Bob Odenkirk, star of the upcoming Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul, has revealed that he initially turned down the role. The 52-year-old actor was concerned about the time away from his family that filming would require.
However, it was his teenage son who convinced him to accept the part. Odenkirk told Radio Times: “When my son heard I wasn’t doing it he said, ‘You’re going to disappoint a lot of people’. I said, ‘I’m going to disappoint a lot of strangers’. He said, ‘Well, actually, a lot of them are my friends’.”
Odenkirk added that the idea for a spin-off began as a joke with Breaking Bad creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. “While filming Breaking Bad we would say, ‘In a few years when we’re doing the Saul Goodman Show…’ Then we started to realise, we’re making this joke an awful lot.”
The series follows the life of sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman before the events of Breaking Bad, leading up to the establishment of his strip-mall law office in Albuquerque. Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian and Michael McKean also star. Better Call Saul is available to stream on Netflix from Monday 9 February.
