Get Lorne Michaels On the Blower: Bryan Cranston Does a Mean Ariana Madix Impression

Last week it was Jon Hamm doing DJ James Kennedy, this time it’s Bryan Cranston giving us his best Ariana Madix.

“Is it alright if I don’t know what I’m doing?” Bryan Cranston nervously asked Andy Cohen on Tuesday night’s Watch What Happens Live.

“You’re an actor, you do know,” Cohen responded.

“I’ve never seen the show,” Cranston pleaded.

“That’s okay, that’s okay,” Cohen assured him.

The thing Bryan Cranston was so unsure of was a dramatic reading of the final conversation between Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval from the Vanderpump Rules finale. But his stage fright vanished when the lights were dimmed and the camera zeroed in for his close-up.

“I’ve been with you for nine years,” Cranston began, seemingly overcome with an emotion he didn’t know the source of, given that he was reading the words for the first time, utterly blind. “When you were literally fucking, like, wearing combat boots and skinny jeans,” he continued, his hands flailing about with a newfound rage. “And didn’t have a dime to your name. Oh now—NOW—you got a little bit of money, a little bar, a little band, and this girl is gonna act enamored with you? Because that’s what you want, you want someone to just gas you up.”

The live audience, who up until this point had been stunned into reverential silence, laughed.

“You’re worth nothing,” Cranston declared, protruding pointer finger waving proudly. “And I want you to feel that deep in your soul, I want you to hear it! Those words coming from the mouth of the woman that fucking stood by you, and loved you, and was ready to build the rest of my life around you…” at this point the actor clearly had tears in his eyes, his voice breaking.

“Just hear my words, and know that is how I feel about you. I regret ever loving you,” he finished, waving away the camera.

“AND SCENE!” Cohen proclaimed. “Give the man an Emmy!”

“You made the text sing,” the host told his guest after the commercial break.

“I’ve never seen the lip pump show, is that what it’s called?” Cranston asked.

“Close enough,” Cohen answered.