As he plays a dodgy sheriff in Ben Wheatley’s Normal, Odenkirk will be here to answer your inquiries about a remarkable career that has taken him from Wayne’s World to Saturday Night Live and The Bear
Bob Odenkirk has achieved one of the more improbable small-to-big screen transitions in recent years. He was only meant to stick around for four episodes as shady lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. Instead, creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould liked what they saw and he became a series regular – and, after that, the unlikely centre of Better Call Saul, widely regarded as one of the finest spin-offs ever made.
In 2021, he then popped up as a mild-mannered family man turned bone-crunching action hero in Nobody, a role for which he buffed up for two years. Released during Covid, Nobody was unexpectedly successful, leading to a sequel. Now he’s testing his knack for making deeply questionable characters oddly endearing by playing a dodgy small-town sheriff in Ben Wheatley’s new film, Normal, alongside Henry Winkler as the town mayor.
Odenkirk actually started out as a writer, honing his comic instincts on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Ben Stiller Show, while quietly building an acting CV. He began in bit parts, playing Concert Nerd in Wayne’s World, Bookstore Man in The Truth About Cats & Dogs and Dog Groupie in Dr Dolittle 2, and popped up on TV in everything from Roseanne to Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development and The American Office. He also had a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show as Larry’s agent. Alongside David Cross, he co-created and starred in the cult sketch series Mr Show, which ran on HBO from 1995 to 1998, helping to redefine alt-comedy on US TV.
