Bryan Cranston is a social, curious fella so it is no surprise when he pokes his head out the door of his Beverly Hills hotel suite and looks around in search of friendly faces.  James Franco, Cranston's co-star in the the new comedy movie Why Him? and wingman for an afternoon of interviews in the suite, is late.  Cranston, on time, was probably getting a little bored waiting so came out in the hallway for a chat and within seconds had a crowd of reporters and publicists lapping up his anecdotes.  One story he told was about a beautiful, former girlfriend who had a medical condition.  Her health issue, he tells us, was a good thing for him because he was able to take advantage of it.  You see, Cranston loves to ... actually, I better not reveal the story.  I could be betraying Cranston if I told it.  And, you know, we are talking about the actor best known for his Breaking Bad role as school teacher turned meth cook extraordinaire turned psychopath.  It's best I keep it a secret.  Anyway, Franco and his cool posse of hipsters did eventually show up and it was time for the interview.  We take our seats in the suite and I remind Cranston about the girlfriend story he just told.  "Oh, the old stories are always the best," Cranston, 60, and married to second wife Robin Dearden since 1989, laughs.  "The things you learn in the hallway," I, raising my eyebrows, tell Franco.  Franco feels left out and wants to know what we are laughing about.  "What was he saying?" Franco asks.  I tell Franco it is secret.  Remember, it's Walter White the Breaking Bad psychopath revealing the secrets and we do not want to give him an opportunity to kill us.  It's also time to talk about their bawdy romantic comedy Why Him? where Cranston returns to his comedy roots (remember 2000-2006 TV sitcom Malcolm in the Middle) by playing straight-laced dad Ned Fleming who discovers his sweet, beloved daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) has hooked up at Stanford University with doofus Laird Mayhew (Franco).  The first time Ned sees Laird is during a Skype session with his daughter.  Laird appears in the background, is naked, Ned is terrified and quickly boards a flight from his mid-west home to California with wife Barb (Megan Mullally) and teenage son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) to find out what Stephanie is up to.  They discover the tattooed, always shirtless Laird is a Silicon Valley tech billionaire and as you could imagine, things do not go well.  There's a scene where Cranston is trapped on a high-tech toilet with his underpants around his ankles and Franco, within the first 30 seconds of the movie, shows off almost every centimetre of his naked body.  "I think this movie is going to do really well in Australia because we've got Bryan on the toilet and James you're naked," I tell them.  "That's big in Australia?" Franco laughs.  "He wanted to be naked all of the way through," Cranston adds.  The film's director and screenwriter is John Hamburg, whose films include Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers and Why This? treads the same uncomfortable comedy path by depicting families from different worlds being forced to come together.  Cranston is perhaps the most decorated actor the past decade with six Emmy wins for Breaking Bad, a best actor Tony Award for his Broadway debut as former US president Lyndon Johnson in All the Way and an Oscar nomination last year for playing blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in Trumbo.  He will likely get another Oscar nod next month for playing undercover Miami-based Customs agent Robert Mazur who attempted to crack Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's drug and money-laundering operation in the 1980s.  They were all serious, masterful roles, but in Why This? we see a silly Cranston in unfortunate circumstances including being trapped on a space age toilet with a violent stomach bug.  "I want to keep moving and changing," Cranston says.  "Breaking Bad was six years and enormously rewarding in many ways and changed my career and profile, but I had been getting dramatic offers strictly and then this opportunity came up, it was a big risk and I wanted to do it."  There's been plenty of laughs.  Franco never found out about Cranston's former beautiful girlfriend with the medical ailment story.  But, it's Christmas and you, dear readers, have stuck around to read this entire story so you deserve to know.  OK. Here we go ...  Cranston's former girlfriend couldn't smell so Cranston loved how he could fart in front of her and, if he was silent, she was clueless.  The story brings new meaning to Cranston and Breaking Bad.  Why Him? opens in Australia on Boxing Day.
In the new comedy Why Him? the audience sees Bryan Cranston trapped on a toilet and a heavily tattooed, whacko James Franco naked.