By Marcus Webb

RJ Mitte, who played Walter "Flynn" White Jr. on AMC's Breaking Bad and became one of the most visible advocates for disability representation in entertainment, died on Monday, October 12, at his home in Brownsville, Texas. He was 34.

His representative, Sean Reilly, confirmed the death in a statement, describing Mitte as "a beloved actor, philanthropist, and passionate disability rights advocate," and asking for privacy for Mitte's family and close ones. On Tuesday, Reilly confirmed that the cause of death was suicide.

The news landed hard across an industry that had watched Mitte grow up in public. Bryan Cranston, who played his father on screen, led a week of tributes from the Breaking Bad family, including Aaron Paul and Dean Norris. In his tribute, Cranston wrote that he could not stop without imploring anyone who is contemplating suicide to call for support, and he shared the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. We will follow his lead: if you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org, for free and confidential support, 24 hours a .

Mitte was cast at 14, a teenager with cerebral palsy hired to play a teenager with cerebral palsy. That sounds obvious now. At the time, it was close to unheard of. Disabled characters on television were routinely played by nondisabled actors, and disability itself was often treated as a plot device rather than a life. Breaking Bad did something different, and it did it from the very first draft.

"Walt Jr. was based on a real person, a friend of [creator] Vince Gilligan in college who had cerebral palsy, who used forearm crutches," Mitte explained in an interview recorded just days before his death. "My character was written with someone with cerebral palsy. This was from the beginning, that was always the case."

Casting Mitte meant the show never had to simulate what he lived. Diagnosed at age 3, he brought the rhythms, frustrations and humor of an ordinary teenage life to a character who could easily have been reduced to a symbol of his father's guilt. Across 56 episodes of the most acclaimed drama of its era, Flynn ate breakfast, learned to drive, fought with his parents and held his family together, all while millions of viewers absorbed, many for the first time, the simple fact that a young man on crutches was just a young man. Representation arguments are often abstract. Mitte made his concrete, one episode at a time, during the years when television was becoming the culture's center of gravity.

Fame from a single role can evaporate. Mitte converted his into work. He served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and for Shriners Children's, and as president of The Mitte Foundation, which supports philanthropic efforts and community initiatives. He showed up, year after year, at events and on panels, challenging stereotypes and pressing an industry that had given him his shot to give others theirs.

He was unusually thoughtful about what his disability had given him. "Having a disability, it's not a disability," he said at a 2014 event. "It's knowledge that you can take into the world. It's something you can learn and grow from. To me, normal is whatever you make it. Normal is wherever you find yourself belonging, normal is wherever you find yourself the happiest."

In a 2015 interview, he went further: "I think everyone that has a disability has the opportunity to make an impact with what they can do and who they are. I wouldn't be able to do what I do today if it wasn't for my disability and what it instilled in me."

He also kept acting. Born Roy Frank Mitte in Mississippi, he had moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to audition, and after Breaking Bad he built a steady body of work in films including The Recall and The Oak Room, and the series The Guardians of Justice. Most recently he was promoting Talking to Strangers, a newly released film in which his leading character, Joshua, also has cerebral palsy. Its Los Angeles premiere on September 30 was his last public appearance. "Put yourself out there," he told an interviewer there, in what became his final message to the young actors watching him. "At the end of the day, it's all about continuing to push forward, no matter how hard it may be, no matter where you are in life. Continue to work at it, continue to grow."

Cranston's tribute carried a note of the helplessness everyone who loved Mitte now feels. Only a few weeks ago, he wrote, the two of them were making plans to have lunch, and he did not know whether that lunch would have changed anything. It is a devastating detail, and an honest one. It is also why he included the number 988, and why we repeat it here.

Mitte's own summary of what Breaking Bad taught him was simple: "Being passionate about what you love, being passionate about what you're doing. Nothing worth anything comes easy. The trick is to never quit working and to always be pushing forward."

He did not quit. From a casting office in 2006 to a film premiere two weeks ago, RJ Mitte spent twenty years proving that the industry's idea of who gets to be on screen was too small, and then he spent the same twenty years doing the unglamorous advocacy work of making it bigger for whoever came next. That is a legacy any actor would be proud of, and it belongs now to the generation of performers with disabilities who watched Flynn White eat breakfast like it was the most natural thing in the world, because for them, finally, it was.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or visit 988lifeline.org for free, confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Cover photo: RJ Mitte by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.