Aaron Paul is about to get his fingers bitten off by a parrot. The 31-year-old actor is standing on the Santa Monica Pier, and while he hadn’t exactly planned on being attacked by a flock of tropical birds, he’s also come to expect the unexpected. There’s no way, for example, anyone could have predicted he’d become television’s most lovable drug addict. Before AMC had Don Draper and Peggy Olson, there was Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, a modern-day answer to The Odd Couple—if Felix and Oscar had cooked and sold crystal meth in New Mexico.

“I thought there was no way in hell this was going to see the light of day,” says Paul of Breaking Bad, the tooth-grinding drama that jump-started his decade-long acting career. “I read the pilot before AMC had any original programming, before Mad Men had even come out,” he says.

With a face like a Boy Scout and an Idaho-inflected timbre flattening his vowels, Paul isn’t the most obvious choice to play a money-hungry meth-head. But as the show enters its fourth season in July, it’s now clear he was born for the role. “I always try to do something that’s completely the opposite of who I am,” says Paul, who’s played “Wasted Guy” in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and a less blotto role as Amanda Seyfried’s husband on Big Love.

The past three seasons of Breaking Bad have included everything from plane collisions and a corpse crashing through the ceiling to the unsentimental reality of a family in crisis. But the new season is “much bigger and darker than anything I’ve ever experienced,” says Paul, whose embodiment of Jesse has made him one of the most memorable and engaging characters on television today. As one half of the dynamic drug-slinging duo, Paul plays opposite the ever-talented Bryan Cranston. The two share a rare chemistry, whether they’re experimenting in or out of the on-screen lab. “He gives me so much and he’s truly such a mentor of mine,” Paul says of Cranston. “I’ve learned from him that since we’re on a show like this, we have to break the tension with humor, and if we don’t, we’ll get sucked down into a dark depression.”

Perennially clad in baggy jeans, an oversize hoodie, and a ski cap, Paul’s character carries himself like the type of teenage thug who looks for trouble in shopping malls, and he’s got the saltiest vocabulary this side of Redd Foxx. His incessant use of the words “bitch” and “yo” have sparked not only myriad YouTube compilations; they’ve also seeped into Paul’s real life. “Anytime I’m done with a season, I say ‘yo’ so much. I try to stop, but it’s just so hard,” he says.

Breaking Bad’s most recent season ended with Jesse pointing a gun straight at the camera and pulling the trigger—the final frames of his face alone worth the Primetime Emmy Award he took home last fall. In September, after “being totally happy just to be invited to the party,” Paul nabbed his first statue for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, beating out some of his biggest heroes. “I was honored just to be mentioned in the same breath as Michael Emerson—I’m such a Lost fan. I got so starstruck when I was walking the carpet and met Terry O’Quinn for the first time. I was like, Oh my god, that’s John Locke!”

Although Paul still swoons in the presence of his idols, devoted fans of the show have begun to do the same around him. “I’ve had people get really emotional in front of me,” he says. “They start shaking and say, ‘Thank you for being a part of a show that makes me constantly remember why I’m now clean and sober.’” Before Breaking Bad went into production, would-be critics were skeptical of its storyline, worried that AMC was glamorizing substance abuse—but the results upended everyone’s expectations. Paul himself has never had a drug problem, but he’s seen first-hand the perils of addiction. “I’ve seen beautiful creatures completely lost to the drug world,” he says. “I’ve seen their souls slowly drift away, just gone—with meth in particular.”

During Breaking Bad’s extended off-season, Paul took time to indulge in a bit of wanderlust, traveling everywhere from Vancouver to London. Somehow, he also found time to appear in Right Angle, an independent film co-starring Jeff Daniels and Tom Sizemore, just before heading back to New Mexico to film the show’s new season. With only three episodes left to shoot, Paul is already planning to head back out into the great unknown. “If you’re going to travel, shame on you for sitting in your suite ordering room service,” he says. “Go to a coffee shop in Paris, have local food, and walk down the damn street. Don’t sit around watching a movie. Get out and explore.” As if heeding Paul’s advice, the parrot on his shoulder spreads its wings and takes flight.

Photography Dylan Don.