GQ: So you just finished filming episode—

** Aaron Paul: **Five.

GQ: Oh man, you’re jamming.

** Aaron Paul: **Flying. Eight days per episode. Except this last one. Very intense, big, big, big episode.

GQ: How do they roll the scripts out to you guys? On first read is it always: "Holy shit. Look at this"?

** Aaron Paul: **Oh yeah. We’re only given one script at a time, so I’m always just dying to read the next episode. But now that we can see the finish line, it’s bittersweet. I’m happy they’re not going to stretch out the storyline, but it’s also very sad that, you know, I’ll never play Jesse Pinkman again.

GQ: So, you guys are splitting the final season into two halves, eight and eight—and you’re taking a little break after you wrap the first eight.

** Aaron Paul: **Yeah, we take a four-month break. And then we shoot a final eight episodes which will air sometime in 2013.

GQ: What are you getting, by the way? Twelve-dollar beer?

** Aaron Paul: **Maybe a $12 beer. Jeez. You know what? I’m going to do a $9 beer. I’m going to get an Amstel Light.

GQ: You’re rolling out some small films this summer, but you must be lining up all sorts of work.

** Aaron Paul: **You’d think so, right? I have no idea. I just roll with it. It’s strange that I’m going to be unemployed very soon.

GQ: That’s sort of hard to imagine, that you don’t have scripts stacked ceiling-high on your bedside table.

** Aaron Paul: **Yeah, it’s kind of hard for me to swallow. When I first started, I just wanted to work. I wouldn’t necessarily do anything, but I’d pretty much almost do anything at the very beginning. And then the more I started to work, the pickier I became, and now with this show that I’m working on now, it’s just—it’s hard to say yes to projects. Breaking Bad, I’ve never been more proud.

GQ: That’s gotta be a big difference between maybe some of the other young actors working right now, that they know what they’re doing is something that they’re going to outgrow. Whereas this... I mean, in the media machine, which is not nothing, Breaking Bad seems to have made a case for top TV billing.

** Aaron Paul: **We’ve gotten so much love. It’s totally insane. Some people call this the best show that has ever existed. And then when people compare our show to The Wire—I mean, that just says it all.

GQ: It seemed like everyone I know sort of binged to catch up on Breaking Bad over the last year or two, and watched the whole series in one go. Do you hear from fans that they’re watching the show that way?

** Aaron Paul: **All the time. People have come up to me saying, "I’ve watched all four seasons in four days." And I’m like, "Well, that’s impossible." But people assure me they really do it.

GQ: How do Vince [Gilligan, creator] and the writers feel about that?

** Aaron Paul: **They’re proud, but it also puts a lot of pressure on them, because they want to keep producing that kind of quality.

GQ: I feel like really since the end of season one, almost every single episode just gradually ratchets up, each more intense than the last. Without giving away whatever you can’t give away, does it—

** Aaron Paul: **Jesse dies.

GQ: Right, exactly. Jesse dies in between; season starts with a casket. But things are keeping pace?