Breaking Bad’s Charles Baker Worked Hard On The Piano Scene But Most Of It Got Cut – Looper

Despite running with a crew of crass, lowlife drug dealers, fan favorite Skinny Pete proved to be a much deeper character than the rest of his cohorts (particularly in his tear-jerking cameo during “El Camino”). This is especially evident in Season 5 Episode 3, when Badger, Skinny Pete, and Jesse visit a guitar shop, only for Skinny Pete to end up on a classical piano playing a beautiful piece of music nobody would’ve ever expected him to know.

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actor Charles Baker revealed that he prepared religiously for this sequence and was somewhat disappointed at the small amount of music they used in the final cut. “I spent three hours a day working on that song … I was playing it every day to try and make sure I could get that one hard part. Where the fingers overlap,” explained Baker. “And so I learned how to play it, got it down, and showed up to the shoot … and I started the song. And then they went, ‘Cut,’ and I’m like, ‘I only made it through the first section.’ ‘That’s all we need.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish I would have started in a different place.'”

Knowing that Baker had prepared so thoroughly for this performance (and even mastered a tricky bit of finger movement) only for most of the song to be cut is certainly very frustrating, though Baker went on to explain that you can still hear the “hard part” on the scene’s blooper reel. Though the scene remains a defining moment for Skinny Pete’s character, it’s still very impressive to learn that he was actually playing the “easy part” in that scene.