The last time we saw Jesse Pinkman he was driving off into the distance, leaving Walter White and a very incriminating crime scene in his wake…


Six months on from that dramatic Breaking Bad finale and actor Aaron Paul has used the television series that made his name to forge a successful movie career, playing a string of diverse characters as he “jump[s] from one skin to another”. But what happened to Jesse? Who better to tell us than the man himself…

“His fingerprints are all over that lab and so he’s in hiding,” Paul told RadioTimes.com before setting his sights on a less life-threatening lifestyle for his troubled character: “I like to think that he’s living as a carpenter somewhere – somewhere in Alaska.”

Jesse’s new lifestyle couldn’t be further from Paul’s current career trajectory. After spending seven years starring with Bryan Cranston in Vince Gilligan’s TV phenomenon, the 34-year-old is sticking to movies for the time being, following up high speed thriller Need for Speed with suicidal rom-com A Long Way Down, based on Nick Hornby’s best-selling novel and released in UK cinemas this Friday.

So, how does he keep up the momentum after playing his part in a show often hailed as one of the greatest TV series of all time? “One day at a time. I always joked around about how when the show was ending it was just downhill from here and that’s not necessarily a bad thing because Breaking Bad I hold on such a high level so anything below that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad – it’s just not on a par with Breaking Bad.

“I think I can speak for Bryan and Bob [Odenkirk, who played Saul Goodman], all of these roles are the roles of our lives – they’ve changed the game for us and we’re all very, very lucky.”

A Long Way Down stars Paul with Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette and Imogen Poots and is released in UK cinemas on Friday


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