Bob Odenkirk discussed his follow-up role to Better Call Saul in Lucky Hank alongside co-star Mireille Enos, showrunners Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein and executive producer Mark Johnson while talking to The Hollywood Reporter in its SXSW Studio at South by Southwest on Saturday.
The upcoming AMC series follows William Henry Deveraux, Jr. (Odenkirk), an unlikely chairman for the English department at the underfunded Railton College.
After starring as Saul Goodman on Better Call Saul from 2015-2022, Odenkirk said he was interested in Lucky Hank because the character is very different than Saul.
“There’s some very obvious ways it’s quite different. But for me, internally, this character’s self-awareness is quite different from Saul,” he told THR at the Austin festival. “It was hard to play a guy who is as clueless about himself as Saul was, about the big things about himself. Because he was so smart about people, but he just didn’t see himself until the very end of that series.”
Additionally, the actor liked that the show allows him to show off both his comedic and dramatic abilities. “It’s this great marriage of my comedy background and the drama that I’ve gotten to do kind of brought together,” Odenkirk explained.
He added that Lucky Hank is a “very unique show” compared to what else is on TV now. “There’s no drugs, there’s no guns, there’s no zombies, there’s no dystopia,” Odenkirk said.
Zelman and Lieberstein also reflected on casting Odenkirk on the show. They admitted they didn’t have him in mind while developing the project because he was still filming Better Call Saul at the time.
However, Zelman’s wife suggested they ask Odenkirk if he was interested. After Odenkirk read the script and signed on to the project, Lieberstein said that “everyone whose read” the pilot thinks they wrote the role for him. “Now I can’t imagine anybody else,” Zelman added.
Watch the full THR conversation in the player above.
