{"id":2132457,"date":"2025-11-03T14:53:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2132457"},"modified":"2025-11-03T14:53:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:53:29","slug":"i-was-nervous-about-leaving-the-heisenberg-universe-vince-gilligan-on-pluribus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/i-was-nervous-about-leaving-the-heisenberg-universe-vince-gilligan-on-pluribus\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I Was Nervous About Leaving the Heisenberg Universe\u2019: Vince Gilligan on \u2018Pluribus\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of a glass-half-empty guy,\u201d says Vince Gilligan, creator of the legendary Breaking Bad,<\/em> co-creator of Better Call Saul, <\/em>and legendarily nice guy. \u201cWhen I do interviews or when I\u2019m in the writers room, I\u2019m trying to be [nice], because it\u2019s nice seeing people smile. But my real self is as much the negative stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That \u201cnegative stuff\u201d comes through in spades in Gilligan\u2019s new series, Pluribus,<\/em> his first since the stories of Walter White and Saul Goodman ended three years ago. It is set in an entirely new world and built around a character, Carol, whom Apple TV+ describes as \u201cthe most miserable person on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not unlike Carol, really,\u201d Gilligan continues. \u201cThe sarcasm and the negativity and the general miserableness \u2014 that\u2019s the easy part for me, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n

That glass-half-empty approach might explain why it\u2019s taken almost two decades for Gilligan to make something not set in what fans have taken to calling the Heisenberg universe of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman and Co. Most producers in his position would have used the clout from Breaking Bad\u2019<\/em>s success to make a dream project. But to Gilligan, who launched that series after a fallow career stretch following the end of The X-Files,<\/em> where he first learned to write and direct for television, the phenomenon it became felt more than a little fluky. \u201cI was nervous about leaving the Heisenberg universe,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people who read my biography are going to say \u2018Well, this guy got real lucky real early.\u2019 And that\u2019s true,\u201d Gilligan says. \u201cBut there\u2019s some years in the wilderness where it was like, \u2018I\u2019m never going to get to where I want to be.\u2019 And suddenly, Breaking Bad <\/em>happens, and it turns into this thing that was beyond any of our wildest expectations. It still blows my mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s not false modesty or aw-shucks, gee-whiz performative whatever,\u201d he insists. \u201cI honestly feel that way. I don\u2019t know what we did right to make it go off like a skyrocket. It was just the right actors, the right place, at the right time. If Breaking Bad<\/em> had been the exact same show, but it had come out 10 years sooner or 10 years later, maybe no one would be talking about it. Timing is luck, and luck is timing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But now, Gilligan has finally cashed in the blank check to which he\u2019s been long entitled. And boy, has he. Pluribus<\/em> has a reported budget of $15 million per episode, five times more than what the average Breaking Bad<\/em> cost. That\u2019s not quite as high as shows like House of the Dragon<\/em> and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,<\/em> but those are based on proven IP, at a moment when the industry seems afraid to spend big on anything but brand names. Pluribus,<\/em> on the other hand, is a wholly original concept \u2014 one so strange and specific, I\u2019m barely allowed to say anything about it, save that, as Apple TV+ describes it, the aforementioned most miserable person on Earth \u201cmust save the world from happiness.\u201d Our cranky heroine is played by Saul<\/em> alum Rhea Seehorn, beloved by fans of the spin-off but far from a household name. Without a big star, without a familiar title, and with a premise that Gilligan wanted kept under wraps until the Nov. 7 premiere, Apple TV+ is gambling a lot of money that merely saying they have a new series from the creator of Breaking Bad<\/em> will be enough to draw people in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put it that way, you kind of scared me,\u201d says Gilligan.<\/p>\n

He shouldn\u2019t be scared. Pluribus<\/em> is a dazzling piece of entertainment. It takes advantage of everything Gilligan learned about patient storytelling with Breaking Bad<\/em> and Saul,<\/em> then combines it with the high-concept ambition of X-Files,<\/em> as well as the visual flair Gilligan has developed as a director on all his shows. Though the plot involves every person on the planet, the focus is often entirely on Carol, as Gilligan relies on all the things he realized Seehorn could do \u2014 tragedy, slapstick, and sheer screen presence \u2014 during her time playing attorney Kim Wexler on Saul<\/em>. There are long stretches where we\u2019re just watching Carol struggle through various tasks, like digging a grave. And it\u2019s riveting.<\/p>\n

\n