Bryan Cranston: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

3. Jim Gordon - Batman: Year One (2011)

The revelation that one of Cranston's finest performances is a vocal only shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to those familiar with Breaking Bad, or with the actor's early rap sheet. The same ticks that made Heisenberg seem like an entirely different character to Walter White were learned playing monsters in Power Rangers, and voicing animated characters like Santa Claus, and in 2011, his most ear-catching vocal performance came with Warner Bros' brilliant adaptation of Frank Miller's iconic Batman story. As Commissioner Gordon - who is as central to the DC Animation as the Bat himself - Cranston is genuinely, memorably brilliant, offering a truly rousing performance, and adding a presence to the performance that can occasionally be lost in animations (hence the frequent returns to actors who can do it well, like Mark Hamill). Though the film is short, and lacks the capacity for extended character development, its greatest moments come when Batman and Gordon struggle to fix Gotham City and redress the moral repugnance and corruption that poisons its very blood, and that is helped massively by Cranston's irresistible vocal work. The writing might frame Gordon as the protagonist to the detriment of the Bat, but that is nothing to bemoan when Cranston's performance is as good as it is.