Bryan Cranston played the protagonist on the television series Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan . It tells the story of Walter White ( Bryan Cranston ) , a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer . Bryan Cranston . For Breaking Bad , Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times ( 2008 -- 2010 , 2014 ) , including three consecutive wins ( the second time in television history after Bill Cosby in I Spy during the 1960s ) . Walter Hartwell White Sr. , also known by his clandestine alias Heisenberg , is a fictional character and the main protagonist of Breaking Bad .