Bob Odenkirk still finding his way on Better Call Saul
BOB ODENKIRK is still finding his way. Six months ago, he was a well-regarded comedian and sometime character actor in Breaking Bad. Now, with a starring role in the bleak, funny spin-off, Better Call Saul, his face is everywhere. It’s strange for Odenkirk to think of himself as famous. Strange and a little terrifying.
“It’s weird, just totally weird,” he says, during an interview with the Irish Examiner. “I mean, I should have assumed it would happen. Four weeks ago, I was driving through Los Angles, and saw huge billboards for the show — I mean, really huge, ten-storey things. It should have struck me: ‘A lot of people are going to potentially watch this’. But it didn’t.”
Odenkirk is a dead ringer for Saul Goodman, the slithery lawyer he played in Breaking Bad and whom you can’t help liking, despite yourself. He has Saul’s roiling, stop-start diction that veers into conversational subclauses, then, finally, at last, gets back on point. He’s engaging company — and a little exhausting with it.
He looks like Saul, too — this may seem obvious, but it’s funny how little famous actors resemble their characters. With Odenkirk, it’s like sitting down for a chat with Goodman. “I’ve done so many projects that never come off,” he says. “You kind of assume that’s how things go. I’ve written shows, shot pilots. Nobody saw them. You start to forget that, sometimes, your stuff does get seen. Breaking Bad has been seen by so many. It goes over your head,” Odendirk says.
He smiles. After 30 years in Hollywood, he had started to accept failure. To become an international success at 52 is more than he can get his head around.
“I am comfortable with failure. That’s a good philosophy to have in show-business. The popularity of Better Call Saul is surprising — even though I know it shouldn’t be surprising. You go back to the billboard, to the popularity of Breaking Bad. It’s like — ‘Oh yeah, people love Breaking Bad, they will give this show a try’. And yet, I still can’t get over it.”
Better Call Saul is a superior spin-off. It is a deeply humane re-imagining of Saul. As counsellor and consigliere to chemistry teacher-turned-psychopathic drug dealer, Walt White, Goodman was funny, but essentially amoral.
In Better Call Saul, we see the man behind the hustle. The action picks up six years prior to Breaking Bad, when Goodman, still going by his original name of Jimmy McGill, is a struggling attorney.
This, Odenkirk says, cuts to the heart of Saul’s appeal. He’s an everyman, a schlub and a striver, like the rest of us. On Better Call Saul, his humanity is front and centre. Jimmy isn’t a bad person — it’s just that, with the door slammed in his face so often, he’s desperate. Audiences can empathise with that — Odenkirk certainly can.
“He’s not getting any breaks. His instinct tells him he has some ability. He wakes up every morning thinking ‘I can do this thing’. And then, as the day goes on, he gets pounded and so he goes to bed a little drunk and sad. And then he wakes the next morning thinking, ‘I can do this.’ I think people can relate to that. It’s good to trust your instincts and it’s frustrating to not have the world reciprocate your feelings. Sometimes, it’s just about hanging in there and being ready when the world turns its eyes on you.”
Born in Illinois to a German-Irish family with an alcoholic father who would pass away when Odenkirk was 12, the actor’s CV had included writing for Saturday Night Live and bitparts in numerous TV comedies. A Breaking Bad sequel had been rumored while the series was still on the air. As one of the most popular secondary characters, it seemed obvious that Saul would work in a stand-alone show. Initially, however, Breaking Bad creator and show-runner, Vince Gilligan, was unsure what to do with the sleazy lawyer. Would he be best suited to a comedy? A slight, half-hour piece? Something broad and ‘safe’, to be broadcast on one of the networks?
“I met [Gilligan and co-creator Peter Gould] at the Chateau Marmont, in Los Angeles, and it was clear they had some ideas,” says Odenkirk.
“They were leaning towards a drama. It was no longer a half-hour thing. Instead of being ostly comedic with some drama, it was going to be mostly dramatic, but with comedy. That’s the thing about Saul — he’s funny. Even when he’s being tortured and it is played completely seriously… it’s still funny.”
Odenkirk has a hard time thinking of himself as a leading man. The way he sees it, Saul is just like any other show he has been on — only here he has more lines to learn.
And Odendirk is surprisingly insecure about his looks and age (he is in his early 50s, and is arguably slightly too old to play the younger Saul).
“I worry about my physical appearance, my age. I want to be able to play for them what they write for me, to play the age they need me to play.
“They have written some scenes where I am much younger and they are going to CGI out his wrinkles, so that the character looks like he’s 29.”
What’s remarkable about Odenkirk is that he’s made it this far in his career without accruing any of the bitterness or cynicism that is common among Hollywood lifers. He’s been okay with staying beneath the radar, almost, but not quite, finding success.
Now that it’s arrived on his doorstep, he seems fazed rather than delighted. “I have a reputation among comedians in Hollywood as a guy you go to for advice,” Odendirk says. “And I’ve always told people that part of this job is waiting in line. When people say they like your work, they mean it.They’re not lying to you. You’re going to think they are lying, because you can’t get a fucking break.
“Part of you is thinking, ‘You’re lying to me, you didn’t get me a job’. You’ve got to stay in the line, don’t become an alcoholic, keep your brain in shape, eventually they will cut you some slack and give you an opportunity. And you have to be ready for that when they do.”
And it looks like Odenkirk’s time is now.
- A new episode of Better Call Saul is available on Netflix each Tuesday
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