Dean Norris appears here because Aaron Paul’s tribute to RJ Mitte moved quickly from grief to a blunt plea: “Hold each other up.” Mitte died Monday in Brownsville, Texas, at 34, and a representative said the cause was suicide.
Paul wrote that he was “so sorry you were hurting my friend” and added, “The last time we saw each other I kept calling you Superman.” He said Mitte “always led with kindness and strength,” then pointed followers toward the same message Mitte had been sharing about mental health.
Aaron Paul’s Superman tribute
Paul’s post did more than memorialize a former co-star. It framed Mitte as someone whose public image was built on steadiness, not spectacle, and that makes the loss feel sharper for readers who knew him mainly through Breaking Bad.
“You constantly had a smile on your face and you took every single challenge that was given to you with such confidence and grace,” Paul wrote. He also said, “I loved your laugh and how much fun you had riding the wave we were all blessed to be on with Breaking Bad.”
RJ Mitte on mental health
Mitte’s own words, shared in the video Paul posted, turned the tribute into more than remembrance. “It’s very important to take care of one’s physical health, but it’s equally as important to take care of one’s mental health,” he said, adding, “It’s okay to be not always good.”
He followed that with a direct appeal: “But it’s not okay to harbor that feeling, harbor those emotions,” and, “So I’m hoping to inspire each and every one that sees this video today.” Paul’s closing line pushed that message outward with two numbers attached to it: 988 and 1-866-488-738.
Mitte had spoken publicly about mental health while also being best known for playing Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad from 2008 to 2013. That contrast is what makes the news land hard: the voice in the video was one of openness, yet the death was later described as suicide.
Breaking Bad after Brownsville
In 2013, Mitte received the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award, a recognition that sits alongside his work as a disability rights advocate and the mild cerebral palsy diagnosis he received at three years old. For the audience that followed Breaking Bad, the immediate story is less about the show’s legacy than about the people still carrying it, and about what Paul asked them to do next: reach out, say the words, and not let silence do the work.
