I need to outwork everyone. So when I was a young actor, 22, 23, people were going out and they were partying every night. Not me. I was like, ‘I’m going to class. I’m studying. I’m learning monologues because I need to outwork everybody and I need to be ready.’ And that was it, because this is what I wanted. I wanted a career as an actor.” And it’s that advice that Cranston passes along to young actors hoping to follow in his footsteps. “I say, ‘You’ve got to commit.’ It’s got to be, ‘You’re all in, go all in.’ Because if you’re not putting all of your energy into it, what are you waiting for? Why would you not? You've got to. And it still doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful, just like a personal life. But you’ve got to try, and that’s what it comes down to.”
