Vince Gilligan said Pluribus began with a simple creative shift: after years of building stories around antiheroes, he wanted to write someone trying to do the right thing. Speaking during a SXSW panel, the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator said he had spent the last two decades writing characters who were compelling but not exactly admirable. With Pluribus , he said, he wanted to move in a different direction. “I was ready after 20 years for a good guy, or a good woman — a hero,” Gilligan said. He framed the change in direct contrast to the men who defined much of his career. Walter White may be one of television’s most memorable characters, Gilligan said, but he’s not someone the writer would actually want to spend time with. “Walter White, who, I mean, played brilliantly by Bryan Cranston, but Walter White? I don’t want to hang with Walter White,” Gilligan said. He said Saul Goodman is more likable on the surface, but not fundamentally different. “Saul Goodman? I’d probably want to have a beer with him, but he’s not a great guy,” Gilligan said. “These are not people to root for, for the most part.” By contrast, Gilligan said the lead character in Pluribus , Carol, gave him the chance to write someone whose instincts point in a different direction. He made clear she is not meant to be perfect or simplistic. Still, he said, her motivation is different from the morally compromised leads he has written before. “She’s not an old-fashioned hero because she’s got some rough edges,” Gilligan said. “But she’s trying to save the world. She’s trying to do the right thing. I found that refreshing.” Gilligan said it had been a long time since he had written a character from that angle. He pointed back to his years writing for The X-Files , where the heroes were defined less by moral collapse than by their effort to stop what was wrong. “I hadn’t done that in 20-some years,” Gilligan said. “I got to do it for seven years on The X-Files … and they’re good guys. They’re heroes who are trying to save the world.” During the panel, Gilligan also pushed back on the idea that every show begins with a fully formed thesis. Recalling a conversation with filmmaker Michael Mann, he said he once asked what a project was really trying to say. Mann’s answer, Gilligan said, was to focus less on message and more on whether the story works. “We just have to tell a good story,” Gilligan said, paraphrasing Mann. “We have to tell a story about characters and the things they do, the interesting obstacles they face and the way they surmount them or don’t.” Even so, Gilligan said his interest in writing a more openly heroic lead was not disconnected from the broader culture. After years of antiheroes dominating television, he said he now finds himself drawn to a different kind of character. “I think we need more good guys in the world,” Gilligan said. “I think we, in real life, we need more.” He added that he has at least considered whether the popularity of antihero stories has had wider cultural effects. “Maybe I’m part of the problem,” Gilligan said. “If picture shows helped in any way to motivate or excuse bad behavior in the real world, in any small, infinitesimal little way, if the era of antiheroes helped to smooth the passage of the real-life ones, then I’m part of that.”
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