Bryan Cranston Mourns RJ Mitte: 'I'll Miss You, Son'

Bryan Cranston has confirmed the death of RJ Mitte, his on-screen son in "Breaking Bad," at age 34. Cranston said Mitte's cause of death was suicide.

"I'm in deep despair as I write this tonight. RJ Mitte, my sweet son on Breaking Bad has died," Cranston wrote. "It is especially devastating to hear that he took his own life."

What did Cranston say?

Cranston's tribute, posted following the news, traced Mitte's arc from raw teenager to advocate. He met Mitte when the actor was 14, cast as Walter White Jr. for the pilot shot in February 2007.

"Born with Cerebral Palsy, he never – ever – allowed that challenge to be an excuse for anything," Cranston wrote. "He met the demanding shooting schedule head on with great determination."

Cranston noted Mitte sometimes ignored the advice of his TV parents, Anna Gunn and Cranston himself, "in order to learn the hard way." He was, after all, a teenager on a hit show.

"Little by little we watched him grow into a really fine actor," Cranston wrote. "All that promise and potential now is such a loss."

Cranston added that the two were texting weeks ago, planning a lunch. "I don't know if that lunch would have changed his future… But I do know that I loved him," he wrote. "I'll miss you, son."

Who was RJ Mitte?

Like Walter White Jr., Mitte had cerebral palsy, diagnosed at age three. He turned that parallel into a career of advocacy.

• Appeared in 56 of "Breaking Bad's" 62 episodes, across five seasons (2008–2013) on AMC
• Ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children's Hospitals
• President of the Mitte Foundation, a Texas nonprofit his family founded in 1994
• Won the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award in 2013, honoring disabled actors for representation and awareness

His other credits include Campbell Bingman in Season 3 of ABC Family's "Switched at Birth" and the villain Mind Master in Netflix's 2022 series "The Guardians of Justice." He was promoting his role in Johnny Severin's film "Talking to Strangers" shortly before his death.

How have colleagues responded?

Dean Norris, who played DEA agent Hank Schrader on "Breaking Bad," wrote on X Monday that he was "heartbroken."

"Though RJ didn't play my TV son, I always looked out for him as a young kid on set," Norris wrote. "He was a sweetheart of a young man and will be greatly missed."

Mitte spent his post-"Breaking Bad" years pushing Hollywood on disability representation, work that now stands as the measure of a career cut short at 34.