REUTERS/Fred Prouser Actor Bryan Cranston, star of AMC's drama television series 'Breaking Bad' is interviewed as he arrives for the premiere screening for the show's fourth season.

Byran Cranston has won three Emmy awards for his portrayal of Walter White, chemistry teacher turned drug manufacturer, on the hit AMC show Breaking Bad. But as he told Howard Stern earlier this week, he may have had a little help understanding his character’s motivations.

Cranston and other cast members were apparently given some pretty comprehensive training in the making of methamphetamines, reports The Clicker. “We were taught how to make meth by DEA chemists who were our consultants on the show. We didn’t cook it, but we were told exactly the process at that high level,” he reportedly explained on The Howard Stern Show on Tuesday. The actor went on to underline the care which must be taken when cooking up the drug. “It’s extremely difficult,” he said. “There are so many volatile components to it that at any given time, you could literally blow up.”

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But Stern wasn’t buying Cranston’s denial that he’d never cooked up a real batch of meth in preparation for the role. “I have a feeling you actually cooked meth,” Stern said. “I think, like, in preparation for the role, the DEA let you cook up a little meth.” Cranston responded, jokingly, that he’d actually cooked up two batches, “one with and one without nuts.”

The actor — who noted that he’s “become the face of meth” in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter — has assured audiences that he would never try the drug himself, according to HuffPostTV. He certainly doesn’t want to end up like the real-life Walter White. An Alabama man who shares his Breaking Bad character’s name is currently at the top of the most wanted list in Tuscaloosa County for violating his probation in a meth manufacturing case, reported ABC News in August.

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