From
The AP:
For RJ Mitte, playing Walter White Jr. in AMC's "Breaking Bad" was art imitating life.
Like the 22-year-old actor, his character had cerebral palsy — just a
more severe case, requiring Mitte to learn to walk on crutches and slow
his speech for the role. Mitte says he also had to revisit some of the
challenges he faced growing up, which served as "a great reminder" that
helped him win the part.
"The past does haunt you, but it haunts you for a reason: to remind you
of the mistakes and actions you've made along the way and you have to
grow from those actions," he said.
Mitte says those experiences enabled him to bring something to the role that others couldn't.
"My disability has given me so many things that people will never
understand unless you have it," he said in a recent interview. "Unless
you've been through the physical therapy, unless you've been (through)
the sweat, the tears, the family problems, the family struggles, but
wondering how you're going to get that HMO, wondering how you're going
to get those medical bills. You develop a different mentality and you
develop a different look at how the world sees you and how you see the
world."
Mitte isn't alone in winning roles that reflect his life: In his
recently canceled sitcom, Michael J. Fox's title character had
Parkinson's disease, as he does, and both "Glee" and "American Horror
Story" feature actresses with Down syndrome.
Since the "Breaking Bad" finale, Mitte has played a wheelchair-bound
character who suffered a spinal cord injury. He says other roles he's
taken on include that of a young man with muscular dystrophy and another
where he was "a bit mentally unstable."
"I'm not going to say that I don't get typecast from time to time but those are real characters," says Mitte.
He says that while he realized there is "an opportunity to learn
something from these characters," he just likes to have a good time with
the roles, adding that "at the end of the day you have to have fun with
it because this business is stressful enough not to enjoy what you do."
