{"id":396985,"date":"2026-07-13T20:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/396985\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T20:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T20:45:12","slug":"sugar-boss-sam-catlin-on-taking-breaking-bad-universe-to-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/396985\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Sugar’ Boss Sam Catlin on Taking ‘Breaking Bad’ Universe to LA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRemember Jonathan Banks\u2019 famous Breaking Bad<\/a> monologue<\/a> that concluded with his character Mike Ehrmantraut turning the phrase, \u201cNo more half measures, Walter\u201d? That was the handiwork of writer-producer Sam Catlin<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe two-time Emmy winner penned 10 episodes of Vince Gilligan<\/a>\u2019s landmark crime series before staying with Sony\/AMC to shepherd four seasons of the genre-bending Preacher. A few years later, Catlin would be recruited by the now former Sony executives he\u2019d worked with during his Breaking Bad tenure to help stick the landing of Apple TV\u2019s Sugar<\/a> season one. That same year, Apple TV\u2019s co-heads of programming, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, reunited with even more talent from the Bad universe they helped launch including: Gilligan (Pluribus), Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus), director\/EP Michelle MacLaren (Constellation) and Banks (Constellation).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn season one of the Colin Farrell<\/a>-led neo-noir series, Los Angeles PI\/undercover alien, John Sugar, helps a legendary film producer (James Cromwell\u2019s Jonathan Siegel) find his missing granddaughter. With Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul<\/a> casting directors Sharon Bialy and Sherry Thomas in charge of Sugar\u2019s casting, Emmy winner Anna Gunn<\/a> marked yet another familiar face, as did Catlin\u2019s wife, Julie Dretzin, who previously played the divorce attorney for Gunn\u2019s embattled Bad character, Skyler White.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn season two, Sugar steps up to track down a Korean boxer\u2019s missing older brother, all while unearthing a larger city-wide conspiracy in the process. With Catlin officially taking over as showrunner on this go-round, he doubled down on the Bad universe, adding Saul\u2019s standout villain, Tony Dalton<\/a>, as well as directors Adam Bernstein and Michael Morris<\/a>, DP Marshall Adams and several other behind-the-scenes players. (Preacher, which actually employed Morris before Saul, shot a large chunk of its series in Walter White\u2019s backyard of Albuquerque, New Mexico. So, on top of locational Easter eggs for Bad, Catlin enlisted several other Gilligan-verse alums for that show too.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEverything I know or hope to know about running a television show is from those five seasons working on Breaking Bad. So whenever someone from Vince\u2019s world is available, I just try to emulate him,\u201d Catlin tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Sugar season two. \u201cI steal and pillage from their cast and crew as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDalton will elaborate to THR in the coming weeks, but when he received the offer to play Sugar season two\u2019s corrupt sheriff character, Ray Vega, he called his Saul friend and castmate, Banks, for advice. As soon as the latter heard Catlin\u2019s name, he extolled the virtues of his writing and the aforementioned speech from Breaking Bad season three\u2019s \u201cHalf Measures.\u201d Dalton immediately accepted the part after their call.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a conversation with THR, Catlin discusses how refreshing it is to be writing a genuine hero after a decade-plus of antiheroes, plus Sugar\u2019s honest portrayal of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tDid [heads of worldwide video programming] Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht bring you over to Apple like they have almost every other person who\u2019s associated with Breaking Bad?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) Pretty much, yeah. And [former Apple TV creative exec] Chris Parnell. An innumerable number of people who were at Sony back in the day came over to Apple. [Writer\u2019s Note: During their tenures at Sony, Erlicht and Van Amburg were the first two executives to say yes to producing Breaking Bad.]<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tColin Farrell<\/a> as John Sugar in Sugar.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tI find it so interesting that you\u2019re running a show about an alien who\u2019s learned to be human by watching classic movies because you were known in the Breaking Bad room for not having a fondness for old movies, pre-The Godfather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t(Laughs.) It\u2019s my punishment!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHas this job changed your previous perspective at all?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt has. It really has. I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m a cinephile now, but it\u2019s definitely made me appreciate the context in which these movies came out. I\u2019ve now watched at least 50 movies before The Godfather as research for this show.<\/p>\n

\n\tVince Gilligan<\/a> has talked a lot about how he finds it important to write good guys right now, especially after devoting 15 years to antiheroes. You also followed up Breaking Bad with Preacher, which had plenty of its own dastardly characters. Thus, has the goodness of John Sugar been a welcomed left turn for you as well?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAbsolutely. That\u2019s one of the things that works about the show and is sort of surprising. He has skeletons in his closet and can slide into violence, but he is decent. He is a hero. He is a good guy, and his integrity is what sets him apart. So I think that\u2019s what people like about the show. It makes the show feel old-fashioned and nostalgic in a way.<\/p>\n

\n\tSugar is an alien who\u2019s more human than most humans, and he\u2019s often so perplexed by how we treat each other. He\u2019s not desensitized to the many daily horrors that barely register with most of us. Has it been interesting to put yourself in the headspace of an alien and remind yourself of everything we\u2019ve turned a blind eye to over the years?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s interesting what you\u2019re saying. I\u2019ve never thought of it that way before. He fell in love with the 1940s human being from the movies he watched. It was a much simpler time, but not necessarily a less real depiction of what humanity could be. And here he is, in the 2020s, dealing with complexities, contradictions, distractions and insularity. In science fiction movies like Starman or E.T., the alien somehow teaches you to appreciate what you have in a way that you weren\u2019t able to before. So I think this show does that in a very different way, but hopefully just as effectively.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs showrunner in season two, is more humor the main ingredient you added?<\/p>\n

