{"id":1235443720,"date":"2025-11-03T09:03:48","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1235443720"},"modified":"2025-11-03T15:37:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:37:48","slug":"vince-gilligan-pluribus-interview-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/tv-movies\/tv-movie-features\/vince-gilligan-pluribus-interview-ai-1235443720\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I Was Nervous About Leaving the Heisenberg Universe\u2019: Vince Gilligan on \u2018Pluribus\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! -->\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pmc-paywall\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t\u201cI\u2019m kind of a glass-half-empty guy,\u201d says Vince Gilligan, creator of the legendary <em>Breaking Bad,<\/em> co-creator of <em>Better Call Saul, <\/em>and legendarily nice guy. \u201cWhen I do interviews or when I\u2019m in the writers room, I\u2019m trying to be [nice], because it\u2019s nice seeing people smile. But my real self is as much the negative stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThat \u201cnegative stuff\u201d comes through in spades in Gilligan\u2019s new series, <em>Pluribus,<\/em> his first since the stories of Walter White and Saul Goodman ended three years ago. It is set in an entirely new world and built around a character, Carol, whom Apple TV+ describes as \u201cthe most miserable person on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not unlike Carol, really,\u201d Gilligan continues. \u201cThe sarcasm and the negativity and the general miserableness \u2014 that\u2019s the easy part for me, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThat glass-half-empty approach might explain why it\u2019s taken almost two decades for Gilligan to make something not set in what fans have taken to calling the Heisenberg universe of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman and Co. Most producers in his position would have used the clout from <em>Breaking Bad\u2019<\/em>s success to make a dream project. But to Gilligan, who launched that series after a fallow career stretch following the end of <em>The X-Files,<\/em> where he first learned to write and direct for television, the phenomenon it became felt more than a little fluky. \u201cI was nervous about leaving the Heisenberg universe,\u201d he admits.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t\u201cSome people who read my biography are going to say \u2018Well, this guy got real lucky real early.\u2019 And that\u2019s true,\u201d Gilligan says. \u201cBut there\u2019s some years in the wilderness where it was like, \u2018I\u2019m never going to get to where I want to be.\u2019 And suddenly, <em>Breaking Bad <\/em>happens, and it turns into this thing that was beyond any of our wildest expectations. It still blows my mind.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t\u201cAnd that\u2019s not false modesty or aw-shucks, gee-whiz performative whatever,\u201d he insists. \u201cI honestly feel that way. I don&#8217;t know what we did right to make it go off like a skyrocket. It was just the right actors, the right place, at the right time. If <em>Breaking Bad<\/em> had been the exact same show, but it had come out 10 years sooner or 10 years later, maybe no one would be talking about it. Timing is luck, and luck is timing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tBut now, Gilligan has finally cashed in the blank check to which he\u2019s been long entitled. And boy, has he. <em>Pluribus<\/em> has a reported budget of $15 million per episode, five times more than what the average <em>Breaking Bad<\/em> cost. That\u2019s not quite as high as shows like <em>House of the Dragon<\/em> and <em>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,<\/em> but those are based on proven IP, at a moment when the industry seems afraid to spend big on anything but brand names. <em>Pluribus,<\/em> on the other hand, is a wholly original concept \u2014 one so strange and specific, I\u2019m barely allowed to say anything about it, save that, as Apple TV+ describes it, the aforementioned most miserable person on Earth \u201cmust save the world from happiness.\u201d Our cranky heroine is played by <em>Saul<\/em> alum Rhea Seehorn, beloved by fans of the spin-off but far from a household name. Without a big star, without a familiar title, and with a premise that Gilligan wanted kept under wraps until the Nov. 7 premiere, Apple TV+ is gambling a lot of money that merely saying they have a new series from the creator of <em>Breaking Bad<\/em> will be enough to draw people in.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\t\u201cWhen you put it that way, you kind of scared me,\u201d says Gilligan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tHe shouldn\u2019t be scared. <em>Pluribus<\/em> is a dazzling piece of entertainment. It takes advantage of everything Gilligan learned about patient storytelling with <em>Breaking Bad<\/em> and <em>Saul,<\/em> then combines it with the high-concept ambition of <em>X-Files,<\/em> as well as the visual flair Gilligan has developed as a director on all his shows. Though the plot involves every person on the planet, the focus is often entirely on Carol, as Gilligan relies on all the things he realized Seehorn could do \u2014 tragedy, slapstick, and sheer screen presence \u2014 during her time playing attorney Kim Wexler on <em>Saul<\/em>. There are long stretches where we\u2019re just watching Carol struggle through various tasks, like digging a grave. And it\u2019s riveting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n\t\n\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n\n\t\t\t\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((683\/1024)*100%);\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pluribus_101_S00003F-1_RT.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"683\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n<figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"u-border-color-black u-border-lr-2 lrv-u-padding-tb-025 lrv-u-padding-lr-075 lrv-u-border-b-2 lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-text-align-center a-font-basic-secondary-s\">Gilligan on the set of <em>Pluribus<\/em>. He says he relates to the main character Carol&#8217;s &#8220;sarcasm and general miserableness.&#8221;<\/span>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">AppleTV+<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t<\/figcaption>\n\n\t\t\t\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tThe sprawling premise gave Gilligan his first opportunity to film outside of North America, including stops in northern Spain and the Canary Islands. But Carol, like Walt and Kim before her, makes her home in Albuquerque. That\u2019s not Gilligan hedging his bets. Rather, it\u2019s him being happy with the house he and wife Holly Rice bought in New Mexico during the Heisenberg years, plus a desire to keep working with a local production crew with whom he\u2019s developed a near-telepathic bond over nearly two decades.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tWhile Gilligan is experimenting with a new sci-fi concept in <em>Pluribus,<\/em> he\u2019s in an industry where an older trope of the genre \u2014 the robots coming for us \u2014 has somehow become a depressing reality. \u201cIf you really want to wake me in a cold sweat at three in the morning, AI is the stick to poke me with,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then some deeper part of me says, \u2018Human beings are always going to want stories created by other human beings. They are not going to want stories scraped by Sam Altman and his guys from the artistry and hard work of literally thousands of years of writing and painting and music, regurgitating it into something \u2018new.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p\n\t\tclass=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \"\n>\n\tHollywood\u2019s obsession with IP \u2014 and the impossibility of anyone without Gilligan\u2019s track record being allowed to make something this big that\u2019s not based on a comic book or video game \u2014 feels like its own existential threat to him. \u201cStar Wars is great. Marvel Comics is great,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a giant fan of Star Trek. But at a certain point, new generations coming up need their own Star Wars. When the business gets to the point that that\u2019s all that\u2019s being made and there\u2019s no room anymore for original ideas, that\u2019s like the death of a civilization. Am I lucky that I get to do something original? I am. And it makes me sad that it\u2019s that unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The <em>Breaking Bad<\/em> creator finally \u00adreturns to TV with a brand-new show that channels some of his own anxieties \u2014 and frets for the future of 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