Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte dies aged 34

RJ Mitte, disability activist and actor best known for playing Walter White Jr. in the hit series Breaking Bad, has died. He was 34.

A representative for Mitte confirmed the death to Variety and Deadline. However, the cause of death was not disclosed.

Mitte played the son of Bryan Cranston’s Walter White on the Emmy-winning series before becoming a disability-rights activist after living with cerebral palsy since the age of three.

In a 2016 interview with VICE, Mitte said that when he moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, he began acting to meet kids his age and quickly booked a role on Breaking Bad.

“I was just doing extra work and acting classes … and about six months later, I booked Breaking Bad,” Mitte said. “The breakdown for the character was dark hair, big eyebrows, and mild cerebral palsy – that was my life, except for the methamphetamine.

Mitte said he didn’t know at the time, but his character was based on a real person that Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad creator and writer, knew in college.

“I think it’s really important that we have real stories on television and film that are having real impact. People are hungry for realism. They’re hungry to see characters like them, and I think that’s what was really important with Breaking Bad. It showed characters that everyone can relate to,” he said.

Mitte, who also starred in 2021 sports drama Triumph about a teenager with cerebral palsy, spent much of his childhood in physical, occupational and speech therapy.

“I was what you would call a severe toe walker,” he told VICE in the 2016 interview.

“What they would do is they would bend my foot as far as they could bend it, which was not fun, and they would cast it. And every couple of weeks, I would cut the cast off and bend it further, and then bend it further until the foot was flat. I’m always working at taking control. It’s a fight. It will always be a fight.”

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