LUCKY HANK
Section: TV Premieres
Director: Peter Farrelly
Logline: Lucky Hank is a mid-life crisis tale set at Railton College, told in the first person by William Henry Devereaux, Jr. (Bob Odenkirk), the unlikely chairman of the English department in a badly underfunded college in a working-class American town.
Panelists: Bob Odenkirk, Mireille Enos, Paul Lieberstein, and Mark Johnson
Premiered: March 11, 2023
Key Quote: Odenkirk: “We can expect in the first season of Lucky Hank on AMC, to begin to see Hank fall apart—hilariously. When I did Fargo, I was asking why that was such a great part. And it’s because that character had a little bit of self-awareness and he was trying to hide it and cover it up until he couldn’t anymore. There’s something great about that journey where a character you meet is funny or in this case, he’s kind of a crabby, funny guy, and you start to become aware that he’s emotionally falling apart—and the character is also aware of it. He feels as if his world is coming unmoored and he’s sympathetic.”
Johnson: “It’s a free adaptation of Richard Russo’s book Straight Man, who I’ve known for some time. He’s not precious about the book at all. He said, ‘Take the character and do whatever you want with him.’ I know Bob had a conversation with him early on and they talked about Hank.”
The Deadline Studio at SXSW runs March 10-13, where the cast and creatives behind the best and buzziest titles in this year’s lineup sit down with Deadline’s festival team to discuss their movies and the paths they took to get to Austin, Texas.
