Welcome back to another edition of the ‘Aaron Paul Fan Chats’ between myself (Jilbo) and APFC’s very own Carol! These chats are here to help you understand a little more about the two brains behind this site, why we do this and trying to justify our hero worship from afar.
As ever, always bear in mind neither of us speak the same language so it’s with thanks to Google Translate that we’ve managed to work out a way to be ‘fan friends’ despite this. The true wonders of goodness of modern technology.
So without wasting anymore time… the deep meaningful (not really) discussion #2
Jilbo: hmm what shall the topic be today? Other than Aaron Paul of course lol. Last time we talked mainly about AP’s influence as a whole, shall we talk more specifically about his acting today?
APFC-Carol: He will always be the agenda around here.
Jilbo: lets start with his most iconic role – Jesse Pinkman.
APFC-Carol: Oh Jesse, that’s where I met the one who is now my idol. I love Jesse!
Jilbo: When you think about Jesse’s story, what did you love most about the character, and what did you least like?
APFC-Carol: Of course I love the human side of Jesse, I also love that fun and light side he had in the first 2 seasons. And I hate how he lets himself be influenced by Walter White.
Jilbo: What I love most about Jesse is the fact nothing beats him. You rarely saw him give up on anything when he had every right to just give up. Even at his lowest, if the chance came he took it to surivive. What I liked least, it’s really hard because I love the character but at a push I think it was the fact he was so easily influenced and played by those who took advantage. He wasn’t stupid but seemed to think he was.
APFC-Carol: I loved the partnership of Jesse and Mike. Not even Mike, with his apparent hard heart, could resist JP.
Jilbo: Only Walt Junior failed to meet Jesse over the entirity of Breaking Bad. Which other character did you enjoy watching Jesse interact with the most?
Jilbo: whilst I really did like Walt and Jesse’s bickering, and I really did like when Mike and Jesse had more time. My all time favourite interaction is when he met Marie. Just one scene I think but he reverted to being ‘a kid talking to a friend’s mom’ which I thought was so endearing lol. We needed more Marie and Jesse scenes!
APFC-Carol: Oh the scene with Marie, that was really good. Jesse was needing someone to really look at him, too bad it happened so late. And I really enjoyed seeing Jesse in love, I let myself be carried away by the things of the heart and seeing him happy with Jane. The scenes with her were light (at least the first scenes ?) and even though it didn’t last long and it brought you so much suffering, it was good to see Jesse in love.
Jilbo: Yeah it really suited him, but again he let her control him once she realised he was more useful to her lol
APFC-Carol: Yes, poor Jesse!
Jilbo: I also feel that only Saul Goodman talked to Jesse as an equal, rather than a father figure or boss, which I also liked.
APFC-Carol: Saul Goodman, I had so much fun with his scenes with Jesse. Him trying to push a beauty salon on Jesse was too much. I so wanted to see Jesse in Better Call Saul season 5
Jilbo: Yes!! that scene in the salon was the best!
APFC-Carol: Do you think Jesse was the most peaceful character on the show?
Jilbo: That’s an interesting question because my first instinct is to say no. But when you think about it he had the least responsibilities of any character on the show. So in that sense he only had himself to lose because he really didn’t have anything until maybe Brock came into his life. We kept seeing him lose anything he gained.
Jesse was never at peace, which is a whole different thing. He was already escaping into drugs and playing up to this ‘street’ character when we met him to hide the disappointment of his life to that point. Things only got worse for him on that front as Walt influenced him, and he got caught up in a world he should never have been near
APFC-Carol: Clearly he was always doing things wrong. Influenced by Walter or not, but his genuine, peaceful side always came out. And the scenes with the children made his human side clear. Jesse goes through several situations that make him mature, and anyone in his place would have had a nervous breakdown. He has his moments, but he always falls again. I think we have a problem here.
