Bryan Cranston breaks through stereotypes, and typecasting, as Walter White in “Breaking Bad”

Walter Hartwell White is the latest in an intriguing line of lead characters: the embodiment of the phrase “actions have consequences.”

The Albuquerque high-school chemistry teacher becomes a drug lord in the TV series “Breaking Bad” (Sunday nights on the American Movie Classics channel), and his journey has taken some amazing twists during the past three seasons.

What’s even more incredible is that of all people, it’s Bryan Cranston — also known as Hal, the moronic father from “Malcolm In The Middle” — who has accomplished a transformation few are able to do. Cranston has gone from playing a lovable, forgettable schmuck to perhaps the memorable role of a lifetime.

Depth? Conflict? That’s Walter White. Even though White is a genius with a Bunsen burner, he is “stuck” teaching the basics of chemical interactions to bored teens while each of his contemporaries has passed him by — including a Bill Gates-like character in Season Two. He also has Stage 3 lung cancer, no money, no respect and only the love of his family to see him through his troubles. Since lung cancer has no Stage 4, Walter wants to leave some money behind for his family prior to facing his fate.

So he decides he can make better crystal methamphetamine than anyone.

This is just the first of many extremely bad decisions made by a man desperate to find some sort of peace before suffering a horrible death. As it turns out, his cancer goes into remission... but in other ways, it’s too late.

The wheels are in motion: demand for his “blue ice” goes through the roof as people start dying around him, and this all adds to his growing street credibility as the mysterious supplier “Heisenberg.” His angst also increases over the mounting pile of bodies and the realization that he has used his powers for evil, not for good.

No such weighty issues roil Bryan Cranston’s soul. Instead, his portrayal is piling up awards — back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in 2008 and last year — along with universal acclaim for his work as the latest conflicted protagonist eligible to enter the Antihero Hall of Fame. Cranston is making the rounds of talk shows and breathlessly insisting, as he recently did on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” that he is “grateful for being invited to the dance.”

The best part for Cranston as an actor? Through the Walter White character, he has found a way to break from the potentially perpetual stereotype of Hapless Hal the dough-brained dad.