10 Unsung TV Characters Who Completely Save Their Show

5. Jesse Pinkman - Breaking Bad

The Character Everyone Talks About: Heisenberg Hannibal himself, Anthony Hopkins wrote a letter to Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston declaring his acting among the best he had ever seen. "From what started as a black comedy, descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell," he waxed, "It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy... Congratulations and my deepest respect. You are truly a great, great actor." He's not alone in heaping the praise on Cranston; his role as drug lord Walter White, AKA Heisenberg, has captivated audiences like no other television star this century, but he didn't make Breaking Bad the phenomenal success that it was on his own. White's meth-cooking pal Jesse Pinkman may only be a supporting character, but he's a vital one to the show. He's wonderfully subtle, and it would be so easy to cliche White's closest ally into a broken-home boy who's turned to meth to because of a terrible upbringing, but the show avoids treading such a line though, keeping Jesse as a multi-faceted character with a deep self-confidence problem, and a deep desire to avoid turning evil. It's easy to forget, watching Cranston, that Breaking Bad has a plethora of intriguing, engrossing characters. Jesse's one of the bigger stars of the show, but it's sad that he's often forgotten in favour of the bigger name.