Aaron Paul in driver's seat to new future

After a chat with Toni Collette at the trendy Hotel de Rome during the recent Berlin International Film Festival I decided to sit and enjoy a glass of white in the relaxing lounge where I could check my email and investigate Shia LaBeouf's latest carry-on - just after he put that paper bag over his head before a premiere.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I noticed Aaron Paul and a friend buying a drink beside me at the bar. The Breaking Bad star, who was at the festival promoting The Long Way Down, was amused too. He finds LaBeouf to be a talented actor.

The Berlinale marked Paul's first venture on to the European festival circuit.

He has recently filmed two blockbusters, Need for Speed and Exodus, and in our interview the following day the 34-year-old concedes he feels more comfortable in the independent realm.

He'd just returned from Sundance where he'd presented Hellion, a film he'd produced and in which he played a supporting role as an emotionally distant father. In The Long Way Down, based on Nick Hornby's novel, he was part of an ensemble, with Collette, Pierce Brosnan and Imogen Poots, who all meet on a roof as they attempt to take their own lives.

In a sense not unlike his character, Paul is standing on a precipice as he waits to see if he can sustain his success following Breaking Bad. Can the likable lad who is the small screen's best known and most lovable drug dealer, make it in the big time without Bryan Cranston, who himself will soon be upon us in Godzilla?

"Breaking Bad was an incredible chapter in my life but it's time to move on, even if it's sad," Paul says. "Bryan is a mentor and one of my best friends. I love him to death. The day after we wrapped the show I was already shooting Need For Speed and he sent me a simple text that said 'I miss you already'. We are going to be friends for the rest of our lives, I am sure."

People of course still come up to him because of his Jesse Pinkman character. Do they ask for some meth? "I've definitely had that comment before," he chuckles, "but mostly it's been super-positive, with people just clapping or wanting to come give me a hug or call me a bitch."

In a sense the two-time Emmy Award winner didn't have a chance to catch his breath after the series wrapped, so when he moved on to his starring role in Disney blockbuster Need for Speed, he brought his Long Way Down co-star along for the ride as a savvy luxury car buyer, who becomes his ally.

"Yeah, I dragged Imogen along with me; she's such a brilliant actress and I love her to death," says Paul, who is happily married to Lauren Parsekian, a documentary filmmaker and the co-founder of Kind Campaign, a project that brings awareness to bullying in schools.

He loves cars, so that made the idea of playing the driver of an illegal street racing corps more appealing. "Our director Scott Waugh's main thing was to do a throwback to the classic car culture films such as Vanishing Point and Smokey and the Bandit," he says.

"He also wanted to do all the stunts and use zero CGI. So he wanted me to be in the driver's seat and I did a lot of the training on a closed course, learning how to drive. I discovered there are racetracks like that all over the world, in small cities, big cities, where you can take your car. I just let loose."

Ultimately Need for Speed was fun and not so torturous, he says. "I am not saying Breaking Bad was torturous but my character was very broken and it was good to leave him behind." In the dust, so to speak.

Clearly this amiable lad, the son of a Baptist minister who was raised in Idaho, is nothing like Pinkman. Possibly Paul's portrayal as a Jewish slave battling the pagan precincts of Ancient Egypt in Ridley Scott's Exodus is closer to home.

"I grew up reading the Bible and not just believing in a religion. I actually had to read it from front to back multiple times so I know everything that is in the Bible."

Is he still a churchgoer? "No, but I did grow up very religious." How has that affected him? "I think growing up in a very religious household is great. My parents weren't extremely strict on me and instilled very good morals. It was a loving home."

Paul wanted to be an actor from a very young age. "I was doing church plays ever since I was a young kid and I think that's where I got the bug. The eighth grade was the first time I had an acting class and that's when I was introduced to films such as Stand By Me and The Goonies. That was also the first time I realised those are just kids playing characters and that made me very excited. I made the conscious decision I was going to move to LA and I started saving money in the eighth grade."

In Los Angeles he lived the life of a struggling actor and recalls how he started out with the increasingly versatile Chris Evans (Captain America) who also had a strong film, Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, in the Berlinale. Paul was pleased to hear the film was so good.

"I knew Chris through mutual friends and we ended up doing a short film together called Seven Days that our buddy Donnie Biggs wrote and directed. This was before we really had any sort of job. Chris' first big role was in Not Another Teen Movie and he was so funny in it. I was so happy for him and he just blew up. My first big break really was Breaking Bad. I was on a series before, a small recurring role on Big Love for about four years. We are just so happy for each other. It's always nice to see your friends from back then succeed."

The fans, of course, have been clamouring for something else with Breaking Bad, and now the series' dodgy criminal lawyer, Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), has his own series, a kind of prequel to Breaking Bad where Jonathan Banks also portrays the earlier days of his blunt investigator-hitman Mike Ehrmantraut.

"Yeah, Better Call Saul. It's going to be incredible. I know that because I know Vince (series creator Vince Gilligan) and I can tell when he's a little nervous, because he was very nervous during the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad because he wanted it to be perfect. Now he's completely calm and confident as Better Call Saul was picked up instantly for 22 episodes, which is great. They didn't even have to do a pilot."

Have they asked him to do a cameo or something? "Maybe! Maybe! You'll have to wait and see," Paul replies cryptically, flashing that famous smile, before he gets up to leave.

'I am not saying Breaking Bad was torturous but my character was very broken and it was good to leave him behind.'