Bob Odenkirk on his new role in Lucky Hank and the time he took a cheeky dip at an Auckland beach

In Lucky Hank, Bob Odenkirk is returning to his comedy roots. Photo / Sergei Bachlakov

Bob Odenkirk says his last visit to New Zealand in 2017 was “far too short”.

The last time he was in the country, he was flown into Auckland to promote the third season of Better Call Saul and “the only fun thing he did” was on the way back to the airport - and that, of course, was a trip to the beach.

“I said, ‘I have to swim in the ocean. It’s too pretty’,” he recalls. “And I would say I probably swam around St Heliers Beach, or maybe Takapuna Beach. Or maybe it was Milford. Or Cheltenham. It might have been Cheltenham.

Bob Odenkirk stars in Lucky Hank as the chair of a college English department, Hank Deveraux. Photo / Sergei Bachlakov

“That was the only sort of recreational thing I got to do. And I regret it terribly. I should have asked for two more days. You know, you live and learn.”

Five years later, a few things have changed. He suffered a major heart attack in 2021, said goodbye to the character of Saul Goodman, and he’s starring in a new series called Lucky Hank, playing William Henry “Hank” Devereaux, a grumpy English professor on the brink of a midlife crisis.

Now speaking to the Herald over Zoom, Odenkirk says moving on from the Breaking Bad universe was “a great exhale of joy”.

“I loved playing Saul. And I love the people who made the show Better Call Saul. But it was a lot of tension and a lot of stress to just be that guy. And that was the story that we were telling,” he admits.

His new role couldn’t be more different - the stakes are “extremely low”, he jokes. In the world of Lucky Hank, the scariest things are everyday situations we’ve all experienced - getting told off by your boss, worrying you’ve peaked early in your career, awkwardly running into a colleague you’re a bit jealous of, worrying about your family relationships.

Bob Odenkirk as Hank Deveraux and Mireille Enos as Lily Deveraux in Lucky Hank. Photo / Sergei Bachlakov

“There is no drug cartel, no guns. Everyone’s afraid of losing their job, and Hank is a little afraid of losing his marriage. But it takes a little while for him to realise he might be f***ing it up for real,” Odenkirk says.

“And so the stakes are lower, but they’re not low to the characters because everybody perceives their own problems as being huge. And so that’s true of Hank and the people in Lucky Hank, the people in this English department in this small college where he teaches.”

It’s something of a comedy comeback for Odenkirk, whose career started out with writing for Saturday Night Live. Now he gets to play the funny guy again.

“Saul was funny, but he wasn’t joking a lot,” he muses. “He was scared and he was making choices out of fear and some degree of excitement. He was funny to watch, but he wasn’t necessarily being funny.

“Hank is making jokes all the time. And it’s great to play a guy who has a sense of humour about his world. He’s crabby, but his crabbiness is kind of a persona that he’s investing a lot of energy in because he likes playing that guy for people. I think he thinks everybody enjoys seeing him play this guy.”

For Odenkirk, what appealed to him most about the character was the chance to play someone who has to learn and grow to move forward.

“This show allows the characters to really transform more than most. I also can be too crabby. And it also can be funny, and it can also be not funny after a while,” he jokes.

“You get tired of challenging yourself as a person. And yet it’s necessary to challenge yourself even when you get to be 60 years old, or even when you get to be 70.

“And I think Hank is learning that in the first couple episodes that he better challenge himself and change a little. Somewhere about episode six, he starts to realise that he’s not as sympathetic as he thinks he is. And he’s gotta pull himself up by his own bootstraps and get out of his own way and step out of the muck of his bad feelings and see a new way forward.”

When it comes to challenging himself in real life, the actor doesn’t appear to be slowing down, revealing that since his heart attack in 2021, he’s “doing really well”.

“I take my medicine like I’m supposed to, and I think I’m fine - maybe even better than fine. I was training today at the stunt gym because I’m hoping we get to make Nobody 2 and we’re working hard to make that happen.”

Odenkirk collapsed on set while filming the final season of Better Call Saul, and while he’s since made a full recovery, he shares that the experience forced him to rethink a few things.

“The biggest change is that, and this is gonna sound weird, but I want to work less and I want to enjoy what I do,” he says.

“I want to put some space in between things so that I can take them in, or revel in the good relationships that I have and support people around me. I’m finding ways to put more time and space into my life.”

• Lucky Hank is available to watch on TVNZ+ now