Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan: Jesse Pinkman’s teeth were too perfect

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan shares his one regret about a show that is often lauded as “perfect”.

He says, and fans have been complaining about it since the pilot, supporting actor Aaron Paul who plays Jesse Pinkman has perfect teeth even though the drugs used on the show probably would have damaged the character’s teeth badly. Every episode fans asked, “Why does a meth user have better teeth than I do?!” Now, Vince acknowledges, it was a mistake.

“I wish Jesse’s teeth had been a little more realistic, a little more messed up,” Vince told Entertainment Weekly. “Aaron Paul has perfect teeth, and Jesse Pinkman, on the other hand smoked a lot of meth, and that smoke eats the enamel right off the teeth.”

“Furthermore, this poor kid got beat up two or three times a season, and his teeth were still absolutely perfect,” he continued.

“So if we could’ve done a little something to them…but on the other hand, Aaron is such a good-looking guy that maybe that counts as poetic license that we kept his teeth looking nice.”

Vince adds, of the finale, “The challenge was to ‘be satisfying’. That was the two-word goal that the writers and I were basically consumed by for the better part of the year.”

“It finally dawned on us one wonderful day that the key to satisfying an audience doesn’t necessarily reside within surprising them (…) Walt’s the engine of his own destruction, but in a way that’s hopefully satisfying.”