Netflix/UNILADWhen it comes to the best TV show ever there are a few contenders for the crown; The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Mrs Brown’s Boys. But anyone with a refined televisual palate knows who’s the real Kingpin. It’s Breaking Bad, bitch!
So when we heard that Aaron Paul was going to be in town to promote El Camino we knew what we had to do. Try and convince him to break bad with us and get into the meth business for real (we had an RV ready and everything!). Unfortunately, he wasn’t into that idea at all and neither was his PR team.
So as we lacked the ferocious intensity of Walter White (who always made intimidating Aaron Paul look so easy) we decided to sit down with him and subject him to The Ten.
NetflixUNILAD: You’ve got a time machine, where’s the first place you’re going?
Aaron Paul: Oh a time machine? The first place I’m going? Can I take someone? I’d love to take my wife to 1920’s Paris, just run around with a bottle of champagne in hand and dance.
UNILAD: What’s the most famous-person thing you’ve ever done?
Aaron Paul: I mean this is one of them, you know? Really, I don’t know… I got invited to the Rolling Stones years ago by Ronnie Wood because he was such a big fan of Breaking Bad.
He invited me backstage before the show and I had never met him before and I’m hanging out backstage with Ronnie and he’s like ‘come meet my friend Keith’ and we go down to Keith’s dressing room and he’s just exactly what you want him to be, this half-naked pirate you know? In the best way! And he’s got pants on and no shirt, and he’s smoking a joint and I’m like ‘oh my God I’m so famous right now!’
That was pretty cool, and I’ve seen them a few times now and the Rolling Stones are such legends.
UNILAD UNILAD: If you weren’t an actor what do you think you’d be doing with your life?
Aaron Paul: Hmmmm a struggling actor maybe? [Laughs] No I always thought if [acting] didn’t work out I’d be a kindergarten teacher, I have so many nieces and nephews and I love making up games, stories and lying to them.
UNILAD: [Laughs]
Aaron Paul: No! In a good way, you know? Like a Santa Claus or Elf on the Shelf kind of way. But I think I’d make a pretty decent teacher.
You know I’ve done plenty of other jobs, I worked five other jobs to save money to get to LA. One was at a cookie store at a mall. Easy way to meet girls [laughs] ‘you want a cookie ladies?’. I handed out flyers for a contractor, at Pizza Hut as a delivery guy which was a very odd job, and – don’t judge me – as a mascot for two radio stations [laughs].
One was a giant tookie bird. I could see through the neck of the costume and the beak was way out there and the other was as a frog, but that stood up like a person with big foam boots.
That was for a country music station so the frog had a big cowboy hat on, but I got 10 bucks an hour so as a 16-year-old kid that was a lot of money but I really sweated for that.
NetflixUNILAD: You have one wish and it has to be selfish, what do you wish for? No world peace.
Aaron Paul: No world peace? One wish? God, I don’t know.. maybe to be able to fly? That’s a good one right? That’s a pretty good wish, you know what I’d fly all over the world. I’d fly to 1920’s Paris [laughs].
UNILAD: Whose career are you secretly jealous of?
Aaron Paul: God, there’s so many. I think Johnny Depp has had some pretty epic roles, DiCaprio is pretty legendary. Can’t go wrong with Daniel Day-Lewis but there’s a lot of people, you know?
UNILAD: What is your strongest held opinion? What is a hill you’re willing to die on?
Aaron Paul: I don’t know… [thinking]… what’s yours?
UNILAD: Erm?
Aaron Paul: Shall we swing the camera to you?
UNILAD: [Fumbling] I really don’t like liquorice.
Aaron Paul: You don’t like liquorice?
UNILAD: Actually I really don’t like cucumber.
Aaron Paul: What!? What about pickles?
UNILAD: Love pickles!
Aaron Paul: You know what they’re made of right?
UNILAD: But it’s a completely different taste.
Aaron Paul: No I understand it’s a completely different taste… you know I used to think I hated, no this is too stupid.
UNILAD: It can be silly.
Aaron Paul: I used to be the guy who said why the hell would you ever eat uni, you know sea urchins or oysters. It tastes like the ocean is giving birth to itself in a bad way but now I love it, right? I don’t know if that really answers your question [laughs].
UNILADUNILAD: What’s something you’ve never admitted publicly but you’ll tell me now?
Aaron Paul: [Laughs] Wow! Where do I start? I don’t think I can tell you? Wow, you know I’ll… no, I won’t. I almost told you something that was… okay I’ll say it.
I was on a playground and my friend brought me his backpack and he opened it up, I was in the fourth grade, and it was the first time I ever saw a nudie magazine. And my friend was like, ‘Look at this,’ and I’m like ‘NO WAY! How? How did you get this?’ and my friend goes, ‘Do you want to borrow it?’ and I’m like ‘YES’ [Laughs].
And I had no idea what to do with it, I was convinced everyone knew, and we couldn’t even take it out of the bag. He gave me his backpack, it was the only thing in the backpack, he was like, ‘Take it’. Literally, we hugged it out and I ran off but I kept it underneath. I hid it inside my pillowcase. I only had it for a couple of days, but my mum found it. But my brother and I had bunk beds and it had slipped on to the ground and flopped in a way that made it look like it was his and my brother got blamed for it [laughs] and my friend was pissed! I let my brother take the fall, sorry man that was my nudie magazine and sorry mum and dad! So embarrassed.
UNILAD: You’re stuck living the same day over and over, what day would it be and why?
Aaron Paul: I think the day that my wife and I fell in love at Coachella. We met at Coachella, we had our first kiss on the Ferris wheel there and after that kiss, I started calling her my wife from then.
I went from me calling her my wife, to my fiancée to my wife again. I was very dramatic. But that day would be perfect.
NetflixUNILAD: Have you ever been left convinced – or at least persuaded – by a fake news story about yourself?
Aaron Paul: Yeah there was a rumour that I was gonna be Han Solo in Star Wars and everyone started asking me, all of my family, it made the news.
So I called my team saying, ‘Is there something you want to tell me? Do I have a script to read?’ So I thought there was some truth in that but obviously not.
UNILAD: If you had to remove one colour from the world forever, which would it be and why?
Aaron Paul: That’s a tough one. God… like a vomit colour… chunky pink. You know? I don’t know if that’s a colour on a crayon but a vomit colour chunky pink. Who’d love that colour?!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.