'Better Call Saul': Bob Odenkirk on Finding Jimmy's Likability in Season 1 and the 'Pretty Amazing Surprises' in Season 2
Seven Emmy nominations, an Outstanding New Program award from the Television Critics Association, and Best Actor (Bob Odenkirk) and Supporting Actor (Jonathan Banks) wins at the Critics Choice Television Awards… not a bad lineup of accolades for a series whose creators worried viewers might not even tune in for Season 1.
We’re talking about Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad spinoff series that arrives on Blu-ray this week with a haul of bonus materials that makes the set worth purchasing even if you’ve seen Season 1, including uncensored episodes, cast and crew commentary on all 10 episodes, deleted scenes with commentary, featurettes on Mike Ehrmantraut and Jimmy McGill in the courtroom, “Kettle Kommentary” with scene-stealing actors Julie Ann Emory and Jeremy Shamos, a cast and crew table read for the “Uno” episode, a gag reel, a Better Call Saul music video, and a conversation with Odenkirk and TV brother Michael McKean.
Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy nominee Odenkirk, whose sequel-ish sketch comedy series With Bob and David premieres on Netflix Nov. 13, celebrated Saul’s Blu-ray and DVD release by chatting with Yahoo TV about how genuinely surprised and delighted he and the series creators have been with the spinoff’s success, transferring Saul Goodman’s “exuberance and indefatigability” while making Jimmy McGill such a charming character, his favorite moments from Season 1, and the fan-pleasing surprises ahead in Better Call Saul’s second season.
You, Vince Gilligan, Saul character creator and Better Call Saul showrunner Peter Gould have all expressed so much surprise that viewers embraced Better Call Saul as quickly and enthusiastically as they did. But you all had so much good will and trust banked after Breaking Bad. Was there really that much concern on your part that viewers might not like the new show?
Absolutely. Totally. I was totally prepared to get my ass kicked. I actually thought, and I didn’t just think, I told people, “You know, if we do a really, really good job, and we do a show with integrity, and all our best intentions and our best efforts, then we’ll probably still get our assed kicked for one or two years. And then, after two or three years of being on the air, if we can manage it, if we can stay on the air, then maybe people will give us a reconsideration, and that’s where we’ll win them over.” That’s how I thought it would go.
The love for Breaking Bad was so great, and the specialness of Breaking Bad was so great. There was so much about Breaking Bad that was… not just the show itself was great, which was it was, but there was the whole social phenomenon of streaming viewing, which literally didn’t exist when Breaking Bad started. Three years later, in its third season, it sort of became a phenomenon, like a wildfire spread across the country and just built and built, and this show was built for streaming viewing, with cliffhangers every episode and cliffhangers every 15 minutes, really. So I thought, that was such a phenomenon, you can’t beat it, it won’t be beaten for decades. Here we are following up right away, and were just going to get discarded, but I thought if we could just do our best, just do a good show, and if we could just hang on by our fingertips, then eventually, people will actually watch us for what we are, and stop comparing us. But then, right from the start, [it turned out] that people kind of watched with an open mind. [They] let this show, which is different from Breaking Bad in a lot of ways, I think a little more curious and a very distinctive scenario, they let us do it. They gave it a chance, and they’re continuing to give it a chance. We’re really thankful, that’s genuine. All of us mean it when we say, we can’t believe the acceptance that has been given to us so far. I think, with the DVDs coming out and with the show continuing on, we’ll hopefully get still more of a reconsideration and people will notice how unique it is, as we carry on.
Related: ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 1 Postmortem: Peter Gould Talks Where Jimmy Will Be in Season 2
Was there a point in Season 1 where you felt like everything had jelled, you all had found the voice and the tone? Especially the tone, because that was probably the biggest question viewers had going in, would it be more of a comedy or more of a drama?
I feel like, speaking only for me, I feel like we found the tone in Season 2. I feel like the confidence of, “This is what this show is, it’s this individual story, and it’s about people’s deep motivations that even they are only becoming aware of,” I think it’s in Season 2 where I feel comfortable with that, with where we’re at and what we’re doing.
We all love those Breaking Bad characters, and we want to see them again, but do you think it was a good decision to use them sparingly — really just Tuco and Mike — in Season 1?
Oh, yeah. It’s a really good thing. I mean, as wonderful as those characters are, and that excitement of seeing them again, it’s a distraction when we’re trying to get everybody to become familiar with these new characters and the things that are driving them and the conflicts at their core. It could be a distraction if too many of those Breaking Bad characters had shown up too quickly. That said, there are some pretty amazing surprises in Season 2… you’re not going to believe it.
