Aaron Paul is promoting his new role on the upcoming season of HBO’s “Westworld”, and in a conversation with the NME he mentioned another role he’d like to play.
During the interview, Paul’s role in the Funny or Die parody of a “Weird” Al Yankovic biopic is referenced, with Paul asked if there are any other music stars he’d like to portray.
“When I first moved to L.A., I thought quite a bit about Kurt Cobain and what happened and I just love Nirvana — ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was one of the first records I bought with my own money,” he says, “so I’ve thought that could be interesting [to play Cobain].”
As for his new role, Paul, 40, admits that the promotional junket for “Westworld” has been a very unusual one, given that it’s taking place in the midst of the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s an… interesting time we’re in,” he tells NME. “I was supposed to do a worldwide press tour for ‘Westworld’, and we were supposed to have a Brazil premiere, a big activation at South by Southwest festival and I was supposed to do some press and talk shows in New York — all that stuff was cancelled. Slowly but surely, every production is being shut down, which I think is the responsible thing to — just to try to stop this thing from spreading.”
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He also reflects on his earlier role in “Breaking Bad”, which he admits opened a lot of doors for him, including a chance to hang out backstage with the Rolling Stones.
“Oh man, I gotta be honest, it just felt like ‘Breaking Bad’ was on everyone’s tour bus,” says Paul. “So it really felt like it was a big thing in the music industry. The most surreal thing was I got invited to a Rolling Stones concert out of nowhere as their guest. Ronnie Wood wanted to meet up with me so I went backstage and met him in his dressing room and he introduced me to Keith Richards — Keith was shirtless, smoking a joint and exactly as you’d imagine him. It felt like such a rock star moment. But it happened because they were massive fans of ‘Breaking Bad’ — that’s crazy.”
