Bryan Cranston starred alongside Kevin Hart in the 2017 dramedy “The Upside,” based on the true story of a paralyzed billionaire who befriends a recently paroled convict and hires him as a caretaker. Appearing on Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, Cranston revealed that the story isn’t yet over, as he and Hart are working on a follow-up film.
“We’re doing a sequel to it,” Cranston said in an episode that will premiere on Jan. 30.
With a $37 million budget, “The Upside” grossed $125 million at the box office, and marked comedian Hart’s first significant dramatic role. But despite its commercial success, Cranston said he “got shit” for playing a quadriplegic in the movie.
“I got a lot of shit for that,” he said. “I am an able-bodied actor playing a disabled actor.”
Maher responded, “I mean, it’s called acting. It’s almost the whole point, that you are doing something that you are not, right?”
Cranston continued, “I was pretty surprised that I got some blowback to it, and I thought, ‘There’s a good point, that disabled actors are not given an opportunity.’ It’s a kind of a catch-22 that… it’s like, ‘Do you have the cache to be able to carry a film?’”
The “Breaking Bad” star went on to name able-bodied actors who have been lauded for playing characters with disabilities, such as Al Pacino (who played a blind retired army officer in “Scent of a Woman”) and Daniel Day Lewis (who played a man with cerebral palsy in “My Left Foot”), saying “we would have missed some great performances” if those actors hadn’t portrayed their characters.
However, Cranston added, “You can only have the perspective of a 66-year-old white male… you can understand but you cannot really know what it feels like to live in that skin.”
The full interview will be released on Monday.