Actor Bryan Cranston on Friday clarified that he is not retiring, but plans to take a "pause" after his 70th birthday in 2026. Cranston, known for his Emmy award-winning portrayal of Walter White in the HBO series "Breaking Bad," wrote on Instagram that taking a break would allow him to spend more time with his wife, Robin, and give him "a sort of 'reset' in his career." During his pause, he also plans to unplug from social media and read classic novels. "I'm not even sure what 'pausing' means entirely, but at the moment, I think it means that by taking a year off it will provide several things ..." Cranston wrote on Instagram on Friday. British GQ reported Thursday that Cranston in 2026 "will retire -- at least temporarily," with plans to shut down his production company, sell his half of mezcal venture Dos Hombres and then travel with his wife abroad. "I want to go for day trips and have the fire in the fireplace and drink wine with new friends and not read scripts," Cranston told British GQ. "It's not going to be like, 'Oh, I'll read and see what I'm going to do.' No, it's a pause. It's a stop. I won't be thinking about [work]. I'm not going to be taking phone calls."
Movie director James Cameron says he feels he "walked into an ambush" last week during a visit to Argentina in which he believes there was an attempt to use his image as an environmentalist to give a positive spin to lithium mining operations despite Indigenous opposition. Cameron, the director of "Avatar" and "Titanic," said Friday he would now devote attention and money from his Avatar Alliance Foundation to support Indigenous communities opposing lithium operations in South America. "Ironically, the outcome of this is that I am now aware of the problem and we will now assist through my foundation with the issue of Indigenous rights with respect to lithium extraction," Cameron told a group of journalists gathered in his hotel room in the capital of Buenos Aires on Friday evening. Cameron went to Argentina last week to speak at a sustainability conference. "I believed that I was coming here to make a kind of motivational speech about environmental causes," Cameron said. As part of the visit, Cameron traveled to northern Jujuy province Thursday to visit a large solar power plant with Gov. Gerardo Morales and says he was never told lithium would be part of the discussion. After Cameron's visit, Morales wrote a message on social media thanking Cameron for the visit, writing that the province was looking to "transform the energy matrix" through projects such as the solar power plant and "lithium extraction." The director received a letter that a group of 33 Indigenous communities from the area had written to him a few days earlier asking him to either cancel his trip or meet with them so they could explain their long-held opposition to lithium mining projects they say affect their land rights and negatively impact the environment. "I feel like I walked into an ambush," Cameron told journalists.