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Preacher Showrunner on the similarities Between Jesse Custer and Walter White

HaydnSpurrell HaydnSpurrell Preacher had, prior to AMC making it a reality, proven to be the impossible-to-adapt property, spending many years in developmental hell before finally getting picked up. And plenty of fans voiced concern about where it has been picked up.

Despite AMC being the home of The Walking Dead, many fear that this time around Preacher is just too much, and it will lead to a heavily watered down adaptation. "Where to begin" was the most challenging part, according to showrunner Sam Catlin, who is adamant that this won't be Preacher-lite.

"I'd never adapted anything before, I didn't know what the rules were. I didn't know you could change things. So when I first started reading the comic, Seth and Evan brought it to me, and I was like, "I don't know know how you make that a TV show.'"

"So how do we make a show that is a TV show but pushes all of those boundaries in a similar way that doesn't feel like 'Preacher-lite,' or 'Preacher TV.' So yeah, once we figured out a way to bring the characters together and started to realize how we could parcel out the story, once we figure out where we could start."

"Once we came up with this idea of this really sin-soaked town that needs redemption, that needs a good Preacher, it felt like that was a good place to start with it," Catlin said.

Catlin is asked to pinpoint the similarities between Breaking Bad's Walter White (having worked on that show for a number of years) and Preacher's Jesse Custer. "...I'd say Walter White makes so many things possible in terms of protagonists and we learned a lot on that show about how dark we can push a character and still have the audience be in his corner.

"And just pushing the boundaries of what's doable in a lead character. So that's one of the things that's very exciting, because Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy, and a lot of the characters, kind of really do some bad s—-. As a writer, and I'm sure for them as actors, it's always exciting to see how far you can push someone, and still not be a bad guy, you know?

"So, I learned a lot in terms of how dark you can go and still get away with it." TV is littered with antiheroes to the extent that it's hard to craft an iconic in the same vein as Walter White and even Don Draper (Mad Men). Can Jesse Custer live up to those names?

Source: Collider

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