Aaron Paul

The Toyota Corolla Guy

Aaron Paul Sturtevant arrived in Los Angeles at just 17 years old with only $6,000 saved up. He drove a 1982 Toyota Corolla that barely made it through the trip from Idaho. He wasn't chasing fame, but immediate work, because his money was running out fast.

Before any recognition, he worked as an usher at a Universal Studios movie theater. His first paychecks came from cereal commercials and music videos for bands like Korn and Everlast. In 2000, he appeared as a contestant on The Price Is Right, where he showed an almost manic hyperactivity that bordered on the absurd.

And that energy is what caught the attention of casting directors.

For almost a decade, he landed one small role after another in shows like The X-Files or CSI. They were one-off parts as a juvenile delinquent or a troubled victim. But in 2007, he landed a recurring role in HBO's Big Love, which meant he could stop worrying about rent for a few months.

The Death That Never Happened

Vince Gilligan's original plan for the first season of Breaking Bad in 2008 was simple. Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die violently in the ninth episode to plunge Walter White into guilt. But the physical and verbal chemistry between Paul and Bryan Cranston during the pilot shoot changed the course of cable television.

Paul gave the character a vulnerability that was not written into the script. His performance as a young man overwhelmed by a world of violence earned him three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor. He turned a comic relief character full of catchphrases into the moral center of a contemporary tragedy.

Success allowed him to choose projects with complete freedom.

In 2014 he made a play for the box office with Need for Speed. The film grossed more than 200 million dollars worldwide despite lukewarm reviews. That same year, Ridley Scott cast him in Exodus: Gods and Kings, where he played the slave Joshua in a massive-budget epic.

Virtual Reality and Spirits

Television became his safe haven again after several attempts in independent film. Between 2014 and 2020, he voiced Todd Chavez in the animated series BoJack Horseman, where he also served as an executive producer. It was a different kind of role that moved him away from intense dramas and showed his ability to do melancholic comedy.

In 2020, he joined the cast of Westworld to play Caleb Nichols. The character served as the human anchor in a plot full of androids and complex algorithms. But Aaron Paul never forgot the universe that gave him everything, and in 2019 he revisited his most famous role in the movie El Camino to close his character's story.

And the bet on nostalgia paid off.

Away from the spotlight, he runs a solid business alongside his former partner Bryan Cranston. In 2019 they launched Dos Hombres, an artisanal mezcal brand made in San Luis del Río. The project was born over dinner in New York, where they decided they wanted to keep working together without needing a script in between.

In 2023 he starred in the episode Beyond the Sea from the sixth season of Black Mirror. He played an astronaut in an alternate 1960s version of the world who grapples with loss and consciousness-transfer technology. The production required a complex technical shoot to multiply his on-screen presence through optical effects and body doubles.