Aaron Paul discussed the origins of Jesse Pinkman’s key catchphrase, and it makes a lot of sense
He’s definitely making the talk show rounds recently — but, he’s been mostly discussing a show that went off the air back in 2013. While his current show, The Path, is wonderful, Aaron Paul still can’t get enough of Jesse Pinkman, his character from his hit series Breaking Bad. It makes sense — after all, Jesse helped launch Paul into the public eye.
Paul showed up on Conan the other day to discuss The Path, but ended up chatting about the possibility of a Breaking Bad revival. Long story short? Nothing is planned — even though fan-made promos for such an event even have Paul fooled.
Of course, Conan wanted to dig in deep, and figure out the origin of one of the best-known Jesse-isms — why did his vocabulary heavily use the word “bitch,” and why did the audience love it so much? Watch him explain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4lfGLyx1N8?feature=oembed
First, before we get into “bitch,” we have to address that incredible fake ad.
"It had me almost believe! Like, what is happening? What are they not telling me?" Paul said with wonder. "It's just wishful thinking.
(But seriously, AMC — it seems like he might be up for a second series. Think about it.)
Now, back to his famous keyword: According to Paul, the network said that they were allowed to say “bitch” as many times as they wanted, but “shit” could just be used six times.
The f-bomb could only happen once per season. So, the writers totally made the most of these limitations, and had Jesse Pinkman drop the “b-phrase” as many times as he wanted.
"Because you said bitch so often, because you were allowed to, that became probably the coolest catchphrase anybody could have," Conan said. "What if your line had been like, 'I like pasta!'...Your character suddenly is one-third as cool."
Eh, we don’t know about that. We’d totally be down with watching a show about Jesse Pinkman’s favorite pasta.
Paul hinted the other day that Jesse Pinkman might make an appearance in Better Call Saul, so for now, at least we have one rumor we can cling onto. As far as Jesse is concerned, we’ll take whatever we can get.