JONATHAN BANKS: And why do you think he has that rage inside of him?
ODENKIRK: Because he’s a normal guy.
BANKS: He’s a normal guy who just happens to deal in crystal meth and kill people. But he’s a normal guy.
…
BANKS: I don’t think he loves Jesse at all. You’re talking about Walt?
PAUL: You don’t think Walt cares for Jesse?
BANKS: I don’t think Walt cares for anybody.
ODENKIRK: I think he looks to Jesse as a son.
PAUL: He has Jesse in the palm of his hand and he knows how to control him.
BANKS: To control him. That’s hardly love.
…
Interviewer: Do you think Walt’s manipulation of people is the way he shows his love?
BANKS: I love the way you’ve phrased that question. Is his manipulation, his way of showing love? Did I misquote you? His manipulation shows his love? What kind of broken ass home did you come from?
…
BANKS: I will tell you this – because I’m old enough to be everybody’s father here. Everybody. And I know specifically of parents who would go – you would be hit by a car, lying on the side of the road and they would come over and go ‘Oh my god. Son, are you okay?’ And in the same breath – ‘Could somebody take care of this. I gotta go.’ It ain’t love. They may tell themselves it’s love. But it ain’t love.
Interviewer: So does Walt love anybody then?
PAUL: He definitely loves himself.
BANKS: A sociopath feels no guilt in their actions and what they do.
ODENKIRK: But do you think he’s becoming a sociopath?
BANKS: No – I think he’s been a sociopath since the time in the gym when he justifies the airplane crash – with ‘Well there have been worse crashes. More people have died.’ That is the classic sociopath.

I must say though, because he’s about to go and do this movie [“Need For Speed”], Aaron [Paul] and I were out in the desert together in my old car. I would drive and I took great joy in scaring Aaron and throwing the car around in the desert and spinning it. One time the kid said to me, “You know you have a very heavy foot,” which made me only have a heavier foot. But Aaron and I had such a good time, and we laughed and we laughed and we laughed. I love Aaron, he’s just the best. [ Jonathan Banks on his favorite moment on Breaking Bad ]


“He calls me sweet pea. He’s like, ‘I love you sweet pea.’ Jonathan, man, I love you too. He and I will be friends till the end of time.” [Aaron Paul]

"Aaron Paul is just such a fine actor that the early thought I had of killing off Jesse was quickly disabused. Anything is possible in Breaking Bad. I’d like to think that it is. But I would be hard-pressed to conceive of Breaking Bad without Jesse Pinkman in it. Whether or not we would have killed this character off in the early going is regardless of this fact. This character really was designed to be a foil for Mr. White. The show was not necessarily conceived as being a two-hander. A two-hander is obviously a show where you have two equally strong actors in a partnership of some sort, either working with each other or working against each other. To me, Breaking Bad, at least at the start, was designed very much to be the story of this one man, and the other actors in the ensemble sort of existed to illuminate, to compare and contrast with this man and his thinking. One of the many blessings we had on this show is that my casting people brought to me such fine actors that the show quickly became in a real sense a two-hander, between Walt and Jesse, because Aaron Paul is so very excellent. And, more than that, it feels at times like a very strong ensemble show, because Anna Gunn is so great, and Dean Norris, and Betsy Brandt, and RJ Mitte. I suppose the answer to the question is that Aaron Paul very quickly made himself irreplaceable, and he did that without even trying to. He did that just by being the excellent actor that he is and bringing so much energy and emotion and pathos to this character, so much lovability, that he made himself irreplaceable." — Vince Gilligan