Bryan Cranston on Isle of Dogs

Since his debut film, Bottle Rocket in 1996, Wes Anderson has been amassing the most eclectic ensemble of actors since the heyday of Robert Altman. Many of them turn up voicing canines in his latest stop motion animation Isle of Dogs, including Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Edward Norton and the talismanic Bill Murray. It’s a supporting cast of old friends. But for the film’s lead dog, Chief, the alpha of the pack, Anderson required a bit more grit than the likes of Goldblum or Murray could provide. Enter Bryan Cranston, whose gravelly, soulful voice was the ideal fit for this four-legged, tick-infested mutt. The 62-year-old actor agrees he was perfect for the role. 

“I have a habit of playing damaged characters,” he tells us. “I relate to them.”

We ask why that is? “Because I am one,” he says frankly. “I come from a busted-up home that was filled with alcoholism and physical abuse, and that didn’t become aware to me until I was like ten or 11, so it turned me into an introvert. I was very shy, very unsure of myself, very insecure about what to do with my life. My whole personality was like a turtle, and I went into the shell. So I had anger issues and resentment, insecurities. I think part of the reason I love to act so much is that it creates opportunities to live through that pain again vicariously and have a cathartic experience and therapeutic experience in my work.”

Cranston is certainly a scrapper, and his success has been hard earned. Start watching some reruns of any old US TV shows from the 80s and 90s and before long you’ll come across him in some bit part or another. He crops up in everything from Airwolf to Baywatch, Murder, She Wrote to The X-Files. For the first two decades of his career, his most substantial role was his five appearances in Seinfeld as sleazeball dentist Tim Whatley. His first major success would come two decades into his acting career, playing Hal, the hapless father of three unruly boys in Malcolm in the Middle.

So protean is Cranston that when that much-loved teen sitcom came to an end he was soon back in gainful employment in HBO crime drama Breaking Bad playing Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth to provide for his family’s future after learning he has terminal cancer. Over five series his character transformed from a meek everyman to the kingpin of New Mexico’s drug trade, winning Cranston four Emmys along the way. Breaking Bad ended in 2013 and the actor hasn’t been out of work since, starring in blockbusters (Godzilla), prestige dramas (Trumbo) and raunchy comedies (Why Him?). You’d struggle to name a more versatile actor.

“Part of that is just how I look,” he says. “I’m not short or bald or exceedingly tall. I’m kind of average height, average weight, so I can adjust, grow hair, darken my hair, shave my head, gain some weight, lose some weight, and I can kind of hide. For an actor, that’s perfect.”

He’s certainly hiding in Anderson’s stop-motion adventure, but you recognise that voice in a second. Cranston accepted the role of Chief before even knowing anything about the part (“when my agent said, ‘Wes Anderson would like…, I was like, ‘YES!’”), but when he actually got around to reading Isle of Dogs' script he was attracted to its political dimension as well as its wry dialogue. Set in a future Japan, it follows a pack of dogs who’ve been exiled, along with the rest of their species, to an island trash dump by a corrupt politician with a hatred for facts, science and the free press – sound like anyone you know?

“There are so many social and political stories going on in Wes’s story,” says Cranston. “Xenophobia, greed, scaremongering, immigration issues, segregation. My country is going through turmoil right now. We’re going through a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and anger, and I think this is going to resonate with a lot of Americans, but I also think that it has something to say internationally. No matter where you are in the globe, I think you’re going to be able to recognise certain leaders.”

If there’s a message we can take away from Isle of Dogs, says Cranston, it’s, well, to be more like dogs. “I love dogs. Dogs are the best. All they want is love, and play, and to be walked. A dog doesn’t care if its owned by a wealthy person or a homeless person, as long as they’re loved. In the simplest form, if human beings were more like dogs, the world would be a much better place.”

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Isle of Dogs is released on DVD and Blu-ray on 6 Aug by 20th Century Fox