APFC-Carol: Aren’t we going to talk about some of Aaron’s other characters? I think we were bewitched by Jesse and forgot about Eddie Lane, Caleb, Tobey, Cameron
Jilbo: Hahaha. Yeah, we’ll get to them now
Jilbo: You mentioned you enjoyed seeing Jesse in love. Do you find that the one thing you can always trust in anything you see AP in, is that he’ll have beleivable relationships with any co-stars. His other characters always seem to have the same endearing relationships?
Jilbo: I think sometimes you can watch something and just not beleive these two characters are in love, or in business or even friends, but I can’t think of one character AP has played where I haven’t beleived the set up.
Even in a film such as ‘The Long Way Down’ when the main characters have nothing in common to start with (bar the deathwish!). His own character was trying so hard not to connect to the others, he played it so beleiveably making it more engaging for the viewers. Proof of this must be in the fact he keeps getting paired with actresses he’s worked with before because it worked so well previously.
APFC-Carol: I bought into all the stories, I loved each of them. Aaron can do whatever he wants in a scene to always be convincing. The works in which he plays with children, he is so good with them. In The Path, The Parts you lose , Hellion, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, and Jesse himself. They are such different characters. of others, but the connection with the little ones in each work is to be enchanted.
Jilbo: I love that it was his kids in the Path that changed his mind about having kids for real. Even if it took me a large part of season one of The Path to beleive he could have a teenage son lol
APFC-Carol: That was also weird when I saw it. But Aaron once again sold the idea that it really could happen, and then I could only love the Eddie and Hawk scenes.
Jilbo: – Speaking about The Path. I really wish we could have seen more of Eddie Lane, I really liked that character I wanted to find out that backstory. How he ended up being taken in by the movement, that seemed a rich backstory they never totally explored.
I didn’t enjoy Eddie being in charge and the sudden expansion so much, when they moved to the office type building in the city. Season three was more difficult to watch as I just wanted them to go back to their retreat base and be a smaller community again lol.
APFC-Carol: The Path left us wanting more. I will never get over this. I keep traveling trying to guess what the fourth, fifth season would be like.
Jilbo: agree, it was disappointing that we didn’t get the conclusion to that story, there was so much more to tell.
Jilbo: What are your thoughts so far on his latest character Caleb in Westworld?
Jilbo: First off I really dislike that Westworld has such a large cast and story that the characters don’t all appear in every episode, the same looks to be happening with season four. I’m hoping when we do see AP that we get to see Caleb being a bit more in the moment. A lot of his first season Caleb appeared confused for the most part (understandably). Then he just follows Delores, so will be interesting to see him being more his own person now.
APFC-Carol: I confess that when I googled about Aaron’s series and Westworld appeared. (Because you remember I only met AP in 2021, a big mistake the Universe didn’t know about him before.) So when I did the search I went straight to the third season, because I wanted to see Aaron in action.
I loved Caleb, a very different character from all the others, a bit of mystery. A character that didn’t have a romantic partner and that for me made the character even more interesting. Eager to see what Aaron brought it to season 4. Just for the record after I finished season 3, I went back and watched it from the beginning.
Jilbo: fun fact: I did the exact same thing LOL!
APFC-Carol: fans who want to see their idol
Jilbo: Westworld was always a show I intended to watch. I just finished breaking bad the first time when I started seeing AP in ads for Westworld season 3 so naturally I watched it. Then realised I should watch from the start once the season ended to understand that impact at the end
Jilbo: Which of AP’s characters who you most like to have in your circle of friends if you could? (and only one!)
APFC-Carol: Is this serious?
Jilbo: yeah… come on lol – circle of friends, all above board, not romantic or anything for example. I would love to know someone like Todd from Bojack, just a crazy person who keeps coming up with stupid ideas and loving the moment.
APFC-Carol: Only one is difficult. But analyzing the history of each one, maybe I would have Adam as a friend. I like his story, of overcoming, although he has shown to be a little arrogant at certain times, still he is my choice . I think he would be an interesting friend.
