Cranston plays complex role of LBJ in new film
NEW YORK — For five seasons of “Breaking Bad,” Bryan Cranston displayed his versatility through the evolution of his character, Walter White, from milquetoast schoolteacher to meth-marketing monster.
But that was just a warmup for “All the Way,” an HBO film adapted from the Tony Award-winning Broadway play that calls for Cranston to embody the almost moment-to-moment volatility of its larger-than-life real-life hero, President Lyndon Johnson.
“He was big, he was small. He was boisterous, he was laconic. He was embracing, he was cold,” marvels Cranston. “The polemic of his personality was just unbelievable.”
But Cranston's performance in the film (which premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday) is much more than an acting exercise.
“All the Way” is a full-bodied portrait of a flawed yet overpowering political force, an unrivaled sweet-talker, arm-twister, bully and, above all, horse trader who mastered, as few have, the clattering contraption of Washington governance.
The film travels the rocky road that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with LBJ finessing the clash of activism led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. versus hidebound members of Johnson's own Democratic Party as, at the same time, he fought to hold on to the presidency against his 1964 GOP rival, Barry Goldwater.
Capturing this stormy first year of the Johnson administration, the film is populated by an array of stars including Bradley Whitford (as Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey), Frank Langella (as his former mentor, Georgia's mighty Sen. Richard Russell) and Melissa Leo (wondrous as his ever-supportive wife, Lady Bird).
Cranston had made his Broadway debut with “All the Way” — a nervy challenge he couldn't say no to once he read Robert Schenkkan's script.
“It's all about the story,” Cranston explains, “how this man ascends to power under great tragedy, and then, a Southern guy, changes how we treat African-American citizens and other minorities in this country.”
