‘Beloved’ Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte dies aged 34
RJ Mitte, the disability activist and actor best known for playing Walter White Jr in the hit series Breaking Bad, has died. He was 34.
“It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of beloved actor, philanthropist and passionate disability rights advocate RJ Mitte,” a representative for Mitte said in a statement to Variety. They confirmed to the outlet the actor died by suicide.
“Drawing from his own experience living with cerebral palsy, Mitte brought authenticity to the role and built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion.”
Mitte played the son of Bryan Cranston’s Walter White on the Emmy-winning series before becoming a disability-rights activist after living with cerebral palsy since the age of three.
Cranston paid tribute to Mitte on Instagram on Tuesday afternoon (AEDT), saying it was “devastating” to hear his “sweet son on Breaking Bad” died by suicide.
“I met him when he was only 14 years old, when he was cast as Walter White Jr, a part he played with such joy and enthusiasm,” Cranston wrote.
“Born with cerebral palsy, he never – ever – allowed that challenge to be an excuse for anything. He met the demanding shooting schedule head-on with great determination.”
Cranston said Mitte always listened to the advice “his TV parents” – he and Anna Gunn – gave him, but that he was still a mischievous teenager.
“That kid was pretty raw when we started shooting the pilot in February of 2007, but little by little we watched him grow into a really fine actor,” Cranston said. “I’ll miss you, son.”
Mitte moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and quickly booked a role on Breaking Bad at 14.
“I was just doing extra work and acting classes … and about six months later I booked Breaking Bad,” Mitte said in a 2016 interview with VICE. “The breakdown for the character was dark hair, big eyebrows and mild cerebral palsy – that was my life, except for the methamphetamine.”
Mitte said he didn’t know at the time but his character was a tribute to a real person that Vince Gilligan, the creator and writer of Breaking Bad, knew in college and was determined a disabled actor would portray.
But initially, Gilligan didn’t think Mitte was the right fit. While Mitte was brain-damaged at birth, he walked without crutches.
Mitte’s manager Addison Witt persuaded Gilligan to take a second look – for four auditions in total. “Vince originally wanted someone who really used crutches but I knew how to work with them and make them look authentic,” Mitte said in a 2015 interview with this masthead.
Reflecting on his Breaking Bad role, Mitte told VICE: “I think it’s really important that we have real stories on television and film that are having real impact.
“People are hungry for realism. They’re hungry to see characters like them and I think that’s what was really important with Breaking Bad. It showed characters that everyone can relate to.”
In a 2019 interview with this masthead, Mitte said he needed leg braces and had to learn to control his limbs as a child but went on to play soccer, and that his mum yelled, “Run, Forrest, run” from the sideline, in reference to the line from the movie Forrest Gump.
Mitte, who came for the 2019 Sydney Film Festival for a screening of the Australian romantic comedy Standing up for Sunny, in which he appeared alongside My Brilliant Career star Philippa Northeast, also said he realised he’d always be known as the kid from Breaking Bad.
“Yeah, man, that’s going to follow me ’til the day I die,” he said. “And that’s not a bad thing. Breaking Bad was a very special show.”
In Standing up for Sunny, Mitte played a comic who shares a house in Sydney’s inner west with a blind musician (played by Italia Hunt) and falls for a bartender with bulimia (Northeast), whom he coaches in stand-up comedy.
Mitte, who also starred in 2021 sports drama Triumph, about a teenager with cerebral palsy, spent much of his childhood in physical, occupational and speech therapy.
“I was what you would call a severe toe walker,” he told VICE in the 2016 interview.
“What they would do is they would bend my foot as far as they could bend it, which was not fun, and they would cast it. Every couple of weeks I would cut the cast off and bend it further, and then bend it further until the foot was flat. I’m always working at taking control. It’s a fight. It will always be a fight.”
Mitte said he was put up for adoption by his biological parents while he was in utero. “They popped me out the womb and passed me down the line,” he said in the 2015 interview with this masthead.
Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Mitte grew up on the set of Breaking Bad in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he filmed for six years.
He was a runway model for Vivienne Westwood and also appeared in a Gap clothing campaign. But acting and activism were his true calling.
In meetings with Hollywood powerbrokers and television executives, representing the non-governmental organisation I’m a Performer with Disability, Mitte stressed the money to be made by representing people living with disabilities.
“The best way to change the minds of these people is to show them that this is a lucrative side of the industry; that disability is a market,” he said.
“Without cerebral palsy I wouldn’t be in this position. If I did not have this way of living, this idea of living, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”
Support is available from Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 and Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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