There’s been more talk of toxic fandoms recently, as people seem to be unable to stop themselves, but one actress who is intimately familiar with the “bizarre and confusing” heat of audience rage first experienced it in 2008, when the critically successful Breaking Bad premiered. Anna Gunn discusses her experience fielding vitriol from fans who couldn’t stand Skyler White, the wife of series protagonist Walter White and a character who often stood in the way of her husband’s journey to becoming a meth kingpin, as part of Entertainment Weekly’s look back at the ten-year-old series.

Gunn described the experience of getting such hostility from fans as “very tough,” as well as “bizarre and confusing,” in a 2013 New York Times piece.

“It was a combination of sexism, ideas about gender roles, and then honestly, it was the brilliance of the construct of the show. People did find a hero in Walt, but they wanted so much to connect with him so viscerally that to see the person who often was his antagonist — therefore the show’s antagonist in a way — they felt like she was in the way of him doing whatever he wanted to do, and that he should be allowed to do what he wanted to do.”

After Skyler proved to be a modest obstacle to Walter’s drug manufacture, some misogynists mistook her for the patriarchal idea of a “nagging wife,” calling Gunn’s character “shrill,” “shrew,” and “harpy.” Gunn was clearly outraged by the comments. Gunn claims she was once obliged to defend herself at a convention Q&A panel when a fan referred to her character as a “b****.” Gunn’s reaction, which drew a round of applause from the audience, highlighted the evident moral discrepancy between Skyler’s and Walter’s conduct. Despite the cast and crew’s fan love, Gunn was taken aback by the remarks, leading her to wonder whether the Skyler hatred was her fault.

“There was a lot of questioning: ‘Am I doing something wrong? Am I not serving the character? Am I not serving the story?’”

Gunn won two of the three Emmys for which she was nominated during her stint on “Breaking Bad,” which also earned wins for co-stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul; the program itself won Outstanding Drama Series for its final season and is largely recognized as one of the best television shows ever filmed.

“It wasn’t a pleasant thing to go through, necessarily, but it was fascinating. It created a seismic shift and change in my life. I was really glad that I went through it and that I learned what I learned and that ultimately I realized, this is not about me,” Gunn says.

“This is not about me, Anna Gunn, and it’s really not about Skyler. It’s about the way people are connecting to him. It’s also about the way that people still hold on to, perhaps, older ideas of what a woman or a wife should be or how she should act or how she should behave. In the end, change isn’t always comfortable and isn’t always pleasant, but it’s good that it was brought to people’s attention and consciousness.”

Her other cast members were also shocked by the backlash.

Aaron Paul, who portrayed Jesse Pinkman, told EW, I really felt for Anna, because she’s just such a beautiful human inside and out, and she played Skyler in such a fierce way, and people just dragged her character the most.”

The criticism has left Bryan Cranston “baffled.”

This last decade has brought up enough cultural change, according to Gunn, for her to believe that fan feelings have changed. “Now that the show’s done, it’s kind of amazing how much it’s shifted,” she says. “In particular, women will say — I mean, it still gets me kind of emotional — ‘The journey that she went through…’ They may or may not be aware of the Skyler backlash. That’s incredibly gratifying. It’s men and women who connect with that. There’s been such a shift happening in society and in our consciousness that it’s really landing much more strongly now.”