Bob Odenkirk Explains Why Being 'Handsome and Built' Isn't Necessarily an Advantage in Action Movies

Bob Odenkirk surprised audiences with his turn in 2021's Nobody, a John Wick-style action film that saw the 61-year-old as a former assassin who gets roped back into the business when his family becomes the target of a vengeful crime lord.

Next, Odenkirk is reteaming with Nobody screenwriter Derek Kolstad on a new action film Normal, which is currently being shopped around to potential buyers. The film will see Odenkirk as Ulysses, "a temporary sheriff in the sleepy rust belt town of Normal who gets caught up in a deep criminal conspiracy."

But three years after his first foray into the genre, the Better Call Saul star still doesn't have the, shall we say, physique of an action star. As such, in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter published this week, Odenkirk and Kolstad were asked whether there were any special challenges to doing an action movie with a guy who doesn't have "the gym body of a 22-year-old."

"I think it’s an advantage," he admitted. "A lot of action movies, where the guys are too handsome and built, it’s hard for the audience to buy into the idea that they’re in danger. I don’t have that problem."

"Audiences genuinely see me and go, 'Oh, jeez, this guy is screwed. He’s going to get his ass handed to him,'" Odenkirk quipped. "He doesn’t get to win by sheer muscle because he doesn’t have that. He gets to win through tenacity and cleverness."

And given the inspiration for their first collaboration, the pair were also asked who would win a fight between John Wick and Nobody protagonist Hutch Mansell.

"It’d never get to a fight," Kolstad guessed. "They would show up, look each other in the eye and say, 'Let’s go get a beer.'"

If nothing else, you certainly don't need a gym body to share a beer.