Bryan Cranston urges people to 'get mad' if they want social change

Bryan Cranston calls out those who don't support Trump

Fox411: 'Breaking Bad' actor Bryan Cranston, notably outspoken against then-candidate Donald Trump, recently changed his tone, calling out those who don't support the current president.

On Monday night, Bryan Cranston appeared on “The Late Show” and spoke about what makes him “mad as hell.”

Cranston, who is currently starring in a stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning 1976 film “Network,” described how prevalent the 40-year-old script from screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky is today.

“It is something that brings you back to the 1970s and ships you back into 2018 quickly,” Cranston told host Stephen Colbert. “So a lot of things that we discuss, you know, in the show about being addicted to whatever the modern technology is at the time… or how about ‘fake news,’ that’s an element we deal with. And the manipulation of audiences by having a news outlet having an agenda of what their audience [listens] to. It’s really, very prescient from what he was writing.”

The Emmy and Tony award-winning actor revealed that the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” made famous by Peter Finch, who went on to win the Oscar, wasn’t actually the line as written by Chayefsky. In fact, it was originally, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” and Finch was so exhausted that director Sidney Lumet used what he had in the film, which frustrated Chayefsky because Finch forgot to say the first “as.” Now Cranston bellows that line on a weekly basis as Finch’s character, Howard Beale.

“As an actor who has to call upon his own emotional truth for that moment, what are you mad as hell about and will not take any more, Bryan Cranston?” Colbert asked.

“I think what makes me angry is people accepting duplicity and the diminishment of integrity and lack of accountability that we’re finding now in our society,” Cranston responded.

The “Breaking Bad” star went on to express his frustration with how “anger” is not socially accepted.

“I think there’s a lot of discoveries an actor makes when developing a character, but one of the things that I didn’t quite pick up on in London but I’m really keening in now is the social non-acceptance of the emotion of anger. To be mad,” Cranston elaborated. “We accept intolerance, we accept irritability, we accept irascibility and things like that, but anger, true anger, displayed socially is not acceptable.

"And perhaps what we do need, as Howard Beale says, 'First, you’ve got to get mad. And when you’re mad enough, then we’ll figure out what to do with it.' Then social change can actually take place is when you get mad. And perhaps when you see injustice like we do often these days, you don’t want to be tolerant. You don’t want to be acceptant of that. You want to say, ‘No, this makes me angry, it is wrong, and we have to stand up and do something about it.’”

Cranston later described how our “knee-jerk” reaction in society is to smile instead of just “be there” and being “honest” with ourselves.

“In this society, we always want to show things that are positive. Be good, be happy, smile,” Cranston continued. “You know, when people see someone crying, often you’ll hear, ‘Oh, don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’ And it’s like, ‘No, they should cry.’ They’re suffering a loss or sadness or something as opposed to just putting your arm around them allowing them to feel what they’re feeling at that moment.”

“Maybe cry with them,” Colbert suggested.

“Cry with them,” Cranston agreed. “Or be angry with them.”