“RJ, I love you my friend. You will be missed,” he said. “And to whoever happens to be reading this, please know you are loved, and you are not alone. Always remember that.”
Dean Norris, who played Mitte’s uncle, Hank Schrader, posted that although “RJ didn’t play my TV son, I always looked out for him as a young kid on set”.
“He was a sweetheart of a young man and will
be greatly missed,” Norris wrote.
Mitte, who grew up in Louisiana, was a young teen when he auditioned for the breakthrough role after moving to Los Angeles to support his younger sister’s acting career in 2005.
He had said that his first audition in Los Angeles was for a California state public service announcement for an anti-meth commercial.
“Fast forward to auditioning for Breaking Bad, which is still, in my opinion, an anti-meth thing because it doesn’t end well for anyone,” he said on the Joe Vulpis Podcast earlier this month.
His character was based on the show’s creator Vince Gilligan’s late friend who had a more severe case of cerebral palsy and used forearm crutches, which Mitte did not require.
Mitte was seen as playing the role with honesty and accessibility, cracking jokes as a teen whose health condition was rarely mentioned in the series.
Breaking Bad aired on
US cable broadcaster AMC for five seasons from 2008-13.
