Bryan Cranston, 70, never tires of hearing positive things about his daughter Taylor Dearden’s performance HBO’s Emmy-winning medical show The Pitt.
Dearden, 33, plays Dr. “Mel” King, a second-year resident in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center ER. During his Thursday appearance on The Late Show, Cranston said he’s noticed that his daughter takes her role to heart, after a family vacation nearly turned into a medical emergency for a nearby stranger.
“There was a man in a restaurant who was choking. And my wife and I went, I was like, ‘That guy, I think... I think he’s choking,’” Cranston recalled.
“And Taylor was up and running toward him—running right toward him,” he said, playing it out in humorous “slow motion.”
The moment made him and his wife very proud, even though Dearden didn’t have to use any medical expertise. “Just as she’s getting to him, he caught his breath, and he started breathing,” he continued. Dearden comforted the man in the aftermath, however. “We’re going, ‘My god, we finally have a doctor in the family,” he said proudly.
The Breaking Bad star, while promoting the Malcolm in the Middle revival, Life is Still Unfair, has enjoyed being asked about his daughter’s critically acclaimed performance. He told Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday, “Anytime your child is praised for anything, even a little moment of kindness, it just lifts a parent up. And she’s so good! On a great show.”
When asked whether he “exchanges notes” with his daughter, Cranston said that’s not the role he’d like to play. “I like to stay her dad,” he said.
Dearden is Cranston’s only child with his wife, Robin Dearden.
“She is more advanced in her ability now at the age of 33 than I was. And she’s doing some amazing work. And so I’d rather just stay her dad and be the cheerleader.”
