Part of Breaking Bad featuring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris, and Betsy Brandt.
Rise to Fame
His first Hollywood credit was as a background extra on Hannah Montana. A few months later he was playing Walter White Jr. on Breaking Bad, a character with cerebral palsy that Mitte also has, just in a more severe form than his own. He was 13 at the audition and 21 at the finale. Breaking Bad covered his entire adolescence, and the visibility it built is how he ended up as SAG-AFTRA's spokesman for actors with disabilities, rather than just another former child actor looking for what's next.
In the Spotlight
Post-Breaking Bad, the acting work hasn't been career-defining. Switched at Birth and a few genre films haven't put him back on the cultural radar. The advocacy side is where he operates at a different level: SAG-AFTRA spokesman for actors with disabilities, United Cerebral Palsy ambassador since 2015, and recipient of the Disability Rights Legal Center's 2025 DREAM Award. He walked Vivienne Westwood's runway in Milan, which made a point about disability and fashion more effectively than any press release.
Side Notes
Most people assume he was cast in Breaking Bad because he had cerebral palsy and the show needed someone who did. The more specific detail is that his condition was too mild. Walter White Jr. requires crutches and slurred speech. Mitte had to learn both, building a more severe presentation of his own disability for the cameras. He has talked about this preparation publicly. It's an odd inversion, but it's also why his disability advocacy carries more weight than a typical celebrity ambassador arrangement.