00:00Hi, I'm Bob Odenkirk. You're watching In Studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
00:09Well, congratulations on your Emmy nomination.
00:12Thank you so much.
00:13Standing lead actor in a drama series for Better Call Saul.
00:16Hot damn. I'm pretty special.
00:19You are pretty special.
00:22But I did want to say something. You predicted Michael McKeon's Emmy nomination this year.
00:28Well, I sure, you know, felt certain he deserved it.
00:34And I'm thankful that he got this nod because he has been a source of power and gravity and
00:44wonderful acting on the set of Better Call Saul.
00:47And I know that he's done so many things over the years. I did not know it was his first
00:52Emmy nomination.
00:53Wow.
00:53In fact, that's hard to believe.
00:55Yeah.
00:56And I wrote to him with kind of a, you know, sarcastic, like, I bet you don't really,
01:02it's no big deal to you. And he was like, oh my God, no, it's a huge deal to me.
01:07I'm thrilled to be
01:09nominated. So Michael McKeon as Chuck is a powerful performance. And I hope that he, I hope that he
01:18wins.
01:18Speaking of powerful performances, you have this amazing karaoke scene in season four.
01:23He and I, yes, we do a scene where you see the brothers McGill. We play brothers on Better Call
01:28Saul.
01:29He's my older brother and the person that I most in the world want to please and, and whose respect
01:36I'm trying to earn and never, never, never can earn and never will.
01:43And there's a scene where we're singing karaoke together. And it's, it's a fun, beautiful shared
01:52moment where the two brothers are kind of on the same page, which is extremely rare.
01:57Yeah. I mean, the show does such a great job of giving us a little bit of heart and then
02:02kind of
02:02pulling the rug out from under us emotionally.
02:06Yeah. Well, Peter Gould and the writing staff, uh, not unlike Breaking Bad in every way,
02:13which literally many of the same people, um, uh, are just good at doing that, you know,
02:20like getting you to like someone enough that they can do something bad and you still will like them.
02:26Mm hmm. So with the, um, with the four seasons, we're coming up on season five.
02:32Yes. You've really been able to take your time with the transformation.
02:36Yeah. They are building it slowly, but it's turning. Now it's turning rapidly, I would say.
02:43We're here. Yeah. And that's similar to Breaking Bad too. This very slow, you know, build up as we
02:49go up the rollercoaster ramp and then once it starts going downhill, it just cannot stop. And that's
02:56where we are in season five, which we're shooting right now. Wow. Season five is just,
03:02everything's on fire and it's just burning down around us. It's a dumpster fire. It's a dumpster
03:06fire. And, uh, yeah, it's fun to be a part of that. It's fun when things go crazy and aren't
03:14going to
03:14stop. Uh, all that buildup was fun too, but I worried about the audience staying with us. You know,
03:22uh, we asked people to watch closely and to understand on a kind of a deeper level,
03:29the characters and the plot. And you know what they did the audience, uh, really impressed the
03:37hell out of me. Um, but I do think that it was all because of Breaking Bad, uh, and not
03:45just because
03:45of the success of Breaking Bad, but because people who watched Breaking Bad knew that,
03:52Oh, every detail matters. You know, the eye floating in the water, it's means something,
03:58it is something. And so by getting a large audience to watch on that level,
04:05then when Better Call Saul started, they immediately were hooked into watching,
04:10you know, closely and not worrying about it getting somewhere, but trusting that it would.
04:16Well, one of the things that, uh, maybe fans can be really excited about is that the Breaking Bad movie
04:22is going to come out and that will come out on Netflix first and then go to AMC.
04:27Is that how it will play? That's what we've been told here at The Hollywood Reporter.
04:31I've heard so many different things about it, but I am excited about the Breaking Bad movie. I can't
04:36wait to see it. Is there a lot of secrecy around it? Unbelievable secrecy. Yeah. I'm surprised you
04:41mentioned it. Like, I don't know what people know or don't know. Right. I find it hard to believe
04:46you don't know it was shot. They did it. Wow. You know what I mean? Like, like how is that
04:53a secret?
04:54But it is. They, they've done an amazing job of keeping it a secret. Well, one of the things that
04:59I think fans are really, really crazy about is, and kind of crave more of, is the present day
05:07Sal Goodman storyline, which we only get a little taste of in the beginning of every season.
05:12Mm-hmm. You mean after, post-Breaking Bad. Exactly.
05:17Where he's, this character's named Gene Takovic. Right. Yes, Gene. Very sad fellow.
05:22We're in some real, like, kind of back-to-the-future territory. Yeah.
05:26Like, present-past and past-present. Yeah.
05:28I know that you have, you don't like to know too much ahead of time. Yeah, I don't.
05:33So do you know anything about the Gene storyline? I mean, we, once a year, uh, I sit with Peter
05:39Gould,
05:40and, uh, if Vince Gilligan wants to join in, he can. But, uh, uh, I won't kick him out.
