The Houses of Breaking Bad
- Payton Heyman
- Jan 12, 2018
- 5 min read
Breaking Bad, directed by Vince Gilligan, is one of television's most watched shows and is widely regarded as one of the greatest series to date. It first aired on January 20, 2008 and had five seasons, running until September 29, 2013.
Something I learned throughout the course of my roadtrip is that the location of just about every film set is disguised as a completely different city. Whether a film is set in Chicago but filmed in New Orleans, or set in Paris and filmed in Los Angeles, the world of movies and television has an abundance of deceit. Breaking Bad, however, is not only set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but it is 100% filmed there as well!
Location scout Alex Gianopoulos was in charge of selecting each of these iconic settings He played a massive role in turning the simple, average city into the meth capital of America.
For any location scout, finding people who are willing to give up their own home for an extended period of time is extremely difficult on its own. Alongside this, however, finding people who are also okay with their home then being associated with whatever the show may be about adds an extra layer of difficulty, especially in cases like Breaking Bad, where the house essentially goes hand-in-hand with methamphetamine.
Since the city of Albuquerque and New Mexico in general was still fairly new to the concept of show business, homeowners were unfamiliar with the idea of a property-to-set transformation. Gianopoulos described himself as becoming a "backwards door-to-door salesman" and getting constantly turned down by entire neighborhoods. Every once in a while he'd get a start, but would eventually be turned down as soon as he mentioned the deeper necessities of the show's setting.
"Telling people I'm there for a show gets me in the door. The money involved convinces some owners, and the popularity of Breaking Bad gets others excited. If someone still isn't sure, I'll tell them their house is beautiful and explain how it's exactly what we're looking for. People are flattered when we tell them we want a house that looks upper-class, especially if it actually isn't... but as soon as I mentioned a drug lab, I was shown the door."
Jesse Pinkman's house, located at 322 16th St SW, is a perfect first example and is disguised as 9809 Margo Street. The home is located in an ordinary neighborhood and, as expected, I was only able to photograph the exterior. The four-bedroom house, however, was put on the market in 2015 for $1.6 million, and I was actually able to find some nice shots of the interior online!
Not much changed with the exterior, only some minor changes with greenery. In the above image, you can see that the grass has died and the foliage around the window next to the front door disappeared, as well. Gilligan and Michael Slovis, cinematographer for the show, wanted the conditions of the house to be dull and show the damage happening to it along with its owner, Jesse, who was going through an incredibly destructive psychological episode.
Below is how the living room looked at the time of the house being sold. Beneath that is a screen-grab from the second episode of season four- a transformation that truly depicts the risks that a homeowner must take when renting it out for filming purposes. All of the furniture was moved out and replaced with pretty much nothing but leftover party garbage. In the actual state, there is also a chandelier that hangs from the ceiling, which was obviously not there as part of the show. Instead, decoration just included spray painted walls, a couple stereos, and beer bottles.
(telegraph.co.uk)
Characters Hank and Marie Schrader also owned a beautiful Albuquerque home located at 4901 Cumbre Del Sur Court Northeast. Everytime their house appears in Breaking Bad I am always drawn to the amount of purple that is spread around every corner, but never even acknowledged in the show. In the exterior shots, there is simply a purple umbrella standing on the patio, but in the interior shots every pillow, carpet, curtain, bedsheet, cushion, and just about every thing that is not a wall or cabinet is purple. Marie is always wearing the color too.
This is extremely fascinating to me, as it brings a lot of symbolism to the show as a whole. In an article analyzing each of the main character's color(s), Marie and her purple obsession was discussed:
"What makes Marie noteworthy isn’t that she wears all purple, all the time. Rather, it’s the very rare occasions when she’s not wearing purple that practically scream at the viewer. For instance, she wears black when her kleptomania flares up. She wears black again when she’s in protective custody of the DEA after the threat on Hank’s life at the end of Season 4. And then finally, she turns yellow just before Hank makes his massive discovery at the end of the first half of Season 5."
Below is Gustavo Fring's house, located at 1213 Jefferson St. NE. The beautiful white home did not undergo many changes, especially since the interior is never featured. The original state of the house, or at least how it was at the time of my visit, had a red door with a middle section made of glass. For the show, however, it is simply brown.
The massive tree out front was also trimmed down a bit for the show, and an extra light post was added directly in front of it.
Each of these houses are beautiful, but you must be wondering... what about the house of the main character Walter White? Well, I did actually visit 3828 Piermont Drive, but the owners were not too happy about it. Most people who live in homes that were once used for a film were welcoming and happy to talk to me if they were outside at the time of my arrival, but this was a different story. The exterior of the highly recognizable Albuquerque home was covered in caution tape, cameras, no trespassing signs, and, to top it off, the owners were actually sitting in their garage waiting for tourist visitation. After researching the home, I found reviews from the past ten years saying that they spend just about every day like that, hoping for trespassers. Three months after I saw the location for myself, the house was all over the news because the owners decided to build a fence around it! I will admit, constant visitors must get frustrating after a while, especially with the understanding that some fans have attempted the famous scene where a pizza is thrown onto the roof, but the refusal of my photograph request was a bit upsetting to me. At least I made it in time to see the house face to face with no fence blocking the view.
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