Bryan Cranston Reveals Why He Missed Accepting His Guest Actor Emmy in Person

Bryan Cranston won the Emmy Award for best guest actor in a comedy for his role as Griffin Mill in The Studio at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, but he wasn’t on hand to accept his prize.

On Wednesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! he revealed where he was and host Jimmy Kimmel gave him a chance to relive the awards experience.

“I was at a wedding in Minnesota,” Cranston explained of why he wasn’t at the ceremony that was held on Saturday, noting that he was “celebrating that” because the nuptials had been “planned for a long time.”

He then revealed how he found out that he was the award. “The bride’s mom … came over and said, ‘You won,’” Cranston recalled. “And at first, I looked down at my plate and I said, ‘Taking the most food?’” After the bride’s mother clarified that he won the Emmy, he admitted that the news “left my mind.”

“I’m thinking, if an Emmy Awards is not televised, did you really win?” he asked Kimmel before the host told him to take a seat in the crowd so that he could announce him as the winner.

Cranston sat between two audience members as Kimmel read off the nominees and winner. The actor then animatedly cheered and hugged a woman sitting next to him before he made his way to the stage to accept the award. Kimmel’s sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez handed Cranston the trophy and he said, “This is like the real thing.”

Cranston closed his eyes and said “OK” several times before he began, “The person I really need to say thank you …” However, he was cut off by the music before he could give an actual speech.

The actor’s latest Emmy for The Studio marks his seventh win. His first six awards were all for his role as Walter White on Breaking Bad, which aired on AMC from 2008 until 2013. Cranston beat out The Studio‘s Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Dave Franco and Anthony Mackie and The Bear‘s Jon Bernthal for the best guest actor in a comedy series award this year.

Also during his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Cranston opened up about playing a character who was tripping on mushrooms on The Studio. While Kimmel praised him for the convincing performance, Cranston admitted he never tried mushrooms before he filmed the Apple TV+ show.

“So I’m playing this character who is wiped out, and I had never had any experience in that,” he said of taking the drug, admitting that he “didn’t know how to behave.”

Cranston then asked co-stars Seth Rogen and Ike Barinholtz for advice on how to start taking mushrooms and he was advised to micro-dose. “We were in Las Vegas shooting this crazy show with Seth Rogen and we all decided to go to The Sphere to see the Grateful Dead. If God wasn’t telling me to do microdosing, what was he telling me?” he jokingly asked.

He explained that both he and co-star Catherine O’Hara were “nervous” to try mushrooms, though Barinholtz promised to take care of them. “He gave us these little thin, square chocolates,” Cranston recalled, adding that he felt “nothing” after he took it. “It felt like maybe I took three sips of wine. It was nothing.”