What Happened To Breaking Bad's Skyler White Actress Anna Gunn?

"Breaking Bad" deserves to not only be on any respectable list of the best TV shows of all time, but it should be somewhere near the top. The show centered on a seemingly mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher named Walter White (Bryan Cranston) who found out he had cancer and wasn't going to be able to afford the necessary treatments to fight it. A series of events lead to him becoming a drug manufacturer and dealer with the help of his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). 

One of the biggest sources of conflict on the show was the way Walter's new side hustle affected his relationship with his wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn) – especially as that side hustle became a full-time career that Skyler had no choice but to become an active participant in. Everyone on the show got raves for their work, including Gunn, who won two Primetime Emmy awards on top of numerous other accolades for her performance. Though "Breaking Bad" is where Gunn reached her widest audience yet, it arguably wasn't her breakout role. That distinction belongs to her two seasons in the main cast of the HBO western drama series "Deadwood," where she played a version of real-life American pioneer Martha Bullock.

Gunn's career didn't end with Skyler's story arc on "Breaking Bad." In fact, the actor has been never been far from TV or movie screens since, and continues to be a mainstay on both even if "Breaking Bad" continues to be her most famous project. 

Skyler White was put in one difficult position after another in "Breaking Bad." First, in having to face the prospect of her husband dying of cancer, and then having to deal with her husband not only being a drug dealer, but eventually, a violent, powerful, and heavily-targeted full-on drug kingpin. It might seem as though it would be difficult to feel anything but sympathy for Skyler, but in fact, she ended up being one of the most hated characters on not only "Breaking Bad," but all of television in general. 

"Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan explained to Variety in 2022 why he thought audiences turned on Skyler. "I realize in hindsight that the show was rigged, in the sense that the storytelling was solely through Walt's eyes," Gilligan said, meaning that viewers were forced to resent Skyler as much as Walt had grown to. He also said that both he and Gunn were "troubled" by the way fans felt about Skyler, especially as many of those fans felt emboldened to be cruel to Gunn herself without properly separating the performer and the character. 

Anna Gunn had an epic response to a harsh fan comment about Skyler during a Q&A, pointing out all Skyler had to deal with and explaining what an objectively terrible husband and father Walt had become. Her retort drew applause from the crowd, and that response, thankfully, has since come to represent changing attitudes about Skyler. In recent years, more and more think pieces have been written that condemn the previous Skyler backlash, including getting at the root of the inherent misogyny and misguided worship of morally bankrupt but financially successful characters that has become far too common among a certain type of TV and movie watcher. 

It has been argued that Anna Gunn's career went downhill after "Breaking Bad." Sure, she's yet to find another role as iconic or another project as lauded, but to be fair, most shows aren't as lauded as "Breaking Bad" was. Once Gunn got a bit of distance from Skyler and her career stopped being so directly compared to "Breaking Bad," it's been made apparent that the actor is doing just fine and continues to find plenty of quality movie and TV roles.

In 2019, Gunn had the opportunity to reprise her other signature cable series role when she again played Martha Bullock in HBO's "Deadwood: The Movie." With an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's actually her highest-rated project on the site, because the series-wide score for "Breaking Bad" is only 96%. Gunn also has a recurring role on acclaimed Apple TV+ noir series "Sugar," which began airing in 2024. 

On the big screen, Gunn has mostly been doing small indie films, though she did play a large role in the 2016 Clint Eastwood-directed biopic "Sully" which was both a critical and commercial success.