SO MUCH MORE TO TELL THAN SAUL’S STORY
Bob Odenkirk, star of the Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul, is planning a book that will span his chequered career in comedy writing and acting
Bob Odenkirk started his career with comedy writing, before finding fame as an actor. The Better Call Saul star is now all set to retrace his journey — he says that he’s working on a book about his career.
He is also excited about Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, an adaptation of the 1868 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. It follows the lives of sisters Amy, Jo, Beth, and Meg and their mother in Civil War-era Massachusetts, America, as they navigate growing up, and first loves.
The cast include names like Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlon, James Norton, and Louis Garrel.
“I am honoured to join a stellar cast,” Odenkirk says. “Other than that, I’m preparing many projects, including a book about my career of comedy writing and acting, and then moving into drama and the many different aspects of all that,” he adds.
Comedy writing has defined Odenkirk’s career since the early 1990s with projects like The Ben Stiller Show and Saturday Night Live.
As an actor, he played a crusading journalist in the Oscar-nominated drama, The Post, and gave voice to a major character in the animation hit Incredibles 2. His TV work has included Everybody Loves Raymond, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, and, of course, Breaking Bad, of which Better Call Saul is a very successful spin-off.
Following the story of Walter White, Breaking Bad was about a terminally ill chemistry teacher turned meth producer. Better Call Saul follows the story of con-man turned small-time lawyer James “Jimmy” Morgan McGill, six years before the events of Breaking Bad. It shows his transformation into criminal-for-hire Saul Goodman.
Odenkirk says, “The writers have become more confident as they move, more rapidly, between comedy, drama, internal revelation, violence, and pure fun.” How does he see his character’s arc? The actor replies, “I see a guy who lazily took part in con jobs and using others, then made a concerted effort to do right, then — out of frustration and a broken heart — slipped down further and more intentionally than he had ever gone before. He is now compartmentalising his sorrow and aiming, with confidence and conscious effort, to be ‘the best’, most selfish, mercenary lawyer he can be. But, hopefully, there is still a beating heart underneath it all.”
[Saul] is now compartmentalising his sorrow and aiming, with confidence and conscious effort, to be ‘the best’, most selfish, mercenary lawyer he can be. But, hopefully, there is still a beating heart underneath it all.
BOB ODENKIRK ACTOR