Tuco Salamanca is one of the most recognisable face and memorable characters from Breaking
Bad. Played by Reymond Cruz, Tuco is a high-ranking member of the cartel, a drug
kingpin who is the nephew of Hector Salamanca, and the cousin of Lalo, and Marco & Leonel,
often referred to as the Salamanca twins. In season one of Breaking Bad, Walter White
and Jesse Pinkman are in search of a distributor for the crystal meth they have cooked, and they
are introduced to Tuco. From the off, Tuco is shown to be a violent and unstable psychopath.
He snorts some of the meth which Jesse presents to him, and then goes on to beat Jesse. It takes Walt
to perform a Tuco-level act of craziness, that is to blow-up Tuco’s hideout and threaten to kill
himself and Tuco, to gain Tuco’s respect, and the two agree to a distribution deal.
Tuco remains as crazy as ever though – in a subsequent junkyard deal scene, high on meth,
Tuco viciously beats his own subordinate to a pulp, even showing off his bloodied
knuckles as he celebrates the murder. Tuco later kidnaps Walt and Jesse,
and plans to take them to Mexico where they will cook 24/7. After a tense and suspenseful series of
events involving a failed poisoning attempt, a fair bit of screaming and a whole lot of
bell ringing, Tuco is killed by Walter’s brother-in-law, DEA agent Hank Schrader.
Tuco returns for Breaking Bad’s prequel show, Better Call Saul, where he is still as crazy
as ever, though ever so slightly subdue as the character has yet to become addicted to
crystal meth. His behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, and we’re told of a story in which Tuco
killed one of his closest friends by shooting him point blank in the face with a shotgun,
because he had a slight suspicion he was ripping him off. After assaulting Mike Ehrmantraut,
Tuco is sent to prison in season 2, and we later hear that he had his sentence extended
after stabbing another prisoner and assaulting a prison guard, and that’s the last we see of him.
Tuco is perhaps the perfect character – given how terrifying and insane he is – to highlight
to our protagonists Walt and Jesse in season 1 just what kind of crazy world they’ve found
themselves in by messing in the world of drugs and meth. Tuco’s scenes are among some of the
most intense of the series, as you just never know what Tuco is going to do next. In fact,
neither did the cast and crew it appears as, for example, Reymond Cruz putting out a cigarette
with his tongue was improvised and unplanned. Interestingly, Cruz studied meth addicts to
prepare for his role, and even called back to his difficult childhood for his part as
Tuco Salamanca. In an interview he spoke about his experiences growing up, saying:
I come from a long line of criminals. I have a lot of relatives that are hardcore gangbangers—18th
Street, Barrio South Gate. I have uncles that go way back to old, old Los Angeles gangs. For us,
violence was a daily occurrence. I saw someone get shot in front of me at point blank range
and die. The brains came out the back of his head. I was only 12. There was one incident
that I could relate directly to Breaking Bad and Tuco. When I was 13, the cops were called to our
neighborhood because there was a guy who was high on PCP and running around naked. He jumped
on the hood of the police car and stomped in the windshield barefoot, and he was completely manic;
so amused and enthralled by this. We were sitting on the porch watching all this. It
was this weird display of superhuman strength. There was another moment where we woke up in
the morning in East L.A. and there was just a dead guy laying in our yard. I’ll give you
another one. One time, one of our uncles came to visit in a stolen Cadillac in the ‘80s,
and he was a heroin addict from the gang Florencia 13. He was high on heroin and trying to sell us
the Cadillac. After he left our house, he drove through the neighbor’s wall, and then drove
down the street. This is what I’m talking about. For his role as Tuco, Cruz fully immersed himself
into the mindset of his character in order to deliver an authentic performance. He said:
I’ve never looked at Tuco as being a bad guy. I’ve always seen him as the hero of his own story,
and someone who has to defend what he’s fighting for, and who will go to any length to protect what
he needs to protect. Jimmy’s able to reason with him in the desert because he’s able to
appeal to his sense of justice. The way that Tuco looks at things is fair. The thing that happens
later on in Breaking Bad is he gets affected by the blue meth, and the drugs completely
distort his perception of things, so the drug heightens his emotions. But normally he has a
huge heart. He’s like a ferocious pit bull, and you have to be careful when you cross his path.
Interestingly, for being such a memorable aspect of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Reymond
Cruz actually wanted to be killed off the show, citing the fact that he found the role exhausting
to play, especially since he was a regular on the show The Closer, and was shooting the two shows
simultaneously, often flying out on weekends to film his Breaking Bad gig and then back again for
his role as a detective on The Closer. I asked them to kill me. Honestly,
I wasn’t looking forward to coming back and doing the part – he said - It’s really difficult to
pull off. They were like, ‘We want you to come back and do eight more episodes.’ And I said,
‘No. I’ll do one more and that’s it. You guys have to kill me.’ They’re like, ‘We never heard of an
actor that wanted to die.’ And I’m like, ‘You don’t understand. This part’s really hard.’”
Curz has spoken about the difficulties of playing Tuco on Breaking Bad, saying:
In the first few episodes I did I would hurt my voice. I’d get injured every time I did it. I
almost broke my nose. I pulled muscles. You walk away and you’re damaged goods. And you go, “Oh
man, I can’t imagine doing this week after week.” Then I’d go back — I’d fly to Albuquerque at night
and shoot on Saturday and Sunday. Then I’d go back and shoot The Closer and then come back to shoot
Breaking Bad. It was relentless. Then when you’re not shooting you’re studying for the next day.
What you’re watching is condensed. That’s days and days of shooting scenes for 12 to
14 hours. It’s a lot of hard work. It’s so physically, emotionally, mentally draining,
so when they finally killed him, I was happy. There’s nothing fun about it. It’s a great
character, but to try to pull it off is really difficult. It’s really high-energy.
It’s relentless. It’s very physical and it wears you out. You get very drained.
Still though, Cruz was happy how Tuco was killed off:
“I love how they did it,” the actor said, “Some people are hard to kill. I think it would be
really hard to kill this character if you just didn’t do it violently and swiftly. The shootout
was pretty big and it was a good direct hit. He was willing to face it and he knew it was coming.”
So it’s all very interesting when you think about it. Breaking Bad’s writers actually had
a much larger part envisioned for Tuco, with him supposed to be a major player of season 2. But
with Cruz finding it challenging playing such a boisterous role on top of his part in The Closer,
they found a way to write him out of the story in dramatic fashion. I mean he was in his late
40s in the early days of Breaking Bad; it can’t have been easy to play a demanding role like Tuco
on top of filming another show. I wonder if Cruz would have made an effort to stay on for longer
had he known what a lasting impact Breaking Bad would have had. After all, it is thought
that it wasn’t until season 4, when Breaking Bad was added to Netflix, that the show really
blew up. But I’m sure Cruz doesn’t mind, and is happy to have his role the way it in the show.
Cruz also did say he liked playing the part and of course came back for Better Call Saul.
So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you would like to see more on Breaking Bad
and Better Call Saul, consider subscribing to the channel, and thanks for watching.