Bob Odenkirk breaks down Lucky Hank premiere: 'It feels like he's doomed'

Just seven months after Better Call Saul unleashed its series finale, Bob Odenkirk was back on AMC, stirring up all sorts of trouble, a quippy man at a crossroads and in crisis.

This time, though, he wasn't aiding or betting on a meth-making megalomaniac. He was not caught in the crosshairs of warring cartels or facing down a menacing look from a dirty cop-turned-fixer. He was just a college professor, sitting in front of other college professors, about to find out if he was about to be removed as chairman of the English department. You know — real-world stakes.

Based on Richard Russo's 1997 novel Straight Man, Lucky Hank chronicles the unraveling and re-education of William Henry "Hank" Devereaux Jr. (Odenkirk), who is leading a non-kinetic life as a professor at Railton College, an also-ran school in Pennsylvania's Rust Belt. Years ago, he penned a promising novel, but that's long forgotten, and he never followed it up. One day he finds out by opening The New York Times that his estranged father, a towering literary critic, is retiring. Nothing So much to see here. Soon after, he's stagnating in one of his writing seminars, when he is prodded by a high-on-his-own-supply student to stop being so quiet and start offering some feedback. Hank levels up and dresses down the student; pitchforked campus outrage follows, but he refuses to apologize. Academic escalations ensue, and his English department colleagues — led by pompous poetry professor Gracie (Suzanne Cryer) — hold a vote to de-chair him. He is de-chaired, but in a comedically futile follow-up vote to determine the next leader, Hank winds up re-chaired for three years.

Meanwhile, his wife, high school vice principal Lily (Mireille Enos), has been having her own workplace issues. But there may be a light at the end of this small-town tunnel in the form of a Big Apple job, something she only re-pursued with Hank's prodding. But after Hank is re-elected as chair, he squashes that dream again. Kinda makes you want to smack him with a notebook, but don't worry, Gracie has that taken care of.

Let's snack on some vegetable oil-free chocolate, try not to have a complete bowel armageddon, murder a governess, issue a full-confidence vote in the man who is the master of misery, and bet a kidney that Bob Odenkirk has plenty to say about his return to TV.

Sergei Bachlakov/AMC Bob Odenkirk as Hank in 'Lucky Hank'

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Hank delivers that wish-fulfillment smackdown speech to a college student with delusions of grandeur. He questions how good this kid could possibly be if he's "here" at Railton, "Mediocrity's capital." But he also calls himself out and says, "I'm here!," so "how much could I help you?" Does he resent himself even more than those he's charged with educating? And how much of his misanthropy is inward and how much is outward?

BOB ODENKIRK: It's 90 percent inward. [Laughs] Yeah, it's all inside. It's all his own frustration at himself for not being more important. His dad has this legendary status in the world of academia, which sounds like, who cares? But, of course, the people in academia care. And he's nowhere near that level of status and he'll never get there. He hasn't helped himself because he should have written more, but he didn't. He got swept up in life and he has all kinds of excuses, but he should have written more at this point. And he knows it. And he's frustrated at himself.

The de-chairing and re-chairing of Hank was amusing and absurd. After everything that transpired in Saul, was it nice to have the stakes be so low as a de-chairing?

Oh yeah, it was great! There's a lightness to this show. Of course, it is also a comedy much more than Better Call Saul was — as funny as Better Call Saul could be. There's probably one or two sequences you can point to that were played for pure comedy. But this show is lighter. I love that about it. I wanted to go there and see if I could handle that and present that lightness in a way that was watchable and entertaining.

Now that he's re-upped for three years, how many f--- does he have to give? What implications will this de-chairing and re-chairing carry?

It feels like he's doomed. Whereas before he felt like, "I can get out of this anytime I want." And in this case, they're bumping him. He doesn't even vote for himself, if you notice. So the fact that he doesn't vote for himself tells you a lot about where his head is at: "This is going away. That's fine. I don't care." When secretly he does care, because this has been his identity. And then he gets it handed back in his lap and it's a three-year thing.

In the meantime, almost inadvertently, he started this other plate spinning with his wife looking into a job offer. That only came because he thought he would get de-chaired. So, I think he thinks, "I'm doomed." Look, I think he's a guy who found a degree of equilibrium and he thought it would last forever because he stopped looking and thinking about the ways in which it could evolve or change. And now it's changing. And tough s---. What's he going to do about it? And he doesn't know.

