BREAKING BAD STAR SECRETS

NationalEnquirer.com

“Breaking Bad" star DEAN MORRIS was once a financial guru on Wall Street NOW he’s TV’s roughest tough guy!

 AT just 5-foot-8 with a stocky build and a bald head, Dean  may not exactly be leading man material.

But the Hollywood journey­man, 50, has scored a coup that most other actors would die for – he’s on TWO of TV’s hottest shows, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and CBS’s “Under the Dome.”

On “Break­ing Bad,” Norris plays tough guy DEA agent Hank Schrader, the brother-in-law of chemistry teacher-turned-drug baron Walter White (Bryan Cranston).

MEANWHILE, on the Stephen King sci-fi thriller “Under the Dome,” Norris is murderous James “Big Jim” Rennie, a used-car salesman and politician who lords over the fictitious Maine town of Chester’s Mill.

What’s truly amazing is that the Indiana-born, Harvard-educated performer almost gave up acting com­pletely…to become a financial guru on Wall Street! He was recruited by several top investment banks in Manhattan before graduating college in 1985.

“Dean is brilliant and he could have made a fortune as a banker, but he decided to follow his love, which is acting,” a pal told The ENQUIRER. “And he’s never regretted it.”

Since he started working in the mid-’80s, Norris has played a steady stream of cops, army officers and other authorities.

But the married father of five doesn’t mind.

“The way I look at it, I’m a guy who acts to live,” he said. “You can always have a job if you can play shoot ’em-up stuff. If playing cops pays the bills, that’s what I need to do to support my family.”