I can’t believe this iconic scene from Breaking Bad was shot in a single take

When Walter White threw away a pizza on his house’s roof in Breaking Bad, the audiences were astonished to see how smooth the shot was. The pizza landed perfectly on the roof, and the scene became one of the most memorable moments from the AMC crime drama.

I thought it would have taken actor Bryan Cranston numerous attempts to get the perfect shot, but contrary to my expectations, the actor aced the scene in just one take. During an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show in 2023, Cranston talked in detail about how the iconic scene was filmed.

The actor revealed he was supposed to get angry for the sequence and toss away the pizza on the roof in frustration. He did exactly that, and the pizza fortunately landed at the perfect spot where the camera was fixed:

“And I just got angry and flung it. And it went flop, right in the place that was perfect. One take. One take, right there. And I heard gasps. But I continued the scene and didn’t look at it.”

“I got in the car and drove away. And I said, ‘What was that, what happened to the pizza?’ They said, ‘You could not have placed it any better. You could not have thrown it any better than that.’”

Bryan Cranston shot Breaking Bad’s pizza-tossing scene in only one take

The scene in question was featured in Breaking Bad Season 3. After being ignored by his family, Walter White was furious and tossed a box of pizza on the roof of his house. While the box ended up on the ground, the pizza landed on the house’s garage roof. Bryan Cranston revealed that when he was handed the pizza for the scene, he found it quite heavy:

“When they handed me the pizza, it was the size of a Buick. I’m holding this thing with two arms, going, ‘Why did you put every topping on top. This is heavy as hell.’ So I had to fling it and I go, ‘How am I going to get it up there?’ And I can’t throw it up there purposefully. It has to be an accident. So I said, ‘I think I can make it to about here.’ And they had a camera up there.”

The shot became so popular that over the years, thousands of fans flocked to the house in Albuquerque, trying to fling a pizza over its roof. However, the incidents caused ruckus for the original owners of the property, who revealed that around 200 people arrived outside their home every day with pizzas. The family ultimately had to sell the house in January 2025 due to the constant invasion of privacy.

Apart from the perfect landing, this particular scene in Breaking Bad also made news for featuring an unsliced pizza. Fans started wondering where the production team found a place that delivers pizzas without cutting them into slices. The team had bought the pizza from a local Albuquerque pizzeria, Venezia’s, which is now called Gino’s NY Style Pizza.

More than 10 pizzas were ordered as the team expected several re-takes of the scene, but Cranston proved them all wrong and did it in one take. Meanwhile, the official website of Gino’s NY Style Pizza states that the Breaking Bad team had specifically asked them to send unsliced pizzas:

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“For the scene of the pizza thrown on the roof, [production] ordered like 10 plus [party pizzas]. They ordered more just after that and requested them not to be cut. So we did. When that episode aired, a lot of people that know our pizza came in and started to congratulate us. It was a real exciting experience.”

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