New AMC show features actor with cerebral palsy

"Breaking Bad," a new show on AMC, has a main character with cerebral palsy and is played by an actor with CP, RJ Mitte. He plays the son of the main character (played by "Malcolm in the Middle's" Bryan Cranston), who is diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides to start making meth.

www.amctv.com/originals/breakingbad/:

About the Show
Break Bad (v.) 1. To challenge convention 2. To defy authority 3. To raise hell
Chemistry: the study of change. Apply heat and, boom, no going back. Meet Walter White, high school chemistry teacher. Sleepwalking through life when, boom, a terminal diagnosis changes everything. Liberates him. Empowers him to use his chemistry skills anew: to man a rolling drug lab and finance the future for his struggling family. It's an uncontrolled experiment with the American dream. And it finally wakes him up. BREAKING BAD: Change the Equation.

The series premieres Sunday, January 20 @ 10PM 9C.

RJ Mitte

Young actor RJ Mitte arrived in Hollywood from Lafayette, LA, in 2006 and immediately landed a talent manager and began his acting training.Born with cerebral palsy, RJ first began as a background actor while honing the auditioning process for commercials and eventually landed episodic roles in the hit shows Grey's Anatomy and Hannah Montana.In 2007, RJ was cast in Breaking Bad, his first major role playing a teenager born with cerebral palsy. And while the role may have seemed tailor made, like all actors, RJ earned the right to play this character by working on his craft, learning the script, and overcoming personal challenges: he works diligently to overcome what most people take for granted like sitting for extended time periods, muscle contraction, and challenges with articulation. Yet, unlike other actors, RJ had to relearn some of the physical demands of cerebral palsy that he had overcome from years of therapy by using his acting skills to play the role of Walt White, Jr.