\n\tI hope so. My job was to continue everything that was working in season one and expand the show by giving it momentum and scope like you would in any season two. We definitely were on the lookout for more opportunities to add humor, not cynical humor or my typical humor, which is knowing humor. Sugar is not knowing in that same way. He\u2019s not a rube, but there\u2019s nothing sneering about Sugar. So it was about trying to find humor in a way that didn\u2019t make him cynical.<\/p>\n

\n\tI spoke to Anna Gunn<\/a> for season one, and we talked a lot about the common threads between Sugar and the Breaking Bad universe: Bialy\/Thomas casting, actor Dennis Boutsikaris and Skyler White\u2019s divorce attorney, played by Julie Dretzin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s my wife!<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed. Season two has even more folks in front of and behind the camera: Tony Dalton, directors Michael Morris and Adam Bernstein, DP Marshall Adams, camera operator Matt Credle, writer Jonny Gomez and editor Trevor Baker. How much of this extended family reunion was by design?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ve been lucky enough to have a long career, but I\u2019ve had a narrow experience in the sense that I haven\u2019t worked with a lot of different people. I pretty much started out on Breaking Bad, and I loved all of those people. They\u2019re all such excellent artists.. Everything I know or hope to know about running a television show is from those five seasons working on Breaking Bad. So whenever someone from Vince\u2019s world is available, I just try to emulate him as much as I can and take it from there.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTony Dalton as Ray Vega in Sugar.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tTony\u2019s performance as Lalo on Better Call Saul clearly landed him his villain role on Sugar season two. You were in the Breaking Bad season two writers room when the name Lalo was designated for an off-screen character that Saul Goodman is deathly afraid of<\/a>. Were you pretty amazed by what Tony and co. created out of a couple throwaway lines from a decade earlier?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat whole operation blew me away. I knew the Breaking Bad story very well, but [Better Call Saul] didn\u2019t make sense to me on the page. I just didn\u2019t understand the concept of it. But I also knew that Vince and Peter were meticulous. They weren\u2019t going to cheat, and they didn\u2019t cheat. They made another great show, so I steal and pillage from their cast and crew as much as I can.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo you knew Saul would be good, but you were surprised it turned out to be that good?<\/p>\n

\n\tI knew it would be good because Vince and Peter were doing it, but I was surprised by it. I was surprised by the idea. I\u2019m wrong about most everything. So I was a huge [fan]. That\u2019s why I asked Tony Dalton and all those other people if they were available. [The Saul and Bad team] are the very best television producers in Hollywood as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

\n\tSugar season one was recontextualized by the massive twist that John is actually an alien. There are a couple cool twists in season two as well, but I respect that you didn\u2019t try to one-up the season one twist in another macro way. Did you realize early on that there\u2019s no topping that level of bombshell?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, suspense is usually better than surprise. Give the information to the audience, and then let it percolate. After a short while, those types of surprises and turns kind of suck. You can very often feel that the narrative is constructed to make them land, and it\u2019s very often at the expense of the organic evolution of the character, which is really what should always be the priority.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tColin Farrell as John Sugar in Sugar.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tPost-twist, the second season could\u2019ve easily leaned more into sci-fi, but you kept the story grounded by actually dealing with real problems in L.A. such as homelessness and fentanyl. Did it just make sense to include those real-life issues since you\u2019re already dealing with real-life pop culture?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter season one, I never looked at this show as Sugar globe-hopping and trying to find out what happened to his sister. To me, what resonated most in season one \u2014\u00a0other than the tone of the music and Colin\u2019s performance \u2014\u00a0was the nostalgic noir detective show set in Los Angeles. My introduction to the detective genre was through the \u201970s noir shows set in Los Angeles. How I first saw Los Angeles on TV was probably through those detective shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo in terms of season two, we still wanted him to be a private investigator who\u2019s trying to help people that need his help. The mystery of his sister is still something that\u2019s festering, but he\u2019s tied to this idea of himself as a PI. It\u2019s very important that he cling to that and help other people find the missing.<\/p>\n

\n\tI guess what I\u2019m asking is whether you wrote the show with a newspaper in front of you.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, but there were certain things that came up about the wider conspiracy. There was some stuff not in L.A., but in outlying communities where this incredibly dire human calculation is certainly considered. There\u2019s a schizophrenia about Los Angeles. It\u2019s very progressive and very permissive. It\u2019s the land of dreams and palm trees, but there\u2019s also this part that people are scared of. There\u2019s poverty and homelessness, and so it feels like those things could be in conflict in a way, creating political decisions that could be pretty cynical and terrifying. There\u2019s an inherent hypocrisy about enjoying being a Los Angeleno. And that contradiction is the darkest part of human nature that Sugar is a witness to by the end of the season. It\u2019s like, God, this is what society will do to the least seen just for aesthetic convenience.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tColin Farrell as John Sugar in Sugar<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApple TV+<\/p>\n

\n\tSugar is obviously one of the few shows that shoots in Los Angeles. Could you sense how much the local crews appreciated one of these all-too-rare opportunities to film in L.A.?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, we started production just a couple of months after the [2025] fires, and there was definitely an \u201cL.A. strong\u201d kind of feeling. There was a lot of camaraderie around that. It wasn\u2019t just the fires. After the strikes and industry contraction, people were really happy, myself included, to have a place to work. We got to work in Hollywood and tell this Hollywood story. It felt like we were dancing between the raindrops.<\/p>\n

\n\t***
Sugar is currently airing new episodes every Friday on Apple TV until Aug 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remember Jonathan Banks\u2019 famous Breaking Bad monologue that concluded with his character Mike Ehrmantraut turning the phrase, \u201cNo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159500,159501,79449,48,52,51,47,50,49,159502,57829,159503],"class_list":["post-396985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-better-call-saul","tag-breaking-bad","tag-colin-farrell","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-sam-catlin","tag-sugar","tag-vince-gilligan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}