Anna Gunn

Anna Gunn plays Skyler White in Breaking Bad. She gives the domestic side of the story the same seriousness as its criminal business. A careful question, a pause or a look at Walter can make a scene uncomfortable without raising the volume.

Gunn grew up in Santa Fe and studied theatre at Northwestern University. Her screen career includes Jean Ward in The Practice and Martha Bullock in Deadwood. Martha's controlled manner offers a different kind of performance from Skyler's more immediate domestic pressures, but both depend on Gunn making thought visible without explaining it aloud.

Breaking Bad brought her two supporting-actress drama Emmys. The role asks her to play somebody responding to another person's increasingly difficult behaviour while retaining a life and point of view of her own. Her scenes opposite Bryan Cranston work because neither actor treats the conversation as merely a pause between larger events.

After the series, she starred opposite David Tennant in Gracepoint, playing detective Ellie Miller. Her film work includes the financial drama Equity, in which she plays investment banker Naomi Bishop, and The Apology. Gunn is particularly convincing when a character is trying to maintain composure while deciding how much of what she thinks can safely be said.