'Breaking Bad' Producer Worried Bob Odenkirk's 'Silly' Saul Goodman Would Ruin the Series

Yahoo

30-01-2025

Walter White came awfully close to never calling Saul.
Bob Odenkirk's flashy, less-than-scrupulous lawyer Saul Goodman (a.k.a. Jimmy McGill) became one of the most memorable characters in Breaking Bad, going on to star in his own Emmy-nominated prequel series, Better Call Saul.
But according to Breaking Bad producer and Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould, the character almost never made it onto the screen.
'His creation was all in service of Walt's story. We weren't thinking, 'Here's an independent character who's going to have a life of his own,' ' Gould tells Alan Sepinwall in an interview included in the TV critic's new book, Saul Goodman v. Jimmy McGill (out Feb. 4), excerpted by EW.com.
Gould wrote 'Better Call Saul,' the episode of Breaking Bad's second season in which Odenkirk's character made his debut. But even then, he tells Sepinwall, he wasn't sure Saul would have a future.
'Personally, as I was writing the episode, I got very nervous,' Gould explains. 'I got scared, because I was worried that we were going to break the show by making a character that was too silly — that he was going to be just too big for what I thought was a very grounded show. Grounded in its own way, let's put it that way.'
Gould says his misgivings weren't helped by AMC's initial response to the script for the 2009 episode.
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'My fear was actually enhanced when we had our first notes call with an executive who will remain nameless,' Gould recalls. '[Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan] and I were on a conference call, and the question came up, basically, 'We don't like this character. Could we start again and come up with a different story for this episode?' '
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Gould explained that Gilligan refused to scrap 'Better Call Saul,' and the unnamed network exec backed down 'because they had to trust Vince.'
'But, you can think about what an alternative universe would be where we had had to throw that episode out,' Gould says.
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Rather than ending up on the scrap heap, Saul quickly became an integral part of Breaking Bad. Odenkirk was promoted to series regular for the show's third season, and continued to appear in the show until its 2013 finale. Gilligan and Gould were considering a spin-off for the character well before Breaking Bad ended, and in 2013, Better Call Saul premiered with Odenkirk starring. The series served as both an origin story for Saul, examining his early years as a lawyer and his gradual corruption, and a continuation of the character's story following the events of Breaking Bad.
Odenkirk was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and six Emmys for his performance in the series, which wrapped up in 2022.
Read the original article on People