Breaking Bad extremely playful on set, with Aaron Paul describing him as "a kid trapped in a man's body". Gilligan originally intended for Aaron Paul's character, Jesse Pinkman, to be killed at the end of "Breaking Bad"s first season in a botched drug deal as a plot device to plague Walter White with guilt. However, Gilligan said by the second episode of the season, he was so impressed with Paul's performance that "it became pretty clear early on that would be a huge, colossal mistake, to kill off Jesse". Donna Nelson, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, checked
Walter White (Breaking Bad) creations ever to grace our TV screens". In 2011, the "New York Times" named Cranston as one of the "eight actors who turn television into art". Following the show's conclusion, actor Anthony Hopkins wrote a fan letter to Cranston, wherein he praised the show and called Cranston's performance as Walter White the best acting he had ever seen. Cranston has received various awards and nominations for his performance as Walter White. For the first three seasons, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series thrice consecutively, becoming the first actor to accomplish this feat