[Warning: If you haven't seen last night's episode, "Ozymandias"...well, frankly, we don't know what you're even doing here.]

"It's tough being Mexican on Breaking Bad!" is one of Steven Quezada's favorite one-liners. Still, for five years, Quezada managed to defy the death rate, standing stalwart as DEA Agent Steven Gomez. Though Gomez lived in the shadow of Hank Schrader, his unflinching loyalty and respect for the law set him apart from every other _Breaking Bad _character. Gomez certainly didn't deserve his fate, but his death on Sunday night's episode was fitting: he fell beside his partner while fighting for justice. For Quezada, whose previous roles include "Mexican," "Bearded Man" and "First Drunk," playing Gomez was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now that it's over, the Albuquerque actor and stand-up comic has inked a deal for a late-night series on DirecTV. "How lucky can a man be?" he asks. We spoke to Quezada and got the inside scoop on the shootout, the cast's final days together, the original plan for Gomez's death, and the unbelievable proof that Quezada is the biggest Breaking Bad fan alive.


GQ: So how's the afterlife?

Quezada: It's crazy! I'm still trying to text and e-mail everybody back. Everybody has a bad stomach. [Laughs]

GQ: I am personally going to require therapy. So what have you been telling people all week? Because we didn't know you were dead yet, but it sure didn't look good.

Quezada: I tell everybody, "Hey, have you guessed anything right on Breaking Bad so far? No? Well then, there's your answer."

GQ: You hung in there a long time, though.

Quezada: I have. I've been on since the pilot. At least I went out with a gun in my mind. I thanked Vince for that: that I didn't get melted in acid, or have my neck sliced open, or strangled by a bike lock, or shot in the back...

GQ: I know that Dean Norris heard about the plan for Hank's death over a year ago. When did you find out that you were going down with him?

Quezada: The episode before that.

GQ: Seriously?

Quezada: Yeah. I was on set; I think we were shooting the scene where we were in the house with Jesse. And they asked me to go into the production office, said that Vince wanted to talk to me on the phone. So I walked in, like, "uh-oh." And Vince says, "Hey. We love Gomez, we're so happy that you played Gomez for us, and just wanted to let you know that it's Gomez's time." And I went, "Well, I figured that was happening in one of these last episodes," and he goes, "Yep. It's gonna be in this episode. But I promise that it's gonna be the crazy Wild West thing that you deserve." And I said, "I appreciate it."


GQ: I guess everybody was counting their days when you got to the end. Had you been told that Hank was going to die?

Quezada: Dean knew far in advance and he never told me anything. He protected me in a way, you know? And I'm glad he did that, because really, my job was just to worry about the relationship I had with Hank, and what happened with Hank as we went scene by scene. And I think it helped me as an actor just to stay in that moment and not try to think ahead. And we're really good friends. I mean, it must have been hard on him. We play a lot of golf! We hang out a lot. So, for him to keep that secret was pretty impressive, I have to say. I don't know if I would have been able to do it_. [Laughs]_

GQ: Was there any point leading up to this where you thought that Gomez was going to die? One of the other big showdowns?

Quezada: I'd always read each episode and say, "Yes! I'm still alive!" I mean, that's always happened since the beginning, you know? I had heard through the grapevine that Gomez was actually going to get killed by Tuco in the first season.

GQ: Wow.

Quezada: And after the writers' strike, we came back—because we only did seven episodes in that first season—and Vince and the writers, they liked Gomez, they liked what I was doing, and they thought, "Nah, we can't get rid of Gomez. We gotta keep Gomez!" So yeah, as they moved forward, they rewrote that and kept me in. They kept me and Jesse, because Jesse also was supposed to die in that season. It would have been a whole different _Breaking Bad _without Jesse and Gomez.

GQ: Hank was so obnoxious in that first season. I think a lot of the sympathy the audience had for Hank came through Gomez and his loyalty.

Quezada: I think they're truly, truly good friends. I mean, look at it, there's more than just work. In the pilot, Gomez is at Walt's birthday. He was the one friend Hank had, and he happened to be his partner. And I just really think that Hank doesn't really mean all that crazy stuff that he says. He was always joking. I think Dean really played it that way. He wasn't really trying to be racist, it was just two guys messing around at work. We really wanted to make Hank and Gomez seem like real people, not the typical cops that you see on TV.

GQ: Going back a few episodes, how did you interpret Gomez's reaction to hearing Jesse's confession?

