Aaron Paul was born Aaron Paul Sturtevant,[4] in
Emmett, Idaho,[5] on August 27, 1979,[6] the youngest of four children born to Darla (née Haynes) and
Baptist minister Robert Sturtevant.[7][8] He was born a month premature in his parents' bathroom.[4] He grew up participating in church plays.[8] He graduated in 1997 from
Centennial High School in
Boise, Idaho,[9] after which he drove to
Los Angeles in his
1982 Toyota Corolla with his mother and $6,000 in savings.[10] Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, he appeared on an episode of the
CBSgame showThe Price Is Right, which aired on January 3, 2000. Appearing under his birth name, he played and lost his pricing game and overbid on his Showcase.[11] He also worked as a movie theater usher at
Universal Studios in
Hollywood.[12]
Paul first became known for his role as Scott Quittman on
HBO's Big Love, on which he appeared fourteen times. In 2008, he began playing
Jesse Pinkman on the
AMC series Breaking Bad. His character was originally meant to die during the first season, but after seeing the chemistry between Paul and the lead actor
Bryan Cranston, the series creator
Vince Gilligan changed his mind and modified the original plans to include Jesse as a main character.[19] For his role in Breaking Bad, Paul was nominated for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014; he won the award in 2010,[20] 2012,[21] and 2014.[22]
Paul starred in the film Smashed, which was one of the official selections for the
2012 Sundance Film Festival.[23] In an October 2012 interview with
ESPN, he spoke about his childhood experience as a
Boise State Broncos fan and discussed the challenges of portraying a
meth addict in Breaking Bad.[24] In 2012 and 2013, he made appearances on Tron: Uprising, voicing a character named Cyrus.[citation needed]
In September 2013, he was featured on Zen Freeman's dance song, "Dance Bitch".[25] He made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live's
39th season opener as "meth nephew", a relative of
Bobby Moynihan's popular "drunk uncle" character.[26] In 2014, Paul starred in Need for Speed, as a street racer recently released from prison who takes revenge on a wealthy business associate.[27] Paul stars alongside
Juliette Lewis in the family drama Hellion, as the drunken father of two young vandals.[28] Also in 2014, he co-starred in the biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, portraying the Hebrew prophet
Joshua.[29]
In December 2013,
Netflix announced that Paul would be a cast member on the animated series BoJack Horseman.[30] On March 3, 2014, he appeared on WWE Raw to promote Need for Speed, by entering the arena in a sports car with
Dolph Ziggler, providing commentary for Ziggler's match against
Alberto Del Rio, and helping Ziggler win by distracting Del Rio.[31] On September 23, 2014, it was announced that Paul would play the young Louis Drax's father who becomes the focus of a criminal investigation after his son has a near-fatal fall in an upcoming
Miramax film titled The 9th Life of Louis Drax, a
supernaturalthriller based on a book of the same name.[32]
In 2016, Paul began playing Eddie Lane, a man who in a life crisis joins a
cult but subsequently questions his faith, in the
Hulu series The Path, which debuted on March 30, 2016.[33] Paul voiced the main protagonist,
Nyx Ulric, in Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, released in July 2016.
In 2013, Paul helped organize a contest to raise $1.6 million for his wife's non-profit anti-bullying organization, the
Kind Campaign. The winners of the contest won a trip to the
Hollywood Forever Cemetery screening of the final episode of Breaking Bad.[41]
Paul has spoken positively about the
asexual community, as a result of portraying the asexual character Todd Chavez on Bojack Horseman. In 2019, Paul stated that he was "so proud to represent that community... it's so nice to have a character on TV - especially on a show so powerful as Bojack - that represents a community that should be represented."[42]
In 2019, Paul and Cranston released their own line of
mezcal called
Dos Hombres.[43]
Personal life
Paul met actress and director
Lauren Parsekian at the
Coachella Festival,[44] and they became engaged in
Paris on January 1, 2012.[45] They were married in a 1920s Parisian carnival-themed wedding in
Malibu on May 26, 2013, with musicians
Foster the People and
John Mayer performing.[46] Paul emailed the song "Beauty" by
The Shivers to everyone on the guest list and asked them to learn the lyrics so they could sing along during the ceremony.[10] They currently live in the
Los Feliz neighborhood of
Los Angeles, having sold their previous home in
West Hollywood,[47] and have a second cabin-style home near
McCall, Idaho.[48] They have a daughter named Story Annabelle (b. February 2018)[49][50] and a son named Ryden Caspian (b. April 2022).[51][52]
In April 2013, to commemorate
the final episode of Breaking Bad, Paul and his co-star
Bryan Cranston got Breaking Bad tattoos on the last day of filming; Paul had the phrase "
no half measures" tattooed onto his biceps, while Cranston had the show's logo tattooed onto one of his fingers.[53] In October that year, during a ceremony at the
Egyptian Theatre in Boise, Governor
Butch Otter declared October 1 "Aaron Paul Sturtevant Day".[54]
In November 2022, Paul legally dropped Sturtevant from his full name.[55][56]