In the world of AMC’s Better Call Saul, the journey of Jimmy McGill becoming Saul Goodman has been a slow buildup for audiences, but the season four finale pushed it one step closer following McGill announcing he’ll be practicing law under a different name: “S’all good, man.”
“They’ve been building it slowly but it’s turning. Now it’s turning rapidly, I would say,” Odenkirk told In Studio With The Hollywood Reporter of the AMC series, which earned 11 Emmy nominations, including best lead actor in a drama series. “That’s similar to Breaking Bad, too. This very slow buildup as we go up the roller-coaster ramp and then, it starts going downhill, it just cannot stop. And that’s where we are in season five, which we’re shooting right now.”
“Season five is just everything’s on fire, and it’s just burning down around us,” he added.
The constant uphill trek to becoming Saul Goodman had Odenkirk worried about audiences sticking with the series through the four seasons.
“I was worried about the audiences staying with us. We asked people to watch closely and to understand on a deeper level the characters and the plot, and you know what? They did,” he explained. “The audience really impressed the hell out of me. But I do think that it was all because of Breaking Bad and not just because of the success of Breaking Bad, but because people who watched Breaking Bad knew that every detail matters, the eye floating in the water, it means something. And so by getting a large audience to watch on that level, then when Better Call Saul started, they immediately were hooked into watching closely and not worrying about it getting somewhere but trusting that it would.”
Odenkirk also touched on the upcoming, highly anticipated Breaking Bad movie, a sequel involving Aaron Paul, set to release on AMC and Netflix in 2020.
“I’ve heard so many different things about it, but I am excited about the Breaking Bad movie. I can’t wait to see it,” he told In Studio.
Speaking on the secrecy surrounding the film, Odenkirk said, “I don’t know what people know and don’t know. I find it hard to believe you don’t know it was shot. They did it. You know what I mean? How is that a secret? But it is. They’ve done an amazing job of keeping it a secret.”
