'Better Call Saul' star Bob Odenkirk explains how the Emmy-nominated show handled his on-set heart attack
Bob Odenkirk, who received his fifth Emmy nomination for starring in Better Call Saul on Tuesday, has revealed that the scene he was filming when he had an on-set heart attack in July 2021 airs next week.
"I didn't go back to shoot for five weeks," Odenkirk, who now feels "very good," told The Hollywood Reporter. "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. Next week is the scene where I have the heart attack. And 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.”
The star of AMC's Breaking Bad prequel series, which returned this week for a final six-episode run, told the publication that he had no memory of that day.
"I'm really watching something that I don't have any memory of acting in, which is a rare thing," he said.
Odenkirk has previously credited being in shape for 2020 action thriller Nobody with helping him to survive the health crisis and to recover more quickly.
"One of the things that saved me is that I learned how to work out [in preparation]. And because I was in good shape, you kind of enlarge some of the... other veins around your heart, if you work out a lot," he told Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show in February. "And I had done that and, as a result, I was told that more blood then was able to go to my heart during CPR because these veins were just a little bit bigger from... a lot of working out."
Co-star Rhea Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler, the love interest of his character, Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman, also moved quickly to call for help from the show's health safety supervisor, Rose Estrada, and an assistant director, Angie Meyer.
She received her first Emmy nom for her performance on the show this year, which made Odenkirk's own recognition even more rewarding.
"This is extra special for me," he told THR. "Because it's our final [season], because Rhea got nominated. Earlier, I had big scenes with Michael McKean and those are my sort of core scenes, and now it's been Rhea and you don't feel good about getting nominated if your scene partner is not… it's really great to share this with her."
