Bob Odenkirk discusses his follow-up to Better Call Saul in Character Lucky Hank with co-star Mireille Enos, producers Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein and executive producer
)Mark Johnson in his SXSW with The Hollywood Reporter Talked Saturday at South by Southwest studio.
Upcoming AMC series follows William Henry Deveraux, Jr. (Odenkirk), unlikely chair of English at underfunded Reardon College .
as Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul from -2015, Odenkirk said he was interested in Lucky Hank because of the character and Saul very different.
“There are some very obvious ways in which it is completely different. But for me, deep down, this character has a very different sense of self than Saul.” Different,” he told THR at the Austin Music Festival. “It’s hard to play someone who is as clueless as Saul is about himself, about his big stuff. Because he’s smart about people, but he doesn’t see himself until the very end of that series.”
Plus, the actor loves that the show allows him to show off his comedic and dramatic abilities. Odenkirk explained, “It’s a perfect combination of my background in comedy and the theater I do.”
He added Lucky Hank is a “very unique show” compared to everything else on TV right now. “No drugs, no guns, no zombies, no dystopia,” Odenkirk said.
Zelman and Lieberstein also reflect on having Odenkirk on the show. They admit they didn’t have him in mind when developing the project because he was still filming Better Call Saul .
However, Zelman’s wife suggested that they ask Odenkirk if he was interested. After Odenkirk read the script and signed on to the project, Lieberstein said “everyone who read” the pilot thought they wrote the character for him. “Now I can’t imagine anyone else,” Zelman added.
Watch the full THR conversation in the player above.
