Q&A: Albuquerque’s Role on ‘Breaking Bad’

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 14 Agustus 2013 | 17.36

Vince Gilligan now considers Albuquerque a character of "Breaking Bad," the television series whose final eight-episode run will begin on AMC on Sunday.

But he admits, somewhat guiltily, that the motivation behind shooting in the city was, at first, mercenary. With New Mexico offering financial incentives to film and television producers, Mr. Gilligan, the series' creator and show runner, decided to rewrite the script to take place there instead of California.

Only after he arrived in Albuquerque and saw the desert stretching to the horizon, he said, did he realize that the show, in that landscape, could be a modern-day Western.

"All the wonderful topographical and geographical elements, we put to good use in the show," he said. Especially the clouds, which you don't see in the blank blue skies of Southern California. "They allow you to perceive the immense size of the sky," he said. "They go on forever some days."

Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Gilligan on exploring Albuquerque and its surrounding areas. 

Q: For those shots of wide open desert in "Breaking Bad," where did you go?

A: To our great good fortune, we don't have to go far. Quite a few of the scenes that seem truly in the middle of nowhere, where Walt is having a clandestine meeting or cooking meth in an RV, if we swung the camera a few degrees to the left or right, you'd see Albuquerque Studios, or Q Studios, this enormous soundstage where we shot. It's amazing how close to town you can be in Albuquerque and still get amazing cinematic visual desolation.

But now local developers are building town houses, going up like mushrooms, in that area. Years from now, when it's endless suburbs, I'll think back to when there was nothing.

Q: Have you gotten to explore New Mexico on your own? 

A: Any chance my girlfriend and I get. We went up to Santa Fe, and near there is Taos, a wonderful town, and Madrid, off the Turquoise Trail, a little artists' community. It has an old coal mining museum that I love.

About 150 miles south of Albuquerque is a town called Truth or Consequences, so renamed from Hot Springs in 1950 after the old quiz show "Truth or Consequences" had a contest to air a program from whatever small town in America that would change its name. It's a charming little town where you go to take the waters. We spent the weekend at Sierra Grande Lodge and Spa, this very quaint, old-timey spa. You have these individual open-air tubs where you turn on the spigot, and the natural hot springs come bubbling up. I had a cigar and drank a little bourbon while I was in it, which is probably a bad idea all around when you're in 115-degree water. But outdoors, under the stars, it's very nice.

Q: And in Albuquerque itself, what's of interest?

A: I'll admit that when you enter the city on either Interstate, 40 or 25 — they meet smack in the middle — Albuquerque doesn't look, shall we say, particularly picturesque. It seems like lots of strip malls and chain restaurants. But it has a stealth charm. Once you get into the neighborhoods, you realize it possesses a great amount of culture and history and natural beauty surrounding it.

Central Avenue is a great drive. A part of Route 66, it's still dotted with old neon motel signs like that great Ernst Haas photo. There's a great art gallery called Mariposa Gallery and a restaurant we love called Zinc.

The Sandias, the mountains to the east, are omnipresent. Take the cable car up to a restaurant called High Finance, which is a good place to eat. It's stark beauty up there; you can see for hundreds of miles.


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