But still, structurally Vince Gilligan knew that he had to plant the hook – if we didn’t plant the hook and initially sympathise with Walter White, the viewer would never feel this anxiety. So if someone tunes in at season two or three, they won’t have the same sympathies as someone who started with the show, and they’re easy to dismiss it: “Ah, he’s a bad guy, I don’t like him.” But if you started with it, you know that hook was in deep, then we let the line go, let the line go, and then: BAP! And we start reeling you in, and the viewers are following even if they don’t want to. They know Breaking Bad is going to swirl down into a morass of ugliness. We’re not going to take nice little note upwards: it’s Breaking Bad. It’s going to be bad. Even though – and you might know this – I don’t ask what’s happening, I don’t know how it’s going to end, we have eight more episodes to shoot before we’re done, and I have no idea how it’s going to go.

Do you have any personal opinion on how the show should end?

I don’t. Again, I don’t try to be objective to it. I honestly feel – and I swear to you this is not a cop-out answer – I want it to end exactly how Vince Gilligan wants it to end. He’s the captain, he’s guided the story from the beginning, and I empower that. I’m his mouthpiece, basically. Some people ask me, “You’ve got eight episodes, is there pressure on you to finish it?” and I say, not at all. It’s not on me. It’s on Vince.

Vince Gilligan was hugely respected for his work on X-Files, but is now mentioned in the same breath as David Milch, David Chase and David Simon at the forefront of a new wave of respected TV auteurs. As a producer as well as star of the show, what’s your relationship with him been like during the course of making the show?

It’s been beautiful. I’ve been very fortunate, and I don’t hesitate to mention how this all came about. In fact I think it’s my duty as an older guy to reach down and mentor the young actor and tell them with all absoluteness that there are components that are necessary to be there to have a successful career in the arts. There’s talent: if you don’t feel you have talent, stop now, go back home, and get into the family business. But if you have talent, and perseverance and patience, there’s still one more component left that without it you won’t be successful: luck. You have to have luck. And I had luck.