10 Actors Who Begged For Their TV Characters To Die
3. Dean Norris - Breaking Bad
Why He Wanted To Die
Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) DEA agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) was unquestionably one of the best and most unexpectedly nuanced characters on Breaking Bad, yet despite the show's popularity, Norris ended up asking creator Vince Gilligan to kill him earlier than scheduled.
As it turned out, Norris had already booked a role on a comedy series pilot, before AMC decided to split Breaking Bad's fifth season into two batches of eight episodes spread over two years.
Despite Norris' request to die mid-season, Gilligan insisted he needed to keep him around for an additional six episodes.
Norris said, "At some point, f***ing whoever decided they were going to split it into two eights...So it cut me off from doing a pilot — and I had a pilot I wanted to do."
How It Happened
Hank ends up dying in the show's third-to-last episode, the legendary "Ozymandias", where White Supremacist gangster Jack Welker (Michael Bowen) executes him after he refuses to drop the drug investigation.
Given that Hank's demise ends up delivering one of the series' strongest and most straight-up bada** dramatic moments, Gilligan was certainly right to keep him around.
As for Norris? He doesn't seem to hold any grudges. "Obviously, I’m glad that they [said no]."