Better Call Saul fans, buckle up.
The fourth season of the impeccably shot Breaking Bad prequel is returning on Aug. 6, and series star Rhea Seehorn is teasing that it’s a doozy. Last we saw Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and Seehorn’s character Kim, they were coming face-to-face with their own realities — Kim recuperating from a car crash that could’ve killed her and Jimmy’s relentless war with his older brother, Chuck (Michael McKean).
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Now things are coming to a head with (SPOILER ALERT) Chuck’s death, and both Kim and Jimmy need to adapt to their new normals.
Global News spoke with Seehorn over the phone, and she let us know how intense Season 4 will be, and how much she’s learned from playing Kim.
Global News: This show is astounding — cast, crew, directors, producers — and you should all be very proud of what you’ve made, especially following up something as massive as Breaking Bad. Every episode goes by in a blink.
Rhea Seehorn: I feel the same way! I watch it and I ask, “Was that really an hour?” It’s such dense storytelling, and as you know, they are not wont to rush pace, yet I finish and it feels like it was 30 minutes!
When you’re shooting it, you’re never quite sure you can actually get it all into one hour. It’s the opposite experience watching. [Laughs]
I don’t know how you all pull it together. There are so many layers, imagery, the shots…
The crew is an astonishing machine, and not in the way … some shows that’ve been on for a while, people talk about well-oiled machines, but there’s a bit of a perfunctory aspect sometimes. With this show — and there’s tons of crossover from the Breaking Bad crew — these people believe in the storytelling. And I’m talking every department, from props to makeup to lighting, and then all their assistants, and then the interns to those assistants. It goes on and on. Three 17-hour days and they’re still going strong.
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It could easily be [theatre]. It was one episode, but we didn’t leave that courtroom for six days of shooting. It’s an incredible episode. It felt like a play because there were so many unusual camera angles, and also actors who had long monologues they had to perform. We did the majority of those scenes in their entirety, every take. Michael McKean did his entire testimony from the beginning (cockiness, smug) to the confusion all the way to the ultimate breakdown at the end.
People are fully engaging with each other in every take, like a play. I’m not surprised it feels that way when you’re watching. I think there’s no release for the audience, and in that way, it feels like live theatre too. When I watch scenes I wasn’t in, as a spectator, there’s a heart-racing to it. I feel in it, I feel like I’m in their world with them; I hold my breath when no one’s speaking.
You’ve had three long, intense seasons of playing Kim. How much is she a part of you now?
She’s one of my all-time favourite characters. It’s such a gift that I get to play her and keep exploring more and more of who she is with the writers and directors.
She’s far cooler than I am. She’s way more mysterious than I am, too. She’s able to sit in silence, which I am not. [Laughs] But I have learned some things playing her for four years.
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I’ve gotten marginally better at not filling silence for no other reason but to fill silence. [Laughs] Often I do that because I’m uncomfortable, or I’m trying to make somebody else feel more comfortable. What I’ve gotten out of Kim is giving people the space to shine or the space to hang themselves. [Laughs]
I don’t think Kim likes people to know what she’s thinking.
What can you tell me about Season 4?
This season, they up the ante in all the storylines and all the characters. It was so much fun! There are so many scenes this season that I felt the weight of the audience, but for Kim it would be internal reflection. At many times, the audience is my biggest confidante in the scene. They’re the only person who knows that Kim is experiencing something more than what she’s letting on.
‘Better Call Saul’ premieres on Aug. 6 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.
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