How Breaking Bad's Stars Used The Show's Blue Meth To Stay Energized

Being an actor is a pretty cool job, but one aspect that has to be a drag is long shooting days. Sometimes, no amount of coffee from craft services is going to help, but on the set of the hit AMC drama "Breaking Bad," the show's cast had a secret weapon to battle drowsiness: meth. Not real methamphetamine, of course, but the fake version that was laying around everywhere as a prop since the series featured a whole lot of crystal. While the meth-making depicted on "Breaking Bad" was actually pretty scientifically accurate, the show's creatives decided to not have actual meth on set for a whole bunch of reasons. (Hence the fake meth in its place.)

On his episode of the YouTube interview series "Hot Ones," "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston revealed that his co-star, Aaron Paul, introduced him to snacking on the stuff, which was actually just rock candy. The whole thing makes it sound like Cranston and Paul have a bit in common with their drug-dealing odd couple on the show, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, though they clearly get along better than those two ever could. Look, if you have nearly unlimited access to candy and you're a little sleepy, you're gonna eat the candy. That's just the logical thing to do, right?

On "Hot Ones," Cranston mentioned that shooting one late night, he saw Paul chowing down on handfuls of the fake meth and was absolutely shocked ... until he tried some for himself:

"I never tasted it until one night we were working. It was probably the 16th or 17th hour we're working in the in our dungeon downstairs [...] and I see Aaron Paul reach into our product and take a handful, and he starts throwing the methamphetamine in his mouth. I go, 'What are you doing? You can't eat the product!'"

Cranston joked that he must have still been a bit in-character as meth kingpin Walter when thinking of the prop meth as the "product," but when Paul pointed out that the sugar high helped and that it was actually delicious, he started to come around. In fact, he told "Hot Ones" host Sean Evans that soon he and Paul were "eating all the rock candy," so it sounds like the stuff was a hit. "Breaking Bad" could be a heartbreaking series with some deeply challenging moments, so it's good to know that the cast had a bit of fun behind-the-scenes between takes, even if it was just munching on the props. It also totally tracks that Paul was the one who turned Cranston on to the idea, since his character Jesse was always the significantly sillier of the two and the true heart of "Breaking Bad."

Fans who want to get their own silly sugar high on the Blue Sky fake meth rock candy (which might explain Jesse's whole inflatable outfit dance, honestly) can do so if they visit Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the series was set and filmed. There are all kinds of "Breaking Bad" landmarks to see in Albuquerque, and while some fans need to learn respectful boundaries when visiting places like the house used for exterior shots for Walt's home, The Candy Lady is almost guaranteed to be thrilled to see them. 

Indeed, the Candy Lady, Debbie Ball, has been selling candy in the New Mexico city for decades and has also made some rock candy meth for other film and TV productions. As such, when the "Breaking Bad" folks came knocking, she created the prop versions of the now-infamous blue meth. Though she only made it for the first two seasons (likely because the production needed far higher quantities than her family-owned shop could really handle after that), Ball was still responsible for creating the look of the candy and gave her approval when series creator Vince Gilligan picked "the color of the sky" for the candy.

The candy that Paul and Cranston munched on was probably a slightly different formulation, but if you want to taste the original Blue Sky prop candy, just head on over to The Candy Lady's shop in downtown Albuquerque. Afterward, you can take your little baggies of candy over to the city's statues of Walt and Jesse and pose for a picture... if you don't eat it all on the way there, that is.