Bryan Cranston said his daughter Taylor Dearden ran toward a choking man in a restaurant during a family vacation, only for the man to catch his breath just as she reached him. The 70-year-old actor described the moment Thursday while appearing on The Late Show, and said Dearden then stayed with the man and comforted him after the scare.
“There was a man in a restaurant who was choking. And my wife and I went, I was like, ‘That guy, I think... I think he’s choking,’” Cranston said. “And Taylor was up and running toward him—running right toward him,” he added. “Just as she’s getting to him, he caught his breath, and he started breathing,” he said. Cranston said the family immediately felt the pride of seeing a daughter step in so quickly: “We’re going, ‘My god, we finally have a doctor in the family,’” he said.
Dearden, 33, plays Dr. Mel King on HBO’s The Pitt, where her character is a second-year resident in the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center ER. The role has put her in the spotlight as Cranston has been promoting the Malcolm in the Middle revival, Life Is Still Unfair. He said the reaction to his daughter’s work and quick thinking meant a great deal to him. “Anytime your child is praised for anything, even a little moment of kindness, it just lifts a parent up. And she’s so good! On a great show,” he said on Wednesday, adding later, “I like to stay her dad.”
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Cranston also said Dearden is his only child with Robin Dearden and praised the career she is building on her own. “She is more advanced in her ability now at the age of 33 than I was. And she’s doing some amazing work. And so I’d rather just stay her dad and be the cheerleader,” he said. The restaurant episode made the family reaction easy to understand: in a frightening moment, Dearden did what her on-screen role suggests and what her father clearly admired most — she moved first and helped second.