Vince has said the idea of making Chuck the bad guy came very late in the season, and that it was a big surprise to the writers. What was the biggest surprise about Season 1 for you?
We had a lot of talk about how doing a show about Saul Goodman was tricky, because Saul was a dastardly fellow, who was self-interested, not exactly the hero type in Breaking Bad as you got to know him. He had to become likable, and I was very surprised at how likable they were able to make him. I couldn’t believe how much I liked Jimmy, and yet it tracks. It’s not like they abandoned Saul Goodman. They just thought of the qualities of Saul, that were, that he had that were entertaining, and they asked themselves who could he really be, if you got to know him on a deeper level. They made him incredibly sympathetic, I thought.
And charming, which obviously, you had a big hand in making him likable and charming, too.
Yeah, I don’t know, I give it all to the writers. Maybe it’s because I started my career as a writer. It’s not easy to write a character who has as many sides as the character of Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, and still have it all track. I think you look at Breaking Bad, there was a similar thing with Walter White, where he was initially so, in a way, very selfless, and then he became incredibly selfish in his behavior and choices. Then he became self-aware of his own selfishness. It all tracked. It never was just a leap that made no sense… everything made sense and built.
With a movie, you know the outcome when you start filming, but you don’t live with it the way you do when you’re making a TV series and you’re developing the character and living with it for several seasons. Given that you do know, to a certain extent, what happens to Jimmy/Saul, does that factor in when you’re playing Jimmy?
Well, yeah, except that I got to say, I don’t think, from just the glimpses that we had of Saul in Breaking Bad, they don’t define him at all, to me. When you first meet him, he tells Walter White, my name is not Saul Goodman and this is all a front. Even leaving aside that he is a fictional character who is admitting that he is creating a fictional character, in the world of Breaking Bad, everybody has many sides to them that they don’t show when they’re at work. We’re all different with our families than we are at the office… we behave differently, we mute parts of ourselves or we expand parts of ourselves when we’re at work versus who we are when we’re alone versus who we are when we’re with family. We’re seeing a character, now, at work, we’re seeing him with his brother, we’re seeing him with a girl that he loves, we’re seeing him, kind of sort of, on his own. He’s got different sides to him, but that’s just very real. I don’t think that that’s a contradiction at all. It’s not that hard to believe in all these different sides of the character, and yet still, they do need to work together. I define this character by his exuberance, and his indefatigability more than anything else. I think that was evident in Saul Goodman, and his problem-solving abilities. And his problem-creating abilities. He kind of gets carried away and doesn’t notice road blocks or problems, because he’s too excited. Those two things are very evident in the character in all these different iterations, and they’re defining, to me, more than any other aspect of him. He’s a good guy, and that was a surprise.
What was your favorite Jimmy moment, or the most fun you had, in Season 1? Can you choose just one?
Oh, yeah. Actually, I’m going to point to two things. One is when he makes the commercial, and pulls that stunt. It’s so much fun when he’s making a commercial, and he’s got his filmmaker side going, because he’s like this amateur filmmaker, wannabe filmmaker, and he’s very excited whenever he’s orchestrating anything with a camera. We see more of that in Season 2, and that’s just silly fun. The other thing is, I like the challenging scenes. I like the challenging, emotional scenes, like Jimmy’s confrontation with his brother Chuck in “Pimento.” Those are really challenging, but they’re really rewarding to play.
Related: Vince Gilligan on the Classic TV Episodes That Inspired ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’
Your Netflix sketch comedy series with David Cross, With Bob and David, premieres this weekend. Are you someone who binge watches TV yourself?
No, I don’t. I watch my shows an episode at a time. I watch The Last Man on Earth. I watch Fargo. I was watching Mad Men ‘til it stopped. I actually watch a TV show called Better Call Saul, because I’m in it so much that I forget what I did, so I get to watch it, and it’s almost like it’s new to me.
Do you really watch Saul? A lot of actors say they don’t like to watch themselves on screen.
I don’t think of it as myself, I think of it as a character. I don’t know… I have a hard time watching myself on talk shows. That’s where you are supposed to be yourself, and that’s hard to watch. I don’t want to see that, but when I’m in character, I don’t think of it quite the same way.
It’s fun that we get to see four episodes of With Bob and David all at once. It’s like a night at a great stage show.
Are you saying that you wish there were more?
Of course.
Yeah, I know, I wish there were more, too. Sorry, it’s so short. We had fun, and we want to do more of them. We’ll see.
So there’s hope for a Season 2?
Oh, yeah. For sure.
Better Call Saul: Season 1 is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
