When casting the role of Walter White Jr. in Breaking Bad, creator Vince Gilligan was looking for a young actor with cerebral palsy, not a kid who could believably act like he had the condition.
Hence RJ Mitte getting his big break at 13 on what the New York Times just named the best TV show of the 21st century.
“It’s unbelievable,” the 34-year-old said on the Oct. 5 episode of The Joe Vulpis Podcast of how new audiences continue to find Breaking Bad and discover his character. “Back then, we really didn’t realize how impactful the show was going to be.”
But the Emmy-winning series now comes laced with tragedy, as Mitte died Oct. 12 in Brownsville, Texas. No cause of death was shared.
Born in Jackson, Miss., Mitte moved to Los Angeles with his mom and sister to pursue acting. Prior to Breaking Bad, his experience consisted of being an extra on the likes of Hannah Montana and Weeds—and, full circle, his first-ever audition was for an anti-meth PSA—so it was while working on the critically acclaimed AMC series that he decided he actually wanted to do that for a living.
“It wasn’t about [being a] leading actor getting lines or being seen,” he explained. “It was more, I really enjoy working on a set. It’s the art of everybody collaborating.”
But though he seemingly fit the bill to play the son of Bryan Cranston‘s chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin—a character inspired by a college friend of Gilligan’s who had cerebral palsy—Mitte was still acting the heck out of the part, as he didn’t use forearm crutches IRL.
“As a young kid, I did many years of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy,” he told Joe Vulpis, “and many years of feet-binding as a child. So I worked really, really hard to not rely on the aids of anything that would inhibit my mobility.”
After Breaking Bad ended in 2013, he used his platform to advocate for actors living with disabilities, becoming a celebrity ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Hospital for Children, as well as a spokesman for SAG-AFTRA and Inclusion in the Arts and Media of Performers with Disabilities.
“I was always trying to branch out and to tell people that no matter what you have, no matter what someone has done, no matter what position that people are trying to put you in, that you can always change,” Mitte said during a 2018 presentation at the University of Maryland, per Unwind Magazine. “You can always grow, you can always take your life and elevate that into a new direction, into a new path by a very simple gesture.”
He called acting “one of the best jobs you can have.” But though he continued to work steadily, Mitte admitted that being so identified with one role had its consequences.
“I wouldn’t have the career I have today without the show,” he said on a February episode of the Love It Film podcast. “At the same time, though, a lot of people [would say], ‘Who wants to hire Walt Jr.?’ That was kind of a stigma that I fought for for many years. I even still fight it today sometimes.”
That being said, he added, “I would not have the reach, I would not have the knowledge, I would not have the understanding or the opportunities without the show.”
And, he told Vulpis, “It’s so special when you can work on these sets. I shoot like a movie a year.”
Mitte said he considered himself “very lucky in that, they’re not big movies and they don’t always pay the bills, but I still get to act and I still get to enjoy my time on set with these families that we make and work together to create art.”
As for paying the bills, Mitte said on a November 2025 episode of The Iced Coffee Hour that he’s “paid more in taxes” than he saw come in from Breaking Bad. “I had a big team at one point…and I was paying to keep my career going.”
On the personal front, however, Mitte had made major gains, proposing to girlfriend Kennedy Suarez last October.
“I’m thrilled to have found my person, my partner in life who makes me want to be better, no matter what we’re doing,” he told People at the time. “Kennedy is my everything and I can’t wait to officially start our life together and see what adventures life takes us on next.”
They had settled down in Brownsville, home of the Mitte Cultural District. The actor was president of his family’s eponymous foundation, which serves to help revitalize and fund marginalized communities in South Texas.
His final public appearance was at a Sept. 30 screening of the romance Talking To Strangers, starring Mitte and Lin Yin, while his horror movie One Eye Open is set for an Oct. 16 release.
While Mitte was active on Instagram to promote his projects, he told Vulpis he was a “reluctant scroller.”
“I have a little bit of a disdain for it,” he explained, “just because I see the impact on so many people mentally, emotionally, and what social media does to people and how people are so easily sold.”
Including, perhaps, on a rumor that Breaking Bad was going to come back in some shape or form.
“Everyone loves a remake,” Mitte said. But this would have to be “done right and really thought out…where it’s not just another spinoff or a sequel, that if we came back I would want it to be better than Breaking Bad.”
Which admittedly would be near-impossible, but, Mitte added, “I set very high standards for myself all the time that I can never meet.”
Read on to see Mitte’s life in photos:
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