Born with cerebral palsy, RJ Mitte grew up wearing leg braces and facing relentless bullying, experiences that introduced him to adversity from an early age.
But one of the biggest challenges he encountered as an adult was building an acting career that matched the fame he found on Breaking Bad, the acclaimed television drama that aired from 2008 to 2013.
Mitte, who was also a prominent disability campaigner, played Flynn, the troubled and long-suffering son of Bryan Cranston’s character Walter White—the chemistry teacher who becomes a powerful drug kingpin. He frequently criticized Hollywood’s fixation on physical perfection.
According to revelations made on Tuesday, he had also privately voiced frustration over losing acting opportunities to able-bodied performers whom casting directors preferred for the roles.
His death at the age of 34 on Monday at his home in Brownsville, Texas, has prompted widespread grief and renewed discussion within the entertainment industry about representation and its values.
Emergency responders were reportedly sent to his home at 12.50pm. He was pronounced dead approximately 40 minutes later.
Officials confirmed that Mitte, whose neurological condition can affect movement, muscle control, posture and balance, had died by suicide. No further details were released.
In an emotional tribute posted on Instagram, Cranston said he was in “deep despair” following the unexpected death of his “sweet son.”
Actor RJ Mitte was found dead at his Texas home on Monday in what officials described as a suicide
Mitte played Walter White Jr alongside Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn in the hit series Breaking Bad
Cranston said he first met Mitte after being cast as his television father when the young actor was 14.
Producers had initially considered killing off Walter White Jr early in the story, but the character remained part of Breaking Bad throughout all five seasons.
“Born with cerebral palsy, he never—ever—allowed that challenge to become an excuse for anything,” Cranston said.
“He faced the demanding production schedule with remarkable determination.”
Cranston recalled that Mitte was “pretty raw” when filming began in 2007.
As a teenager, he would sometimes “mischievously” disregard guidance from his on-screen parents, Cranston and Anna Gunn, meaning he occasionally had to “learn the hard way.”
Cranston also revealed that he and Mitte had exchanged text messages just weeks earlier while trying to arrange a lunch meeting.
“I don’t know if that lunch would have changed his future… but I do know that I loved him,” he wrote.
Mitte became engaged only a year ago, proposing to his girlfriend of five years, Kennedy Suarez, on her 30th birthday.
His most recent social media post about Suarez, who works in corporate human resources, came in February, when he wished her a happy Valentine’s Day.
The status of their relationship since then is not clear, although according to some reports they were living together in the home where he took his life.
Cranston said after Mitte’s suicide that the two had been arranging just weeks previously to meet for lunch
Mitte pictured last year. He had taken roles in horror and independent films but complained of missing out on parts which directors wanted to give to able-bodied actors
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Just a week before his death, Mitte gave what appears to have been his final interview and told The Joe Vulpis podcast: ‘I live life to the fullest… I always try. I have a very finite amount of time.’
Mitte’s acting career hardly dried up after Breaking Bad finished, although, as Cranston acknowledged, it never again matched the high-wattage stardom he achieved in the acclaimed series.
He appeared in a string of films and TV shows, playing Mind Master in Netflix superhero series The Guardians of Justice, as well as having starring roles in low-budget thrillers and horror films.
Just 12 days before his death, he walked the red carpet at the Los Angeles premiere of his latest independent film, romantic drama Talking To Strangers.
The film, produced for streaming giant Amazon Prime, tells the story of ‘a guarded loner living with cerebral palsy’ who ‘has structured his daily life to avoid disappointment’.
Mitte also branched into modelling for brands including Gap and Vivienne Westwood, as well as reality TV, participating in the second series of Channel 4’s Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls.
It’s a career that would have seemed beyond his reach as a child. Born in Mississippi, he was adopted by parents who divorced when he was only nine months old and, seeing little of his adopted father, he was raised in Texas and Louisiana.
He only learnt that they weren’t his birth parents when a stepbrother blurted it out during an argument.
Tragedy followed when his mother was left paralysed in a car accident shortly after Mitte’s sister, Lacey – 12 years younger than him – was born, leaving the young boy to do much of the work looking after his little sibling.
The family later moved to Los Angeles after Lacey was cast in an advert when she was 18 months old, and Mitte followed her into child acting.
Mitte with his sister Lacey, whom he followed into child acting after she was cast in an advert aged 18 months
With his work as an extra, including in Disney’s Hannah Montana series, by the age of 13, RJ soon became the family’s main breadwinner.
‘I have devoted my life to my mum and my sister, and I still take care of them today,’ he told an interviewer in 2019.
He had done little serious acting work, but was perfect for a Breaking Bad role which specifically called for an actor with dark hair, big eyebrows and mild cerebral palsy.
He even knew what it was like to be bullied, as Flynn is in the first series: he once had his hand and foot broken in a particularly brutal attack as a child.
Mitte became an ambassador for cerebral palsy, advocating for Hollywood to be more open-minded when it came to casting people with disabilities. He even addressed his cause to the Oxford Union, as one of its youngest speakers at 22.
He was evidently talking from experience. In text messages to friends shared with Our News Outlet, he discussed the difficulties he found getting good parts.
‘When I go for a part, they sometimes tell me that it’s not a character with a disability, and I’m like why can’t the character be disabled?’ he wrote to a friend in 2017.
‘They get real uncomfortable when I say that.’
In another, he said: ‘I can do any role, but some of [the casting agents and directors] are a******s who won’t even look at me.’
An inspiration to many, Mitte challenged not only his industry but also fellow disabled people to rethink their assumptions that they cannot do things.
‘That’s all they hear,’ he insisted. ‘But you have to look past that.’
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