“Midcareer actors took note of Bryan Cranston’s transition from the goofy sitcom dad on Malcolm in the Middle to the megalomaniac drug lord in Breaking Bad (and the four Emmys it earned him).” Now, for instance, Katie “Dawson’s Creek” Holmes is playing a scheming sports agent, controversial comic Sarah Silverman a sad and struggling 1950s lesbian, Patrick “Capt. Picard” Stewart a skirt-chasing, coke-snorting TV pundit.