Actor Bryan Cranston sounded a hopeful note while discussing President-elect Donald Trump on The Today Show Tuesday, telling host Matt Lauer that while he didn’t vote for the Republican, he hopes he’ll do a good job as president.
“He was not my candidate, but he is going to be my president, and I truly hope he does an exceptionally good job,” the 60-year-old Breaking Bad star said. “I really do, because if that is true, he has done well for the country, and that’s much more important than who I personally wanted to be president.”
Cranston — who appeared on Today to promote his forthcoming comedy Why Him? — also told Lauer that he desperately wanted Trump to give him a shout-out on Twitter over his Saturday Night Live cameo last weekend, in which he reprised his role as meth cook Walter White, who in one sketch is being considered to head Trump’s Drug Enforcement Administration.
Cranston’s comments on Trump are reminiscent of his initially hopeful thoughts on the candidate during the early days of the long presidential campaign. In August 2015, the actor told Nerdist that he found something “refreshing” about Trump’s candor.
“There’s something great about his ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ attitude that really kind of keeps others honest,” he said of Trump at the time.
In May, the actor said he believes that Trump “loves this country:” “I truly believe that and I know he does. It’s just that his approach on how to remedy America’s problems differ greatly from what I think should happen.”
But later that month, Cranston called Trump “devoid of substance” and compared him to an empty cargo ship in an interview with Larry King: “Massive, commands attention. Demands it. His wake leaves tremendous problems. His displacement of water is enormous. And yet, you go into the cargo hold and you go, ‘Hello, hello’ and it’s empty. There’s nothing there.”
Just days before the election, Cranston vowed to move out of the United States if Trump won, though he said he didn’t think there was much chance of that happening.
“I don’t think he’s going to win,” Cranston told the BBC’s Newsnight. “And I hope that when he loses, he would do everyone a huge favor if he just went away.”
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum