Karl Puschmann talks to Bob Odenkirk about the upcoming season of Better Call Saul.
He's won multiple awards, is the lead in one of the most critically acclaimed shows currently screening and is a well established and beloved comic actor, writer and creator.
Yet, no matter how many further accolades he collects there's one person not impressed by any of these remarkable accomplishments.
"Forme it's my mother," Bob Odenkirk laughs. "I love my mum and she loves me, but she couldn't care less about entertainment."
It's one of the few similarities he shares with his Better Call Saul character Jimmy McGill, who is constantly striving for the approval of his older brother Chuck.
Although unlike poor old Jimmy, Odenkirk has clearly made peace with his reality.
"There's a real quality to Jimmy McGill that is true for a lot of people," Odenkirk says when asked about the audience's affection for the character.
"Jimmy senses he has some talents and that he could be an important person in the world. But he can't find the place in the scheme of things where he belongs."
"The real question is why did people like Saul Goodman? Cause he was just a snake!"
Odenkirk is in town to talk about Better Call Saul's hotly anticipated third season, which returns to Spark's streaming service Lightbox in a couple of weeks on Tuesday, April 11.
The first two seasons of the show have been real slow burners, paying off viewer patience with artful direction, an unfolding intricately plotted storyline, humour as black as night and some painfully intense scenes.
And, as Odenkirk reveals, things are only going to get more intense and full on from here when one of Breaking Bad's big bad's bursts into Jimmy's world.
"Gus Fring comes into Better Call Saul in season three and we get to see him build his drug empire," Odenkirk says, clearly relishing what's coming up. "What that entails is of course danger and violence for everyone involved."
The other long awaited moment is the long teased transformation of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman. Fans may not have to wait too long...
"What you'll see is Jimmy mcGill is going to become Saul Goodman in season three," Odenkirk reveals.
"Not exactly in the way you met him in Breaking Bad, but in a very internal way he's going to become the character of Saul Goodman."
