Bob Odenkirk became obsessed with comedy in elementary school and spent three decades making groundbreaking funny stuff (doing sketch at Second City; writing for The Ben Stiller Show; inventing Matt Foley, motivational speaker; discovering Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim; appearing in The Larry Sanders Show; creating Mr. Show with David Cross) while maintaining a bone-deep indifference to conventional showbiz success. So naturally, Odenkirk has become a big star as a dramatic actor.
In April, after a two-year wait, the final season of Better Call Saul arrives. But first comes a memoir, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, that weaves unpredictably and rivetingly from darkness to humor—not unlike Saul Goodman, but with less bloodshed. Chris Smith talked with Odenkirk about the new book, his recent near-fatal heart attack, and the stunning conclusion of Saul.
Vanity Fair: Congratulations. You’ve written a helluva book.
Bob Odenkirk: Have I, Chris? I don’t know. It was so hard. I read a lot and I know what bad writing looks like, and every fucking day I was picking up what I wrote yesterday and going, “Wow, this is really bad. This is so bad.” It took me forever to write it, four or five years. The first thing I did was sit down and sort of try to copy other people’s writing. Karl Ove Knausgaard—
[V.F. laughs.]
I’m not kidding!
That’s ambitious.
Yes, totally ambitious, but I thought, why not try it, see what you pick up from it, right? It wasn't like I thought I would pull it off. Well, what I learned is it was completely inappropriate for my showbiz memoir. Patti Smith, Just Kids. And Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture. When I did Breaking Bad, and in the first season of Saul, I was listening to the Evans audiobook and I would do my lines in Robert Evans’s voice, with his cadence and sing-song manner. I tried to copy his cliffhanger style of writing, because it’s fun to read, just as it is to hear.
There’s a line in the introduction where you say the real reason you’re writing the book is because you’re dying. Did you write that before you had a heart attack on the Saul set, in July 2021?
[Laughs.] Yes. I did not know I might actually be dying.
How are you now?
Oh, I feel great. I really am fine.
You’ve worked hard at everything you’ve done, but one of the fascinating things about your book is the number of enormous turning points that grow from pure happenstance, beginning when you’re 21. You have basically been rejected by Second City, and you’re browsing in a Chicago bookstore when you meet Del Close.
I’m not a big believer in magic. Del was—he was a witch! But he wasn’t a legend yet, and I didn’t know what he looked like, though I think I’d seen his name on the back of a Second City program. And the girl behind the counter called him “Del.” It’s so strange. I could have just let him leave.
But you didn’t, and dozens of Second City sketches and four years later, you’re hired as a writer at Saturday Night Live, even after antagonizing Lorne Michaels in your job interview.
We got off on the wrong foot and stayed on it. Lorne is distant. He’s not really a jerk. But that distance plays all kinds of games with your head as a young writer and performer.
In the book you call Lorne “an inscrutable ghost captain,” among other things. Have you crossed paths with him anytime recently?
We had dinner in Albuquerque about four months ago, during the making of MacGruber. Yes, I was an extra, and I got shot in the second episode, I think. But he invited me to dinner and we had a great time! I hope he still feels that way after my book comes out, but what can you do? I had to tell the truth. That’s the whole fucking point. It’s my book!
That blunt honesty includes describing the last time you saw your close friend Chris Farley—in Aspen, bloated and high, shortly before he died. It’s heartbreaking to read. Was it painful to write?
It was. It was. But I wanted to try to get everyone to feel that—that was a horrible thing. Um, yeah.
Not long after leaving SNL you and David Cross created Mr. Show, which was a wildly happier experience and a cult hit.
Believe me, you want to get laughs, because I've been up there when you're not getting them, and that sucks. But I don't know. I think maybe other people get off on the reaction more than I do. If you read between the lines in the book, I think you see that I’m doing an awful lot of this for my own entertainment. I like telling the joke because I like the joke.
Fortunately Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould turned out to be Mr. Show fans. Which led to more amazing happenstance. Because you agreed to only do three Breaking Bad episodes instead of the four they offered you, Gilligan and Gould created Mike Ehrmantraut to fill the hole. Then, after you turned down starring in Saul, your son and your daughter sort of talked you into taking the part. So they are either genius casting directors or they wanted dad out of the house.
I like the second option [laughs]! You’re 12, 13, and you’re aware you’ll have more freedom if one parent is gone.
Well, thank goodness they kicked you out. After six seasons of Saul, do you find him sympathetic or psychopathic?
Big question, man. [long pause] I’ve had mixed feelings over the years. I don’t like how much resentment drives the character. There’s that great Randy Newman song, “I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do.” As a person who has to do the math on my own bitterness about life, I think bitterness and resentment are bad reasons to make any choice. You have to be able to let stuff go, and he just can’t.
Kim Wexler loves Jimmy McGill. Why isn’t that enough to save him?
She loves him, but she doesn’t respect him. She kind of pities him. And he wants genuine, full-fledged, “You’re great.”
In the book you describe Jimmy and Kim’s relationship as “complicated, sad, sweet, doomed.” So he gets her killed, right?
Oh, I can’t tell you what happens! Just between you and me and the magazine, right?
We’re talking just eight days after you shot the final Saul episode.
I love the way the series ends.
Is it in a diner, with “Don’t Stop Believing” playing?
[Laughs.] Well, we talked about that. You know, listen, I have nothing against the inscrutable ending, because it lets the audience paint its own picture. But I think Peter Gould ran in the opposite direction. And that’s all I’ll say. It’s just an incredibly satisfying ending.
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