A version of this story about “Better Call Saul” and Rhea Seehorn first appeared in TheWrap’s Down to the Wire: Drama issue of Awards magazine.
As “Better Call Saul” wrapped up its sixth and final season in Albuquerque last winter, Rhea Seehorn decided to make the long journey home. “I drove from New Mexico just to clear my head to go back to LA and it was sad,” she said during a Zoom interview that took place three weeks before the series finale aired. “It was really hard to say goodbye to this character and this work, and to say goodbye to the kind of collaboration that was allowed me to do for so many years. I don’t think it’s affected most of us that we’re not going back because it’s (still) on air – we’re looking forward to talking to people about these last few episodes and the show as a whole.”
It’s easy to see why Seehorn would be reluctant to let go: The Breaking Bad prequel gave her the role of a lifetime as Kim Wexler, the whip-smart, often inscrutable attorney whose moral compass spirals increasingly awry as she becomes addicted to thrills the art of cheating with her husband Jimmy McGill aka Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk). Critics have praised her performance from the start, but it’s only now, seven years after Kim’s tightly braided ponytail first appeared on screen, that the Television Academy finally took notice and nominated her for a Supporting Actress in a Drama. (When it rains, it pours: She also received a nod for her starring role in the short Cooper’s Bar.) Since the morning of the Emmy nomination, she’s been inundated with congratulations. “It was really, really wonderful,” she said. “It’s really surreal when people get involved and really feel like they’re rooting for you.”
Due to the timing of the finale’s airing, Seehorn couldn’t tell us exactly what’s happening to Kim Wexler, but she had a lot to say about her character’s shocking separation from Saul and the Law, as well as how the character was received in “Breaking Bad” universe and where she herself goes from here.
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AMC
When you hear the “Better Call Saul“ role, you thought, “Okay, well, Kim’s not in it ‘Breaking Bad.’ What’s happening to her?” Or were you just focusing on the Kim of the present?
It went in stages. In the beginning it was: I don’t know how influential Kim will be. I knew I would be a cog in the wheel of storytelling in a way, but I didn’t know how much of it I would be. So I kind of focused more on what was in front of me. And then, as I got more and more drawn into the story, Patrick Fabian (who plays the unctuous attorney Howard Hamlin) and I certainly talked about it. Like Game of Thrones or anything else where main characters can die all the time, we’d be flipping through scripts saying, “Woo-hoo! I’m alive.” And then it moves into the third chapter. I was curious as a fan and intellectually: what happens to her? How are they going to deal with it? How are they going to deal with each of the trips of people who aren’t in ” Breaking Bad” or at least not known for being in “Breaking Bad”? And I was aware of the thrill because I thought I don’t know either. I don’t even have to worry about spilling because I don’t know (laughs)
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Audiences immediately embraced Kim, and as she became increasingly important to the story, many fans worried more about her fate than Saul’s, since we know he’ll become Walter White’s shady lawyer in Breaking Bad. It must have been interesting to be in the thick of it.
To me, Saul’s fate is still a primary – if not the primary – story. It was all about how we view his fate. He was a dangerous clown and now I see him as this tragic Arthur Miller character. So that became a question to Kim — literally, what happened to this person? This is such a fun mystery novel place to live. People feel protected by her. And I think part of that is the fact that she’s always had her own agency, made her own decisions, and for better or for worse, is the person who says, “I’m going to save myself.” And I think who People responded to that in a really, really nice way. And the thing is, they don’t want that person to be punished for that.
It stands in stark contrast to the vile misogyny hurled at Skyler White – and Anna Gunn, who played her – in Breaking Bad. Have you ever wondered if Kim would get the same treatment for being a woman with agency?
It’s always possible, right? I mean, misogyny is unfortunately always possible.
Or probably.
Right right. Oh, that’s so sad. It’s important to me not to add gas to this crazy, misplaced, unfounded, wrong, ridiculous thing that went under. Which I only knew in hindsight. I’m one of those guys who saw Breaking Bad after everyone else had seen it. And I wasn’t aware of it until she wrote her beautiful article for The New York Times.