Quezada: For me, Gomez is a by-the-book guy. At this point, he was a bit shocked, but really, there's no evidence. So without evidence, for a guy who bases his career on evidence, it wasn't there. And he couldn't believe it was Walter White. He was friends with Walt, you know? He came to him at the hospital when Hank got shot. So it was very shocking at that point to think that it's been Walt this whole time, but when you go into work mode, it's like, ok, we need evidence, we need evidence. So I think I was willing blindly to go follow Hank. And this is it: Hank's been right the whole time. And Gomez is kind of a Barney Fife, you know? He's like, I'm not gonna follow you that way, because it's all hearsay.

GQ: I also felt, though, that he might be sympathetic to Jesse. There's that exchange where Gomez asks, "What if we're sending this kid out to die?" and Hank sternly reminds him that Jesse is a drug-dealing murderer.


Quezada: Well, it's a bit of sympathy, but it's also a bit of, "That's against what we believe in. It's against our job." You know, Gomez, he's the only character who has never broken bad in the whole series.

GQ: What about Walt Jr.?

Quezada: Well, even Walt. Jr broke bad when he tried to buy beer and they busted him_. [Laughs]_ That' s breaking bad!

GQ: I guess we could count that. Did you think at any point that Gomez was going to break bad?

**Quezada: **I don't think so. Even when he got Jesse's confession, he still was willing to go the extra step to do the wire tap, get the evidence, get the confession. He still wanted to do it by the book. When they went out to To'hajiilee, it was to arrest Walt and gather the evidence. He was still trying to do his job the right way, you know? It wasn't in a breaking-bad sort of way.

GQ: I'd like to hear about the actual filming of the shoot-out. Was it one long day?

Quezada: It was a couple of days, out in the desert. There were a lot of angles, there were a lot of actors, and so it takes time. It was freezing cold. We had those warmers in our pockets: Every place we could stick a warmer, we had one. And we were sad, because this was the end. Even Dean, you know, when they said, "Ok, that's a wrap, that's a series wrap for Dean"—he never heard that before. And he got really emotional, you know? And he ended up getting in the van and going straight to the airport and flew to South Carolina, because the next day he was working on Under the Dome. And he didn't have to go right away; I think he had a day leeway. But he just needed to get out of there. He didn't want to really let it go, and neither did I. I still had to shoot something else after Dean left, so when I got into the van, it was was a sad drive back to base camp.

GQ: It's sad you guys didn't get to go out for a drink or something afterwards.

Quezada: You know, we did spend a couple nights at the hotel. There was a casino at Route 66 that was close by To'hajiilee, so they put us up there. So a couple of nights before, we did sit around and have dinner, me and Dean and Bryan and Aaron, and reflected back on this long journey together, and realized that probably in our lifetime, we will never be on anything as exciting and critically acclaimed and awesome as _Breaking Bad. _So we all came to terms with that. And knew that we had to move on in our careers and feed our families, because that's the bottom line.

GQ: Was it actually you in the scene where they were burying your body?

Quezada: No, thank God, I didn't have to do that. The last scene I had to shoot was them dragging me. Last night, I'm telling you, my wife couldn't even watch it, she was going, "I can't, I can't!" And for me, I'm watching like, "Yeah, I'm just lying there!" You know? I guess it just didn't hit me as hard as it did everyone else, because it hit me hard the day I was leaving. I had bullet holes in my shirt! Â So that's where it kind of hit me. But I'm happy, you know, I'm moving on. I have a late night talk show that I'm doing with DirecTV, it's gonna go into 50 million homes. I'm excited about the future. I'm a comic! I'm an actor, but I'm a stand-up comic. That's what I've been doing for 24 years. So I'm happy. I'm so grateful. To be able to learn acting from Dean Norris and Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul—I mean, how lucky can a man be?


**Well, I'm sorry to see you go, though I'm sure you won't be the last death that viewers have to work through. **

Quezada: This show was set up for failure! For anybody who's involved, there are going to be dead people._ [Laughs]_

GQ: Just out of curiosity, did you see the scripts? Do you know what's going to happen?

Quezada: Check this out: Everybody claims to be the biggest _Breaking Bad _fan, they're not. Gomez is the biggest Breaking Bad fan. And because he is, I didn't open those scripts. I get to enjoy these last two just like you do. I am SO freaked out. I am freaked. Out. I can't even guess. Can you guess? I can't even guess!

GQ: I have some guesses, but honestly, who knows?

Quezada: I know! I felt so bad for Marie. And Gomez has a wife, too! I have actually worn my real wedding ring since the beginning of the pilot. And so my wife goes, "What about your wife? Nobody cares about Gomez's wife!" I said, "I know, honey. They've only mentioned her once." They never created that character. But Gomez isn't coming home, either.