‘The Studio’s Evan Goldberg Breaks Down Wild Bryan Cranston Scene in S1 Finale

It’s time for Seth Rogen’s The Studio to have some rest before returning with a second season, though its first instalment’s celebrity-crammed and pretty chaotic ending might not be forgotten for way longer.

Apart from Zoë Kravitz and Dave Franco who reappear in episode 10, titled “The Presentation”, still wasted after the previous episode’s pre-party on mushrooms, the trophy for the cringiest cameo role is also shared by Breaking Bad’s star Bryan Cranston who steals the show as Continental’s CEO Griffin Mill.

The latter’s Emmy-worthy performance in the Venetian casino was technically a pretty challenging mission though, which might be another reason to thank Rogen’s team for the effort.

‘The Studio’ Director Evan Goldberg Says Filming That Bryan Cranston Scene Was “Insane”

The actor surely gives one of his best performances in the entire career as the camera follows his Griffin Mill through the Venetian casino’s halls in Las Vegas, with Seth Rogen’s Matt Remick and his colleagues trying to track their drugged-up boss down.

Even though Matt’s hunt for Mill does look like one of the most iconic moments on modern TV now, the show’s co-director Evan Goldberg doesn’t really think filming the scene was something fun.

“It was insane. Usually there were three to four famous people per shot. So the odds of someone bothering us were pretty high the whole time. And every single spot that we shot had a restriction timing-wise”, Goldberg revealed during the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, suggesting that the casino’s staff couldn’t help but try to get closer to all the celebs present on set.

In fact, the issues with the shooting place were raised long before the production team actually arrived there, with Goldberg and other producers struggling to book the casino for themselves.

“We got them the script pages and it took months. We had already started to buy airline tickets for the crew, and we had set up rooms. In addition, Hewlett Packard had one of their largest conventions there, so they ate up a lot of space. So it was not just a matter of script approval, but also of getting approval to coexist with them when they had a majority of the hotel booked”, location manager Stacey B. Brashear revealed.

She then added that the team even had to cope with Britney Spears’ last-minute grand party, though eventually everyone got what they wanted.

Stacey Brashear Worried About a Possible Impact of Cranston’s Fountain-Jumping Scene

Despite those behind-the-scenes horrors that The Studio’s cast and crew had to experience in the wildest location on Earth, Griffin Mill’s journey from the pre-party to the casino’s fountain did look pretty fun, which quickly became another reason for a potential problem.

“I was concerned that they would think of it as a liability issue. And I was hoping they weren’t going to come back to me and be like, ‘Well, we don’t want fans of the show to think they can hop in that fountain’ — that their legal team wouldn’t be like, ‘We don’t want people to get the idea to come take a selfie imitating Bryan Cranston in the fountain.’ But they were willing to take that risk”, Brashear explained, referring to the scene where Cranston’s character jumps into a fountain outside of the casino building.

Will There Be ‘The Studio’ Season 2?

The show has been renewed for a second season which doesn’t have a premiere date so far.