Trivia / El Camino

• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Larry Hankin had retired from acting after the conclusion of Breaking Bad, but he quickly chose to come back to reprise his role as Old Joe due to his love for the character.
  • Krysten Ritter immediately signed on to reprise her role as Jane Margolis after reading the script.
  • Charles Baker had long wanted to return as Skinny Pete within the Breaking Bad franchise. Though he initially expected to come back for Better Call Saul, he was more than happy to come back for this project.
  • According to Aaron Paul, Robert Forster's family believe that he had held on as long as he did in order to do this film, passing away only hours after calling Aaron after seeing the finished movie.
• Billing Displacement: Krysten Ritter appears in a short flashback toward the end of the film, but is given third billing.
• Dawson Casting: Aaron Paul, who was 39 when the film was shot, plays 26-year-old Jesse Pinkman. Given the absolute hell Jesse went through toward the end of Breaking Bad, him looking older than his actual age is actually understandable.
• Development Gag: The location of the former Los Pollos Hermanos flagship restaurant is shown to have become a Twisters. Twisters is a real restaurant in Albuquerque that was used as the set of Los Pollos Hermanos during Breaking Bad’s production.
• Focus Group Ending: Vince Gilligan stated he had an alternate ending in mind where Jesse would save someone who is introduced in the film, but it would lead to his arrest by the Canadian border patrol, albeit with him accepting his fate. Gilligan admits that almost everyone he pitched this to stated that “people would riot” if Jesse didn’t go free.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • Skinny Pete is arrested and interrogated off-screen, and the trailer footage of the interrogation is not shown in the film itself.
  • Likewise, the second teaser shows a shaved Jesse sitting in the El Camino listening to the radio at night, which isn't in the movie and doesn't chronologically fit with the plot (Jesse is forced to abandon the El Camino on the same morning he shaves himself, and drives Badger's Pontiac Fiero for the rest of the movie).
• Posthumous Credit: Robert Forster ended up dying of brain cancer the day this film was released, meaning his credit as Ed Galbraith would be the first time Forster would be this. He'd later be posthumously credited as Galbraith in Better Call Saul as well, as his brief scene in that series was shot during the filming of this movie. Thankfully, Forster was able to watch the movie when it released and called Aaron Paul to talk about how well it turned out - and passed away hours later.
• Role Reprise: Several actors reprise their characters from Breaking Bad to help wrap up Jesse Pinkman's story in this film. Aside from Aaron Paul as the main character, we also have Matt Jones and Charles Baker return as Badger and Skinny Pete, Kevin Rankin as Kenny, Larry Hankin as Old Joe, and Robert Forster as Ed Galbraith. Bryan Cranston and Jesse Plemons appear in flashbacks as Walter White and Todd Alquist respectively, and Krysten Ritter makes a cameo appearance as Jane Margolis as a hallucination of Jesse's near the end of the film.
• Similarly Named Works: El Camino by The Black Keys has nothing to do with this film.
• Spoiled by the Cast List: Deliberately averted. Netflix only lists Aaron Paul on the page for the movie.
• Trolling Creator: The news report on the massacre of Jack's gang teases the fan theory that Lydia was able to get to a hospital and survive the ricin poisoning, before revealing they still couldn't do anything to help her.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Vince Gilligan stated he had an alternate ending in mind where Jesse would save someone who is introduced in the film, but it would lead to his arrest by the Canadian border patrol, albeit with him accepting his fate. Gilligan admits that almost everyone he pitched this to stated that “people would riot” if Jesse didn’t go free.
  • Uncle Jack was considered to appear as a "ghost", with one given example having him sit next to Jesse in a car and taunting him how he'll never make it. He of course would have been just one of Jesse's hallucinations, but a particulary stubborn one that would persist even if Jesse refused to look.
  • Gilligan considered to bring back several Breaking Bad characters in the film, namely Skyler White, Walter Jr., Hank and Marie Schrader, Gustavo Fring and Saul Goodman, but ultimately desisted due to feeling that the film should include only the most important people in Jesse's life. While Saul was one of those, Gilligan opted out his inclusion due to not being aware of Peter Gould's plans for the character in Better Call Saul.
  • The hookers at Neil Kandy's factory were originally going to strip naked at one point, but the executives requested the scene be removed due to the movie getting too long, and because they felt too perverted for their taste.
• Word of God: Vince Gilligan had mentioned that Jesse would go on to start fresh in a wood shop. Of course, how he got there is the point of El Camino, much less the ending which shows the fresh start is in Alaska.
• Working Title: Greenbrier.

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