Which gets us thinking: What's a more powerful force at play for Hank: self-loathing misery or inertia? Because those things seem very tied up in him.

I think inertia is what keeps him going. The misery — I noticed this is really not a choice I made, but how often the character kind of grunts and sighs and kind of does that exhale thing of like, "Ugh." The logic in my mind was he has a distance and a bemusement at life that he insists is a personal choice of his, but it's not. He's scared of the ways in which he's fallen short and the choices he might need to make to be braver and to do some dangerous things, scary things. He has avoided that and he's just got tons of impacted feelings. [Laughs] And they're coming out. And if you ever had a friend of yours who had depression or something, and they acted like, "Oh, I'm fine!"  but you heard them sigh all the time? You're like, "I don't know if you know this, but you're constantly sighing and you're constantly making exertion noises." But he's not exerting himself. He's just living. I think he's got a lot of feelings inside that he hasn't dealt with.

I interpreted those signs as his PSI meter was too high and he is going to explode or implode, and those sighs are a way of releasing the pressure a bit.  

That's exactly right! And honestly, I didn't even know I was doing it, and I almost was going to ask them to go in audio and take those out… That's what's going on in this guy! He's been holding all this s--- inside him. The great thing is that in the course of eight episodes, I'm not saying he works everything out — he doesn't — but there's such a degree of transformation that I'm not used to in a TV show. And I really liked the growth. It's not a ton of growth, but it's more than you are used to seeing and it's just refreshing in a TV show.

Sounds like it might happen faster than the evolution or devolution of Jimmy, and we're going to see a lot of movement over eight episodes.

Yes. I would say it's more towards the latter half of the season, but it's still more than you're used to seeing. And I was genuinely surprised at the choices they made. Like, "Oh s---, really? I mean, I know we've been talking about that, but holy s---! Like, f---in' A! That's cool that you went there." And it made me really happy.

Sergei Bachlakov/AMC Mireille Enos as Lily and Bob Odenkirk as Hank in 'Lucky Hank'

How destructive was Hank's act of prodding Lily to inquire about the New York job, fantasizing about the city with her, and then pouring the cold water on the idea after she pursued it? That was a devastating scene.

Well, it's a lot bigger than he thought it was. He thought he was just talking — you know, late-night chat: "We could go eat at all these great restaurants in New York…" And I don't think he knew what he was starting, as a mistake in a way. You'll have to see; I don't want to spoil it, but his life is changing and he didn't realize how on the cusp he was of everything evolving.

Hank's father clearly looms large in the story, right down to their names, and he finds out about his dad's retirement news in The New York Times, which seems on-brand for their estranged relationship. What can you hint about the evolution of thought that this spurs in him, as well as the exploration of the damage and weight of unmet expectations?

Well, most of it is inside his head and his heart. It's not in the real world. The real world certainly would judge a guy like that and say, "Wow, your dad is a superstar and you're a professor at a local college and you're in the same field, so I guess he outshone you by a million miles." But also most people would go, "Who cares? It's f---ing literary criticism. It's within a small arena that you're fighting." His dad is a big fish in a small pond. It's still in a small pond. Keep that in mind.

But I think what it really is about is that you are defined and you define yourself by the things that you love and pursue, and the things that you hate and reject and, in this case, damn. And when those things all change and you realize that the rest of the world wasn't keeping score that way, it can really f--- you up. Like, "I thought we were having a competition here about this!" And the rest of the world goes, "No, no, we don't care." And you go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" In this case, he's just unmoored from his sense of himself when his dad retires. He can't have that guy to hate, which is part of how he's defined himself. And the rest of the world is shrugging going, "Why? What do you care? Leave it be." And I think that's a relatable scenario.

This ragtag group of faculty members includes Suzanne Cryer as a pretentious, scheming poetry professor looking to take down Hank. Other professors, like Paul [played by Cedric Yarbrough], are more sympathetic to him, and not to her. What can viewers expect from these dynamics? There seems to be a lot of petty comedy to mine in these office politics.

