“Everyone evolves, I don’t evolve,” snarked Jonathan Banks today at Deadline’s Contenders TV about his character, ex-cop Mike Ehrmantraut between Breaking Bad and spinoff Better Call Saul.
Then turning to the star on the latter show, Bob Odenkirk, Banks exclaimed, “I’ve been doing this professionally for 53 years and I’ve never seen anybody — I thought how can he pull this off?”
“When Bobby Odenkirk came in to do Better Call Saul, the first episode he was nervous as a cat; he was dry-mouth, he lost his voice,” recalled Banks.
“Ya know, he pulled this off. I’ve never seen anybody do what he did,” added the Wiseguy and Beverly Hills Cop thespian, “Because we’re looking at a comedy writer here for crissakes.”
“Sorry, I had no choice,” joked back Odenkirk, “I signed a contract.”
“Thank you for joining me in this show, because I could have ended your career finally. I could have put a big ole cork in it,” he further quipped.
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The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul is broken into two parts. It kicks off on April 18 and runs until late May, before picking up again in early July.
“Even though I know what happens [in the end], I don’t think it’s hit me,” says Odenkirk about wrapping up as the slippery lawyer Saul Goodman, “I think I’ll have to watch it with everyone else, and that’s when it will hit me.”
“Yeah, we’ve done this for a long time, this is our sixth year, and it encompasses a seven or eight-year period, from starting to talk about it, to Covid break, to heart attack break, to normal breaks between seasons,” continued the 2x Emmy winner.
“It’s the Rubik’s cube from hell,” said Better Call Saul co-creater Peter Gould about getting the final season of the Breaking Bad spinoff right for the fans, “It’s incredibly challenging and intimidating, but starting the show was the same thing.”
Asked by Deadline’s Pete Hammond whether we’ll see Bryan Cranston’s Walter White return at the end of Better of Call Saul, Banks deadpanned, “Why would you want him to? I mean, talk about a really overrated actor.”
Quipped Odenkirk, “Please make sure he knows John said that.”
Also on today’s panel was Rhea Seehorn (Kim Wexler) and Giancarlo Esposito (Gus Fring).
Deadline Contenders Television is sponsored by: Apple TV+, Eyepetizer, Final Draft, Los Siete Misterios, and Michter’s. Partners include: Desalto, Film AlUla, Four Seasons Resort Maui, Jason Mizrahi Design, ModMD, The American Pavilion, and Tidelli.
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