05:48But, uh, we talk about just general thoughts about the series. You know, I, I'm not a writer
05:55on the show, and, uh, it's an exciting thing for me to see choices made that I would never have
06:01predicted, and there are many of them. Uh, so I don't want to control it too much, but I speak
06:06sort of as a fan, as a person who watches the episodes when they play and is kind of surprised
06:13by them. Um, because I don't really read the whole script. At least I don't read it closely. I only
06:18read
06:18my parts, because I want to watch it fresh, you know? Yeah. Like anybody. I'll just tell them what I
06:23think. But I, I would like to see Gene Takovic's story go somewhere. And I think they do too.
06:30So I think maybe there will be some story where that character post Breaking Bad
06:37finds his way in the world. I don't know, makes, uh, some peace with his past. I mean,
06:43the question I have is Vince Gilligan, who led the show for the first three years,
06:50and who still is, you know, with Peter, a partner in the journey of the show. Um, I don't think
06:57he's
06:57interested in redemption stories. I don't think, I would love to hear him answer the question,
07:05do you think people can learn from their mistakes? I'm not sure what his answer would be. I sort of
07:12think it would be no. Yeah. Um, and, and of course, I like this guy after years of playing him,
07:20and I'd love to see him make different choices and be a better person because of everything he went
07:28through. But I'm not sure that fits with, uh, Vince's world view. Has your feelings about him
07:36evolved? Um, well, you know, I didn't like Saul Goodman at all. Yeah. Cause at the beginning,
07:41you were like, kick his ass, like beat him up. Well, I still feel that way. I love to be
07:45in a
07:46physically, um, destroyed place because I think first it engenders some empathy from the audience.
07:53But you know, part of the fun of acting is doing things that you can't actually do in life and
08:00go
08:00places you don't go. I'm a pretty, um, I, I, I kind of maintain, uh, even keel, I think in
08:09a general
08:09sense as a person. Um, so to play someone who's unsteady is fun and to play someone who says crazy
08:17shit and gets in bad, bad scrapes and bad situations is a adventure. Yeah. So I do like
08:24that still. When Vince and Peter and I met to discuss this show, my first comment was,
08:33well, I had two comments. One was, I'm old. I'm 50 and now I'm 56. Um, so whatever you do,
08:44don't try to make me too young cause it's not going to work. And my second comment was, um,
08:52how do you make the guy likable? I mean, I don't like Saul Goodman. He's funny. And in the context
08:58of Breaking Bad, he's a relief and a comic relief. And he, for most of Breaking Bad, he doesn't have
09:06a gun pointed at it that said nobody's trying to kill him. So he can be a wiseacre and you
09:12just
09:12know it's all skimming off his back. He doesn't care. He's either going to make a lot of money
09:17or he's not going to make a lot of money. And that's all he's got in the game.
09:22But then of course, later it became, he became a person in danger, but, um, just how do you make
09:30him someone you want to root for? And they dug in on that question and made Jimmy McGill someone I
09:36like.
09:37And I, uh, empathize with, even though I, his life is still very, very different from mine.
09:44Um, but I think that the struggle of that character is something I, I like and I relate to.
09:52Um, so I, they made him someone I like. And so now he's Gene Takovic. Maybe, maybe he has a,
09:58a further growth, a sense of who he could be or how he could use his skills and not get,
10:06uh, dragged down.
10:07Right. I, I keep wondering whether Walter White. I just gave a 10 minute answer to that question.
10:13No, but I love it. And he used up all our time. I know. I know. But I keep wondering
10:17whether Walter
10:18White and Jimmy McGill slash Solgerman slash Gene Takovic. Yeah. I wonder if they are Shakespearean
10:25tragedy characters or Greek tragedy characters. I think the difference is fate. It's fate versus human
10:32failings. The ability. I'm going Shakespeare. Yeah. Because I think Walter White and Jimmy,
10:40um, and all the other characters on Better Call Saul, but definitely Jimmy, make choices that come
10:47from deep within. Choices that when, when you get them in the script, you can even ask,
10:53this goes against everything he's been saying or claiming he wants to be. But they're all,
11:00they're all very, uh, related to a deeper part of the person. My friend, Michael Mando, who's, uh,
11:07plays Nacho on, um, Better Call Saul, a great, great actor and a very interesting fellow, uh, who thinks
11:15deeply about character and story, um, said to me, um, it's his amygdala. It kicks into gear every once in
11:24a
11:24while. It's this like lizard brain deep inside his brain that makes him do things that are
11:32intense and outrageous. And, and it's like Walter White. I mean, right. That was like, there was,
11:39there was a crazy asshole deep inside this dad's brain. Well, we're all excited for what's going to
11:48happen in season five. We're excited for the Breaking Bad movie. Cool. We have to wait until
11:522020 for at least one of those things. You have to wait to 2020 for Better Call Saul season four,
11:59season five. You gotta wait. 2020 is going to be awesome. Yeah. We hope so in so many ways.
12:06Not so great. Yeah. Bob Odenkirk, thank you so much for being here, uh, Better Call Saul on AMC,
12:12and we will see you at the Emmys. Thank you.
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