Jilbo: Adam was such a fascinating film, and being a true story just made it more so. It was a difficult watch but I was blown away by once again how convincing AP made that look.
APFC-Carol: He was amazing!
Jilbo: JJ from the long way down also seemed cool, and also lived in the area of London I grew up in (and only left 9 months ago), which was really surreal to watch when I first did. My mum was really ill when I first watched that movie so to see AP/JJ at the same hospital I was visiting daily at the time just gave me this weird connection to the character. My head was all over the place at that time as well so I could really relate.
APFC-Carol: That couldn’t have been easy.
Jilbo: when I first watched Long Way Down, and saw the hospital they were at I actually had to stop watching for a bit, it was too close to home so to speak and I actually didn’t beleive what I was seeing. I had no clue before watching that AP had been to my town to film, let alone my hospital, it was a shock. But eventually curiousity got the better, and it became comforting in some way.
When I was at the hospital I would look at the locations and just smile, which at the time I didn’t get to do much of. So I don’t know, it was weird, but strangely cool too. I got to tell my mum about it as well before she deterioated, that she was in a cool hospital hehe
APFC-Carol: ?
Jilbo: there are hundreds of hospitals in the world, and they chose that exact one for that film. One that I have such a close recent history with – they saved my life in 2018, and gave my mum comfort in her final days in 2020. It’s truly amazing that I finally watch that movie at that exact moment in time, as I discovered AP’s work.
APFC-Carol: Memories, coincidence, Aaron Paul. ?
Jilbo: I love also that in one scene outside the hospital you see a bus in the background, its very likely the bus that used to stop at the end of my road where I grew up hehe anyways sorry I digress, JJ does that too me lol.
APFC-Carol: I liked J.J. also. I’ve watched it 3 times. I don’t think there’s any work by Aaron that I’ve watched only once. There are some older ones that I haven’t had the opportunity to watch yet, I haven’t found the oldest ones anywhere. But what I’ve already found, they were 2 to 3 times. Only BrBa that has become crazy, you can say so when you’ve watched it 5 times.
APFC-Carol: I know you mentioned friendship, but I want to record that as a romantic couple my choice would be Cameron from the movie fathers and daughters… Oh, he was a prince, every woman deserved a Cameron.
Jilbo: I agree that Cameron is all that
Jilbo: do you have any more questions on the subject of characters?
APFC-Carol: I don’t, but in truth we could spend hours here talking about our idol’s work for the site, and it’s a delight to do that. It’s fun to speak/write our point of view on these amazing characters (he’s played), hear the point of view of another person who also shares the same feelings as you. I love It, and I love that Aaron has awakened this sense of wonder within me. And I love you Jilbo who shares with me the love you feel for our Idol.
Jilbo: I love what we’re doing here, for more days like this and many more Aaron works to come so we can spend hours and hours talking about them. It’s so hard to speak to anyone who doesn’t ‘get it’ about someone you don’t know, will never likely know but still respect and admire from afar.
The past couple of years have been pretty crappy but I can confidently say discovering Breaking Bad, Jesse Pinkman et all, was a definite high point, and everyting that has followed from that discovery has been fun, and put a smile of my face. It’s crazy just how life changing (and that’s no exageration) simply watching BrBa has been for me – it’s just been a constant in that ‘good things’ box I keep trying to tick lately. 😀
APFC-Carol: You told me the other day that bad days exist so that we can celebrate the good days… many things will still come, you will need a bigger box to store these moments hehehe
Jilbo: What we are doing here is just so much fun, and the world needs more people just having fun, because the reality gets far too depressing, far too quickly, if we let it! oh and we’re here for the chickens, obviously
APFC-Carol: The best moment of my day is when I’m here… talking about who I admire and like, having fun with what I do talking to people… Aaron brought so many good things to my life, when I didn’t think anymore that was possible… oh the chickens ?