It’s so outside of everything that I can wrap my head with reason or logic that it’s like putting your hands in the air, even though it was my character. There is nothing deserved or undeserved in any of our performances. I think she (Anna Gunn) is brilliant. I will never in my life forget the scene it is at the beginning of the series when she is sitting at the pool table and now she knows that Walt has cancer but he told her not to tell anyone in the family. They sit around and talk about what he’s going to do next, and tears roll down her cheeks as she tries to behave herself. It’s remarkable acting.
So I was more concerned about being as good as her and the whole cast – and my cast is. (Laughs) The reception was above and beyond. I couldn’t worry. I mean, listen, people could have just hated anyone who wasn’t in Breaking Bad: me, Patrick, Michael Mando. We all. You do not know.
Kim breaks up with Jimmy in episode 9 when she realizes her deceptions have gone too far (and Howard is murdered). It was devastating to watch. How did you react when you found out that this was the end of you?
It was a gut punch for me to even read it. It’s the end of what they had and the tightrope they walked. It’s incredibly well written and beautiful and complex. It wasn’t that they stopped falling in love, and actually it wasn’t even that she (Jimmy) passed judgment. It’s about her judgment of herself. Unfortunately, she comes from a position of “I’m the one who’s going to save me,” and ends up being a character who says, “I’m the one who’s going to judge me.” I will settle my sentence.” She is a self-loathing shell of a person, which to me is more tragic than many things that could happen to her.
She is also ending her beloved law career. She will no longer aspire to be Atticus Finch.
Yes. She actually thought it was – is – a noble profession. And she thinks she can easily put her finger on the scales of justice to err in favor of the deserving – the deserving in quotes. This is a dangerous and unethical, illegal way of practicing law. (laughs) It’s Machiavellian or Robin Hood, and she missed it. She no longer has a business practicing law. She has no right to judge people. I think she thinks this is punishment. She deserves it.
The “more” she said she wanted out of life during her job interview with attorney Rick Schweikart last season became too much?
I’ve thought about it a lot. It’s a bit of an Icarus story in her head: how dare she want more than her ward?
They directed the episode “Hit and Run” this season, in which Kim and the amazing Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks) finally meet. What was it like directing yourself in such a pivotal scene for the series?
My entire crew in each department, under the direction of Peter, had built an infrastructure set up for my success. Jonathan Banks and I are very close friends and we’ve been campaigning for ages for a scene together, you know, half-jokingly because that’s the way it is, be careful what you wish for, because if I have a scene with Giancarlo (Esposito) or Jonathan wants it could be because I’m dead. (laughs) And we also thought that the characters that each of us made would be very interesting in a shared space because they can both be incredibly stoic. They are both very suspicious of other people. I was so happy we got to stage it on the bar stools at the El Camino Diner. I just loved the idea of putting them shoulder to shoulder because there’s something about bar scenes where you can really see the contrast between what someone is showing the other person and what they’re doing when they’re looking away. We had a good time. We shot this scene for a very long time. As Jonathan would say, I covered it up. (laughs)
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What are you doing next? Bob Odenkirk wants you in the mockumentary he’s doing with David Cross?
Oh dear God. I can barely wait for it. I’m thrilled that he wants me to play with him and his cohorts. Other than that, I’m currently in a lot of development talks and a lot of meetings with different showrunners and writers about different movies, limited series projects as well as other series. And just trying to find the right one. The show opened a lot of doors for me, so I’m very fortunate to be able to talk to different people and have the opportunity to have conversations about which part is right.
Will you miss Kim’s ponytail?
(Laughs) I cut it off right after wrapping it! I will miss Kim and everything that goes with her. Her ponytail was part of her armor, which eventually became this barometer of how she was doing, which was a lot of fun. However, I don’t think any of the nice department heads with hair will miss my ponytail. That’s quite a bit of maintenance to make sure the thing is perfect.
Read more from the Down to the Wire: Drama issue here.
