He Survived Breaking Bad, but Aaron Paul Walks Away From Invincible Season 4 Over a Grueling Role
Breaking Bad star admits Powerplex didn’t fit — the skin, the swagger, none of it.
Aaron Paul is tapping out of Invincible season 4. Not over scheduling, not over money — he says living inside Powerplex messed with his head, and he is done.
What Paul said
"They asked me to come back for the next season. That show, I am such a fan of — I watch every episode. But it was just way too grueling on my psyche."
That was Paul on Kinda Funny Games. He added that he dives so hard into his characters that wearing Powerplex’s skin didn’t feel safe or sustainable anymore. He loves the show, he respects what the team is doing — he just does not want to sit in that character’s pain again. Honestly, for an animated gig, that is a striking admission — but if you have watched his career, it tracks.
Quick refresher: who Powerplex is and why he is so heavy
Paul joined the Prime Video series in season 3 as Powerplex, a guy whose life implodes after the accidental deaths of his sister and niece. He blames Invincible (Mark Grayson, the half-Viltrumite hero) for it. From there, Powerplex becomes a whole problem — and when the show went big with the Invincible War arc, he even ended up helping push back a swarm of alternate-universe Invincibles. It is charged, grief-soaked material, and Paul clearly felt all of it.
Will they recast or write him out?
Unknown. The door is open to either swapping in a new voice for Powerplex or shelving the character for now. No decision announced yet.
Why this makes sense if you have followed Paul
The man has a history of carrying brutal roles. Think Breaking Bad: by the end, Jesse Pinkman is physically tortured by a neo-Nazi crew while also untangling years of psychological manipulation by Walter White. Paul has never phoned in that kind of trauma — he wears it — so it is not shocking he set a boundary here. And he is still dabbling in the capes-and-robots lane elsewhere: he is voicing Mecha Man in the breakout video game Dispatch.
- Aaron Paul will not return as Powerplex in Invincible season 4 because the role was too rough on his mental health.
- He is a fan of the show and watches every episode; this is about the headspace, not the series.
- Powerplex’s season 3 story: tragedy blamed on Invincible, then a major part in the Invincible War multiverse clash.
- No word yet on whether Powerplex gets recast or benched.
- Invincible season 4 lands on Prime Video in March 2026.
- Elsewhere, Paul is voicing Mecha Man in the video game Dispatch.