Bob Odenkirk found mainstream success as the shady lawyer Saul Goodman in the hit drama "Breaking Bad," but before landing the role he was bankrupt and in a "financial hole," the actor has revealed.
Speaking with Howard Stern on Monday's episode of Stern's Sirius XM radio show, Odenkirk explained that at the time he had pivoted toward directing and made some feature films that did not pay well.
Odenkirk added he was visionless as a director and ended up in a "financial hole" which resulted in his business manager calling him to sign a loan of $900,000 to "keep afloat."
He went to a different business manager who told him to just "bring some money through" and after doing odd jobs here and there, the call came through that changed Odenkirk's life.
"I get a phone call, 'They're gonna offer you a role on 'Breaking Bad.' ... not a popular show or a big show at the time — 'and don't say no,' my agent says," Odenkirk recalled.
"And I was like, 'Dude, I haven't said no in a year and a half, but maybe you didn't notice that,'" Odenkirk added.
Although "Breaking Bad" would go on to become a hit, it was not as popular during its first season, Odenkirk told Stern.
"I still checked it out; I still wanted to know what the hell the show was," Odenkirk said of the time after he was offered the role. "I called a friend, somebody I'd been writing with, Reid Harrison, and he goes, 'Oh, that's the best show on TV. You gotta do that. That's the best thing there is.' "
According to a 2015 interview with GQ, Odenkirk got the call from "Breaking Bad" showrunner Vince Gilligan in 2008 about the Saul Goodman role — after trying various things that ranged from directing commercials to writing TV pilots and acting.
"I knew I could have tried to get more directing jobs; it would have been hard, but I probably could have gotten one eventually," he said.
"But I was just feeling like, No, man. Just stop. Figure out what you're doing. So I started writing the short pieces that became 'A Load of Hooey,' the book. And I started writing TV pilots that I liked, and I started acting more. I directed some commercials, tried other things. But that was about three years of, like, trying different things from about 2003 to 2007."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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