This image released by AMC shows Bob Odenkirk as Hank in a scene from ‘Lucky Hank’ Photo Credit: Sergey Bachalkov
Bob Odenkirk loves Saul Goodman, but he’s also ready to leave the character behind. He played the secretive, calculating lawyer for six seasons on “Breaking Bad” and again on “Better Call Saul.” ,
The Emmy-nominated actor hopes audiences will next take him to the dark comedy series AMC’s “Lucky Hank,” debuting Sunday, as Hank Deveraux, a college English professor who leads the department at an underfunded college. The chair is going through an identity crisis. He wrote a novel that no one read, yet his father’s retirement from the academic literary world was covered by the New York Times.
Odenkirk recently said on Zoom, “Boys always want to be bigger than their dads if they do the same thing or the same thing, or they want to be the opposite of their dads and usually they try to do something completely different.” Can’t get it.”
Odenkirk was attracted to the fact that Hank, with his irreverence and wit, is also quite funny. Some people may not realize or forget that Odenkirk has a background in comedy. He was a writer on “Saturday Night Live” and worked with some of its most notable breakout stars, including Adam Sandler, Chris Farley and Chris Rock.
“Saul Goodman was funny, but Saul didn’t know how to be funny. Usually he was funny to you, the audience, but he wasn’t trying to be, but he was totally clueless about what he was doing.” was serious than that,” Odenkirk explained. “This guy is making jokes. He’s saying things that he knows are funny and he means to be funny. It’s really fun to play it. That self-awareness, I love it and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to play this role.
‘Lucky Hank’ is based on the novel ‘Straight Man’ by Richard Russo. Paul Lieberstein and Aaron Zelman, co-creators and co-showrunners of “The Office,” say the series takes too many liberties from the book.
“I’ve done a lot of optimizations,” Zelman said. “You realize that an entire chapter of the book can be a moment in a scene. It’s just a different animal and you have to invent a lot more stuff.”
Bob Odenkirk as Hank in a scene from ‘Lucky Hank’ | Photo Credit: Sergey Bachalkov
“Lucky Hank” also comes at a time when Odenkirk is still processing a 2021 massive heart attack on the set of “Better Call Saul.” His heart stopped for 18 minutes and Odenkirk came out feeling a mixture of energy and exhaustion. What if there is no real memory.
“Two weeks later he was like, ‘Okay guys, when do we go out and pitch this thing?’ Zelman said.
“It’s also a feeling, like, ‘Maybe you’re making a terrible decision,'” Lieberstein laughed.
Odernik says that the heart attack was “as severe as the one before it knocked you to the ground” and it left him with the same questions about his life that Hank has.
“I’m in it now. I’m just thinking about, ‘I’m 60. What do I want to do with the rest of my life?’ How do I want to live?’ It’s different than the last 10 years, which, you know, was about Saul Goodman and doing a lot of things.”
He stars alongside Mireille Enos as his wife, Lily, who tries to balance Hank’s whims but is also confronting her own questions of self-identity and purpose. Enos is known for playing dark, serious roles such as “The Killing”.
Odenkirk recalled, “We had lunch together in New York when she was considering taking the role.” Finally I said, ‘You have a very nice smile. How have I never seen this?’ She goes, ‘They never ask me to do light material.’ She’s always on the run, she’s being chased…, it’s always such an intense drama, which she’s wonderful in, but she has a lightness and a soul that I don’t think she’s had the opportunity to show. It is actually displayed here as a lily.