Bryan Cranston explains why he’s planning to retire from acting in 2026: ‘It’s about taking a chance’

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Frankie Muniz has joined the star-studded cast of VH1s reality TV series The Surreal Life. The former child actor got candid about a possible Malcolm in the Middle reboot with co-star Bryan Cranston.

After leading a decades-long career in Hollywood, Bryan Cranston plans to retire from acting in 2026.

The actor revealed his three-year exit plan to British GQ for their June cover story. The 67-year-old is going to shut down his production company, sell his half of mezcal company Dos Hombres and head off to a new country alongside his spouse - that is the goal.

France has been brought up as a possible place to call home for at least six months. Cranston has big dreams of a small village where they can learn a new language, cook, read and grow a garden together.

The "Breaking Bad" star admitted he wanted to devote more time to his wife of 34 years, Robin Dearden. The couple said "I do" in 1989.

Bryan Cranston has already created his exit plan from Hollywood. (ZOULERAH NORDDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

"I want to change the paradigm once again," Cranston told the outlet. "For the last 24 years, Robin has led her life holding onto my tail. She’s been the plus one, she’s been the wife of a celebrity. She’s had to pivot and adjust her life based on mine. She has tremendous benefit from it, but we’re uneven. I want to level that out. She deserves it."

Cranston described how the idea of slowing down together excited him.

"I want to have that experience," he shared. "I want to go for day trips and have the fire in the fireplace and drink wine with new friends and not read scripts. It’s not going to be like, ‘Oh, I’ll read and see what I’m going to do.’ No, it’s a pause. It’s a stop. I won’t be thinking about [work]. I’m not going to be taking phone calls."

The actor noted that he and his wife "have been going to therapy together since before we were married."

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Bryan Cranston and Robin Dearden have been married for 34 years. (Mathew Imaging/WireImage)

"I don’t want the obstacle in my real life," he said. "You want to be obstacle-free in real life. But it takes work to notice when an obstacle is forming."

"I look at it like the warning light going off on your dashboard," he said about going to therapy. "It’s telling you, ‘You might want to pay attention to this.’ I love my wife, and we want to go the distance, but I want to do it in a healthy way. I don’t want to just be with her. I don’t want to just have the two of us go into a restaurant and no one says a word."

Bryan Cranston and Robin Dearden attend the "Asteroid City" red carpet during the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 23, 2023, in Cannes, France. ( Gisela Schober/Getty Images)

Cranston looked back on his life. According to the outlet, his father was an aspiring but "failed" star. The patriarch left Cranston’s mother for another woman when Cranston was just 11 years old. The family’s Los Angeles home was foreclosed, and Cranston’s mother suffered from alcoholism. The matriarch married twice before she later passed away from Alzheimer’s.

The outlet described how after his parents’ breakup, Cranston was sent away to live with his grandparents. After he moved back in with his mother, he took odd jobs like working for a house painter.

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Bryan Cranston seen here in 1983. It was around this time that the actor began pursuing an acting career. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

Later in the 1980s, Cranston immersed himself in acting, taking ad work and participating in weekly classes with Los Angeles improv coach Harvey Lembeck, who originally had Robin Williams as a student. After 10 years of estrangement, Cranston reconciled with his father, but as Cranston starred in "Malcolm in the Middle," his father began asking for loans, ones that would never be repaid, the outlet shared. Cranston’s father died in 2014.

The star’s daughter, Taylor, has pursued an acting career. However, she has declined her father’s help, eager to make her own mark.

"She’s very independent," he explained. "And very conscientious of not having any association or hint thereof of nepotism."

Actor-director Bryan Cranston, middle, poses with his wife Robin Dearden, right, and daughter Taylor Dearden Cranston as he is honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 16, 2013, in Hollywood, California. (Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

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As Cranston looks to the future, one thing is certain for him.

"It’s about taking a chance," he told the outlet. "I’m used to that feeling – of not knowing."