emirates man


apr/may 2015


| FEATURE | RJ MITTE


58


shoving and even physical assault – with RJ suffering a broken hand and foot from his playground tormentors. But then RJ Mitte’s luck started to change. After his one-year-old sister landed a part in a TV


Sit down for longer than five minutes with RJ Mitte, and odds are the self-effacing actor will bring up just how ‘lucky’ he is. Lucky to be where he is today. Lucky to do work that he’s truly passionate about. Lucky to land an acting role in his early teens that many performers would trade an organ for. The irony is almost tangible, as, throughout his early life, one word you certainly wouldn’t have used to describe RJ Mitte is ‘lucky’. Born by emergency caesarean in Lafayette, Loui-


DJ MITTE The Breaking Bad star spins the decks now and is a lover of everything from old jazz to classical and modern-day dub


siana, on August 21, 1992, Roy Frank Mitte III was not breathing at the time of his birth and suffered perma- nent brain damage as a result. Adopted by Dyna and Roy Frank Mitte Jr a few weeks later, RJ (which stands for Roy Junior) was diagnosed with cerebral palsy aged three and forced to wear braces and casts on his legs, as doctors attempted to straighten his feet. His disability, paired with an appearance reminiscent of Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump, made Mitte easy prey for school bullies, and soon the spiteful name-calling turned into pushing,


commercial, the Mitte family uprooted from their Texan home and moved 1,500 miles across America to Holly- wood, California. Finding himself in alien surroundings – as famed for its gun crime as its A-list talent – 13-year-old Mitte was faced with three distinct choices: “Go to school, act, or join a gang.” He decided to act, enrolling in the stu- dio run by his sister’s manager and picking up a handful of roles as an extra (including ‘school jock’ in Disney’s Han- nah Montana). For RJ, performing was less about becom- ing a star than it was meeting children his own age. Then, a few mere months into his acting career, Mitte


received a casting call for an upcoming TV drama. It sought a teenage actor with dark hair, big eyebrows and cerebral palsy. It was as if the part was written for him. After five gruelling auditions – including four in LA and one on-location in New Mexico where he had to fight claims his disability might not be severe enough for the role – RJ Mitte secured his first major acting job. What’s more, it was on a television show that would one day be hailed as the very best of all time. “I’m lucky,” says Mitte, now 22, sat before Emirates


Man in a lavish hotel lounge in central London. “It’s re- ally interesting to see how far one project can take you, and I wouldn’t be in the position I am today if I didn’t have Breaking Bad.” Eighteen months since Vince Gilli- gan’s ground-breaking drama ended, and despite a wide range of work in the meantime, Mitte is still better known as Walt Jr (aka Flynn), the crutch-bound son of Walter White – a terminally ill chemistry teacher who becomes a drug kingpin in the hope of raising enough money for his family to survive after his death. Although something of a slow-burner for the first couple of series, Breaking Bad was a critical triumph that received landmark view- ership, global adulation and countless awards along the way, including a Guinness World Record for Highest Rat- ed TV Series in 2013 (with a score of 99/100 on review website MetaCritic). Worship of the show is common and celebrity endors-


ers are plenty – Anthony Hopkins wrote a letter to Bryan Cranston [Walter White] to praise “the best acting I have ever seen – ever”, while RJ Mitte’s admirers include Tom Hanks, UK prime minister David Cameron and singer Ed Sheeran, who RJ drank wine with at the Brit Awards the night before we meet (“a really cool dude,” notes RJ). On the Breaking Bad set, the atmosphere was just as


good. “A real family dynamic,” remembers Mitte. “I came to the set so young and new, and they were all very nur- turing and willing to teach me.” So close was the cast that leading men Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston had tattoos etched on their skin to commemorate the show coming to an end, and RJ would have happily joined them – had he not have been physically stopped from doing so by his mother, Dyna. “I’m still willing to get the tattoo,” he reveals, “I just


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