Better Call Saul began its final run of episodes Tuesday, which will find it finally linking back up with Breaking Bad. That means nail-biting episodes featuring shocking twists. It also means they’ll be showing else that’s big: the episode they were shooting when star Bob Odenkirk had his relatively minor heart attack. And Odenkirk himself says it’s coming pretty soon.
The Hollywood Reporter rang up the beloved actor and filmmaker to congratulate him on another Emmy nomination. They also discussed his health and how the show changed to ensure he wasn’t pushing himself too hard.
“I feel very good. I’m in great shape. I’m gonna go to a workout right now!” he said. “I didn’t go back to shoot for five weeks. I had a five-week break to recover. And then when I went back, we limited our shooting to 12-hour days… And so they took care of me and I was able to do it, and hopefully you can’t tell when I had the heart attack and when I didn’t.”
However, he decided to tell everyone which one it was: the one airing on July 18th. It still might be hard to tell. He said they had “probably about three quarters of the scene was shot before I had the heart attack, the day of the heart attack, and then the other quarter scene was after.”
Odenkirk also talked about watching that episode. “The strangest thing about it is that I really have no memory of that day,” he said. “I’m really watching something that I don’t have any memory of acting in, which is a rare thing. I mean, usually you watch some, and you have some recall of that even if it was shot months ago. But in this case, it’s such a complete blank. It’s very strange. I gotta tell you, it’s a weird thing to have lost basically about a week and a half. Clean, just clean, clean nothing. That’s a strange experience anyway. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
When news broke that Odenkirk had suffered health issues during a shoot, there was an avalanche of well-wishes, followed by widespread relief when it turned out it wasn’t as bad as it first sounded. It’s such a relief that he’s doing fine and dandy.
(Via THR)