Emmy Nominations: Vince Gilligan of ‘Breaking Bad’

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Vince Gilligan.

As “Breaking Bad” approaches its final episodes, this AMC series is going out with a bang at the Emmy Awards: on Thursday morning it was nominated for 13 Emmys, including dramatic series, lead dramatic actor (for three-time winner Bryan Cranston), supporting dramatic actress (Anna Gunn), and supporting dramatic actors (Aaron Paul, a two-time winner, and Jonathan Banks).

Vince Gilligan, the creator and show runner of “Breaking Bad” and the man who made the decision to bring it all to an end, learned of his show’s Emmy nominations just before flying to Comic-Con International in San Diego. In these excerpts from a conversation with him, Mr. Gilligan speaks about the good fortune of “Breaking Bad” and seeing its finish line just up ahead.

Q.

Did you deliberately plan your travel schedule so that you’d be flying today, when Emmy nominations came out?

A.

Actually, we flew down from Los Angeles to San Diego this morning, a couple hours after the announcement was made. It was a very enjoyable flight down here, knowing all this good news. Typically, these last couple of years, I get very nervous about these announcements, and I’ve taken to turning our phones off in the house. You lie there in bed, at 4 in the morning, thinking, Is the phone going to ring or not this year? The little trick I’ve played for myself is if the phones are turned off, I know they won’t ring and I can get more sleep. But this year I forgot to do that. Sure enough I woke up at 6 thinking, Gee, is the phone going to ring or not?

Q.

When you see all the positive response that’s greeted the show today, does it make you second-guess the idea of ending it?

A.

No. I’m happy to say it does not. I’m very sad the show is over, for personal reasons. Just yesterday, my assistant did the last bit of office cleaning. All the desks and phones were taken out in Burbank, and the office keys were turned over to the real-estate company. That was a very sad thing. For that I’m very regretful. But creatively, I think we’re going out on a high note. I’m very proud of these final eight episodes and have not had one second of self-doubt that we’re ending at the right moment.

Q.

Your AMC sibling, “Mad Men,” also did well today but it was shut out of certain key creative categories like writing and directing. Do you feel a shift in momentum, that “Breaking Bad” has become the dominant series of the two?

A.

I wouldn’t use the word dominant. I feel lucky that we’re even on the air, and I probably sound aw-shucks when I say that. I don’t take it for granted that we’ll get any nominations. “Mad Men,” rightly so, won four Emmys in a row [for dramatic series], and is an excellent show, and one for the record books. “Mad Men” is just as great as it’s always been, and will remain a quality show until it ends. I can only speak for “Breaking Bad,” but I know with TV shows, they have definite life spans and I feel like we’re ending at the right time.

Q.

Netflix, which also did well today, has helped establish a model where people can watch new seasons of a show all at once. Had that been available to “Breaking Bad,” would it have worked for the show?

A.

It’s such a new paradigm, the Netflix model â€" it’s an interesting thought experiment, but I don’t know how “Breaking Bad” would have fared. The one thing I can tell you with certainty is, if it wasn’t for Netflix and iTunes and all these streaming video-on-demand services, I don’t think you’d be talking to me right now. I don’t think “Breaking Bad” would have existed past, probably, Season 2. It’s a very hard show to get into, midstream, unless you have a relatively easy capability of going back and catching up with old episodes. Netflix has been very good to us and I’m grateful they exist, for keeping us on the air.

Q.

You’ve said that you’ve devised a happy ending for “Breaking Bad,” yet somehow I’m not imagining Walt and Jesse and Skyler holding hands and walking into the sunset.

A.

Oh no! That’s the ending! You just said it! [laughs] I hope that for the vast majority of viewers it will be a satisfying ending. That was really what drove us, the writers and myself. And sometimes satisfaction and happiness are words that become somewhat interchangeable. I think actually there is a fair bit of distinction between them. I think what we’ve accomplished is a satisfying ending. There’s probably some happiness and some sadness going hand-in-hand. Suffice it to say, it’s not going to be all peaches and cream.