Bob Odenkirk on ‘Better Call Saul’ heart attack: ‘I wasn’t breathing’
'If nobody had been there, if they didn’t do that CPR, I’d have been dead in a few minutes'
Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk has spoken about the heart attack he suffered on the set of the hit show last year.
The actor, 59, who plays Jimmy McGill/ Saul Goodman on the Breaking Bad spin-off, collapsed on set last year when filming for the sixth and final season of the hit show.
“I went down on one knee, and then I went all the way down. I guess I said, ‘I don’t feel very good,’” Odenkirk said in an interview with the Radio Times.
He added that castmates Rhea Seehorn, who stars as Kim Wexler, and Patrick Fabian, who plays Howard Hamlin, grabbed his hand and head and “started yelling at me to stay on Earth”.
“I wasn’t breathing,” he continued.“I mean, if nobody had been there, if they didn’t do that CPR, I’d have been dead in a few minutes.”
The cast and crew were shooting all day when Odenkirk used an exercise bike between shots to watch a Chicago Cubs baseball game, collapsing soon after.
The actor took to Twitter after news of the incident broke. “I had a small heart attack. But I’m going to be ok thanks to Rosa Estrada and the doctors who knew how to fix the blockage without surgery.
“Also, AMC and Sony’s support and help throughout this has been next-level. I’m going to take a beat to recover but I’ll be back soon.”
Better Call Saul will finally come to a close next week after the final season was split into two parts.
Last week’s episode featured the anticipated return of Breaking Bad stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, who reprised their roles as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, respectively.
Better Call Saul writer and director Thomas Schnauz recently responded to criticism of the cameo scene, which did not use de-ageing technology on the actors.
“There’s only so much you can do before it starts looking ridiculous. We don’t do a ton of de-aging on the show,” Schnauz told Variety.
“There’s a little bit of stuff on the guys’ faces to take a few lines out here and there, but other than that, Aaron is not going to look like an 18-year-old or however old Jesse was during this time period.”
He added: “I do sort of dread people cutting this scene into the world of Breaking Bad and trying to match the way they look then and now, but it’s not something you can worry too much about.
“It is what it is. We’re telling a story and you can roll with it or you start picking at: ‘He looks much older than he did in the original scene.’ We decided to go for it, and I’m glad we did.”