Oh, man. It's the best! It's such good actors. It's the camaraderie of hate. [Laughs] Is there such a thing? It's the camaraderie of hate that they share. We talked about this early on, when we were shooting the first episode. We can be tearing each other apart, but if somebody from another department came in and said, "Your friend over there is an asshole," we would stand up and go, "F--- you! Get the hell outta here! How dare you! Don't you talk about my friend like that!" [Laughs] And it's like, "What is going on? You guys just gave each other s---!" But you feel a sense of connectedness and camaraderie. I just love it. I think it's true to life, and I think we nailed it. And you'll see that play out over the course of the whole show. Some of that warmth comes out more later.

Sergei Bachlakov/AMC Shannon DeVido as Emma Wheemer, Cedric Yarbrough as Paul Rourke, Suzanne Cryer as Gracie Dubois, Arthur Keng as Teddy, Alvina August as June, Nancy Robertson as Billie Quigley, and Haig Sutherland as Finny in 'Lucky Hank'

The student who feels wronged by Hank's speech and his lack of remorse — is that chicken coming home to roost?

Hank started all this. [Laughs] All the problems that he has in the first season, and everything that will now alter his life, is all provoked by his reaction to his father's retirement and his sense of the world shifting under his feet. He has an outburst in class, and that shakes up his relationship to everyone on the faculty and in the college. And then the suggestion to his wife that they should move to New York. The whole first season right there is going to be what happens because that was his reaction… Everything is seeded in this first episode. Nothing is dropped.

The last scene shows Hank catching up to Lily on her run, and then her jogging away from him. Even though we've just met Lily, who's being challenged in all parts of her life, we can see that he may have tapped her last reservoir of patience. Is the dam about to break?

Well, you see, it's also at her work where she's had this role and she's done it well, but there's almost a feeling like for some reason somebody's calling her on her s---, and her magic is sort of not working anymore. Isn't that a great scene with the chocolate? That is so well-played by everyone.

And I think their daughter [Julie], who's 24, played by the wonderful 24-year-old Olivia Scott Welch — you tell yourself, "I have to be there for them. I have to be a good parent." And then there comes a day when it's like, "You know what? Stop saying that. And it's not true. And if you really want to be a good parent, stop saying, 'I'm a parent.' [Laughs] Just leave her the f--- alone. So that's the way this guy's defined himself. And the interesting thing is his dad's retirement rocks his world. This guy who he doesn't interact with, doesn't like, hasn't talked to — the fact that that guy quits his job changes the world around him. And it's only because what's inside him changes. "I can't hate this guy anymore. No one cares. He doesn't even have the job he had that made me feel so small."

On the racquetball court with his best friend [Diedrich Bader], Hank issues a great koan when talking about his father: "All these years, I haven't fully appreciated all that I didn't have." Is Hank's process of finding himself — his awakening? his reckoning? — going to come at a great cost to himself as well as others?

Yeah, it's going to come at a great cost! His world's going to crumble. He didn't have to confront his relationship with his dad because everything was in this holding pattern. And now he does. Now he has to ask himself, "What does it even mean? My resentment doesn't help me. Nothing helps me. I can't define myself by these things because they're all changing. And I didn't realize how lucky I was to just have this person to hate. [Laughs] This easy person to hate, who I could hate for obvious reasons. And now it's all gone." It just all goes away. These things we define ourselves by, suddenly there comes a day where you go, "Wow! Nobody else in the world perceives this as what I've perceived it as my whole life. And I guess I have to let it go. I don't know who I am if I let it go. I guess I'll have to find out."

How long will viewers have to wait to see Henry Sr. [Tom Bower]?

That's a good question, huh? You're going to be really surprised. You're not going to f---ing believe it. I can't believe the journey they go on in eight episodes.

What can you hint about episode 2? I mean, Brian Huskey as George Saunders is a great revelation...

It's like if LeBron James came to play in a European League game. [Laughs] Everybody's egos are in danger, and everybody is thrilled, excited, and deeply resentful of his presence.

The show's first trailer indicates you might have a showdown with a goose in an upcoming episode. How formidable is that goose?

The goose is the deus ex machina! It's God's hand interacting with his world. You'll see in a couple of other instances, the geese have some kind of love-hate relationship with Hank. And, of course, the goose is on the logo of the school; the Railton sweatshirts and clothes have the goose. I believe the geese in Lucky Hank are angels sent from above to harass and provoke Hank. [Laughs] They're being sent to tell him, "Move on. It's time to migrate." I'm not kidding. I mean, they're like a magical voice speaking to Hank, and he won't listen. They have to f---ing peck the s--- out of him.

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