Rhea Seehorn Interview: ‘Better Call Saul’
“Every time I think there’s only a few possible ways something could go, they find other ones,” explains Rhea Seehorn about her “Better Call Saul” character. In our exclusive webchat (watch the video above), she continues, “I’ve given up guessing. But wherever Kim goes, it feels like that was always a part of her. It’s a constant innate vs. enate behavior. What is coming from the outside vs. what is coming from the inside. They always seem to organically meet.”
In the AMC series, Seehorn plays dedicated and successful lawyer Kim Wexler. She is in a relationship with Jimmy McGill, played by Bob Odenkirk, who will become the criminal lawyer Saul Goodman from the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning “Breaking Bad.” This season saw a lot of fireworks for Kim which included pulling off a big legal scam and getting in her biggest fight with Jimmy, on a rooftop.
In the season’s second episode she gets mad at a firm partner Howard Hamlin, played by Patrick Fabian, for being unfair to Jimmy. Seehorn says, “When she goes in and just lays into Hamlin I went, ‘Wow there’s a lot she is not able to suppress anymore. She’s gotten to a boiling point.’ So there’s a number of those moments this season that were very surprising but earned for her. I liked it was a continual fight to keep herself together.”
However, Seehorn reflects that the more humble scenes of the season were just as challenging: “The super quiet honest scenes were a huge surprise to Bob and I. There’s a scene in the bathroom where we sit on the edge of the tub and they are incredibly honest and quiet with each other. The whole season was blissfully challenging and surprising.”
On crafting these scenes she says that “we watch each other as the characters. The best way for me to approach it is to prep your ass off. And trust that your scene is about your scene partner. It’s those magical moments where that scene becomes about the way you didn’t look at me. Or the scene becomes about Kim waiting too long and then laughing. That’s a great feeling.”
To get the most out of the performances this season, Seehorn moved in with two of her cast mates. She explains, “Patrick, Bob and I lived together for the whole season. We had to rehearse so much, and you all have to rent places anyway. It has so much to do with the geekiness going on in the cast. How can we run lines and discuss scenes more till you drop dead tired? It was pretty funny, but it was also more boring than people would think because it was just a lot of rehearsal.”
So, as Jimmy descends into the character of Saul Goodman, what is the fate for Kim Wexler and their relationship? Sheehorn reveals, “I have no idea what they are going to do. The Kim we meet at the beginning of the series and the Saul we see in ‘Breaking Bad’ clearly could not be in a relationship. And now, I don’t know. Who exactly will Kim be? Sadly it is tragic no matter what. When people say it would be tragic if she died, sure. But honestly it would be tragic if she’s fallen so far that she’s in jail, or fine with what Saul’s doing.”
