Jesse Bruce Pinkman is a fictional character in the American crime drama television series Breaking Bad, played by Aaron Paul. He is a crystal meth cook and dealer who works with his former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston). Jesse is the only character besides Walter to appear in every episode of the show. Paul reprised the role for the 2019 spin-off film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, a sequel to the series set after its finale, and again in 2022 for the sixth and final season of the prequel series Better Call Saul, being one of the few characters to appear across both shows and the movie. Despite plans to kill off the character at the end of the first season, Paul's performance convinced the showrunner and head writer Vince Gilligan to keep Jesse in the show. The character and Paul's performance received acclaim from critics and fans. Critics especially praised Jesse's character development from an unsympathetic drug dealer to the moral compass of the show as he becomes increasingly guilty and remorseful for his and Walter White's actions while involved in the drug trade. For his portrayal, Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, making him the first actor to win the category three times since its separation into drama and comedy. In-universe biography Pre-Breaking Bad Jesse Bruce Pinkman was born into a middle-class family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the time the series starts, he has long been estranged from his parents due to his drug addiction and lifestyle as a drug dealer. After being forced to leave his parents' residence, Jesse moved in with his Aunt Ginny, for whom he cared until her death from cancer. Afterward, he was allowed to stay in her home, the ownership of which fell to Jesse's parents. Jesse was a poor student in high school and preferred hanging out with his friends and smoking marijuana to studying. Walter White, whom Jesse almost always calls "Mr. White", was his chemistry teacher and gave Jesse a failing grade in his class. Walt himself later says that he never thought Jesse would amount to much, although Jesse's mother Diane (Tess Harper) recalls that Walt "must have seen some potential in Jesse; he really tried to motivate him. He was one of the few teachers who cared."