Bob Odenkirk knew about his heart problem since 2018, says Better Call Saul's series finale is "not cheap. It’s not easy. It doesn’t feel cartoonish"

The New York Times

The New York Times' Jonah Weiner visited Odenkirk on the set of Better Call Saul's final season and at the Albuquerque house he shares with co-stars Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian. In fact, it was thanks to Seehorn and Fabian that Odenkirk survived his heart attack last July. “We were shooting a scene, we’d been shooting all day, and luckily I didn’t go back to my trailer," said Odenkirk. Instead, he decamped to a space where he, Seehorn and Fabian liked to retreat during downtime: “I went to play the Cubs game and ride my workout bike, and I just went down.” He added, “Rhea said I started turning bluish-gray right away.” Odenkirk said "I’d known since 2018 that I had this plaque buildup in my heart. I went to two heart doctors at Cedars-Sinai, and I had dye and an M.R.I. and all that stuff, and the doctors disagreed on treatment, with one suggesting he start immediately on medication and the other telling him it could wait. He listened to doctor No. 2 and was fine — until this year, when “one of those pieces of plaque broke up,” Odenkirk said. Odenkirk said he chose to live with his co-stars after living by himself in Season 1 at a condo owned by Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston. “It’s about loneliness,” he said of sharing a house with Seehorn and Fabian. Odenkirk added: “It gave me great sympathy for someone like James Gandolfini, who talked about how he couldn’t wait to be done with that character, and I think Bryan said similar things: ‘I can’t wait to leave this guy behind.’ I finally related to that attitude.” During Weiner's visit to the Odenkirk house, the actor teased the finale after reading the script. “It’s a lot in there, a lot to think about,” Odenkirk said. “I think I like it, but I was pretty wiped out when I read it in the middle of the night. I think it’s a challenging way to go, to finish the series. It’s not flashy. It’s substantial, and on some level it’s things I hoped for, for years, in this character’s brain. On the other hand, yeah, I have to read it again. But what I like about it is, it’s not cheap. It’s not easy. It doesn’t feel cartoonish. It’s pretty great, I think. It’s pretty great.”