CHICAGO — Some day, when the final history of comedy is written, let it be known that last summer, on the fringes of Netflix, during the cult sketch series “I Think You Should Leave Now,” for three and a half minutes, humanity achieved peak Bob Odenkirk. His essence, his appeal, his average-guy-from-Naperville, Illinois face and receding hairline, his unsettling alchemy of empathy and delusion — it all landed perfectly in line. Odenkirk played an older gentleman who happens to be sitting in a restaurant across from a younger guy and his daughter. The younger guy, played by series creator Tim Robinson, tells his daughter a white lie, that the ice cream machine is not working. He winks in corroboration at Odenkirk, sitting one table over. So Odenkirk’s character winks back.
Then, apropos of nothing, he adds that he is definitely married, and that his wife is a model, that she got sick but she’s getting better, and that he owns many classic cars, that he does not live in a hotel, that he has plenty of friends and that he is very wealthy.
The sketch is lonely, and strange, and silly, and uneasy, and full of heartbreak, about a schlub, a benign schlub, one who cannot resist sharing, long after he’s lost the room.
Bob Odenkirk characters don’t come bundled any tighter.
Unless you think of Saul Goodman, the Albuquerque lawyer that Odenkirk initially played with levity on “Breaking Bad” then deepened over six seasons of its spinoff, “Better Call Saul.” Saul — or rather, before his troubles caught up with him, Jimmy McGill — is a Men’s Wearhouse of lies, hollow promises and self-preservation; yet by the time that series concludes later this year, it’ll look like a monument to the wellspring of empathy and sidelong charm that Odenkirk bestows on even his saddest of sacks.
If Chicago didn’t already claim Bill Murray, Odenkirk would own that role.
Instead, he’s becoming Chicago’s Tom Hanks, the funny guy who wears gravitas well. Or as the title of Odenkirk’s new memoir describes, “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.”
Which is spot on.
Few actors solicit more warmth these days. When Odenkirk entered late in 2019′s “Little Women,” the audience I saw it with genuinely cooed. When screenwriter Zak Penn noticed Odenkirk and his longtime comedy partner David Cross talking on the set of Steven Spielberg’s “The Post,” he stammered: “That’s Bob and David ... they had a show ...” Spielberg, apparently unaware that Odenkirk and Cross created the beloved HBO sketch series “Mr. Show,” asked: “Hold on. Do I have a problem here?” Meaning, was he unwittingly placing Laurel and Hardy beside each other in a serious movie about Watergate? (In the end, they barely shared screen time.) Even when Odenkirk made a straight, non-ironic action film, though it sounded like a misstep, the result, from its title (“Nobody”) to its poster (Odenkirk’s middle-aged face absorbing the pain of a direct blow), felt right. Even cozy. And that was unexpected. Twenty years ago, when he was known for smug roles (“The Larry Sanders Show”) and barbed jokes (he cowrote the “Da Bears” sketch for “Saturday Night Live”), Odenkirk didn’t seem the sincere sort.
Indeed, the first two thirds of “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama” tells the story of a Naperville comedian who often moves through show business as if he were an open wound. He comes across distrustful, nervous, controlling, bitter. He once told me that when he waited tables at Ed Debevic’s in River North, he couldn’t bring himself to take part in the restaurant’s infamous faux crankiness; from him, it would have been too real.
This week, when he returns to Chicago for book appearances — the Music Box on Wednesday, the University Club of Chicago and Naperville on Thursday — expect a somewhat mellowed, austere and genuine Odenkirk. At 59, it suits him. The following is from a phone conversation, condensed and edited for clarity and length:
Q: Over the years, whenever I talk to you, you often profess to not wanting to discuss — or even think about — yourself much. You even say it in this memoir.
A: I enjoy talking to young people about showbiz, and I think a lot about the things that held me up and how understanding this business would have helped. I like to talk about the shortcuts, which became the driver for doing the book. I’ve helped young comedians for years — Tim and Eric, for example. (He nurtured their influential Adult Swim series, “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”) And I had an assistant who is also an actress and she was helping me unpack stuff and I had this box of photographs — all of these pictures of Chris Farley, pictures from shows I have done. As she was listening to me talk about these photos, I thought maybe I should write about them, in a way. That said, my unwillingness to be a public figure might be me scamming myself — a lie I tell myself to appear humble to myself. I thought I would enjoy writing this more than I did.
Q: Showbiz memoirs tend to be score-settling and full of self-aggrandizement, and you spend considerable time here describing yourself as angry and difficult.
A: It’s hard to do a book like this and be honest. It’s hard to write about yourself and not make fun of yourself, or just make fun of the idea that you’re writing about yourself. But I have read a lot of showbiz bios. I love ‘em. I love the best ones and the worst ones. I don’t care. Be it Corey Feldman or Orson Welles. I know what it’s like to be their audience. So while writing the book, I would read it back a day later and think, "You’re not telling me anything, this is all jokes, this is just sarcasm. What happened to you? When I would get too jokey I would think, as a reader: OK, just tell me about that first meeting with Lorne Michaels." I exaggerate my mix of cockiness and resentment but it is a really good sense of what I was like in that interview. I did go in there just above it all.
Q: You open and close the book very earnestly though, in Lincoln Park with comedy impresario Del Close. You’re young, you run into him on Wells Street, he leads you to his apartment and, for hours, lays out a philosophy for life. But even then you’re thinking: OK, if I could just do everything you did, minus the drugs ...
A: All he did was ramble, really. But that transference of energy and excitement I got from sitting with him that first day! I didn’t know half the (expletive) he was talking about. More than half the (expletive). Three quarters! He was going on and on, about plays I had never heard of, theater companies I had never heard of. I’m 21, he’s 49 — but I was thinking, he’s probably 65. He was a very old man to me. He talked about Second City and the Compass Players, and I walked out of there thinking what a great business! Not because he told me it was great business. He wasn’t trying to sell me. But the excitement that he still had for what he did, the variety of experiences he had — it was so intriguing.
Q: What did your parents think of this career path?
A: Nothing. My dad was gone. I hadn’t seen him since I was 14. I saw him again when I was 22 — and for only six months, then he died. My mom? I had five younger siblings in Naperville. She was quite busy. On top of which, she is very religious and doesn’t watch movies. She’s seen “The Song of Bernadette” six times. She never watched the stuff I did until the last few years. She enjoyed “The Post” and “Little Women.” But she couldn’t watch “Breaking Bad” and “Saturday Night Live.” She couldn’t watch “Better Call Saul.” She certainly couldn’t see “Mr. Show.” She was just glad I made a living. When I first went to “SNL” as a writer, I was there about three weeks and she called to say “Listen, I tried to watch, but I just can’t.” I said, “Mom, you don’t have to. It’s not for you. It’s for young people. Don’t worry about it.” I felt that way about everything I did for a long time.
Q: Speaking of “SNL,” that famous sketch for Chris Farley you wrote, about him living in a van down by the river — were you writing with Naperville in mind?
A: There is the DuPage River, and when I was writing that I did picture the bridge in Naperville over the DuPage. It was a bridge for stoners when I was a kid. Stoner kids hung out there. So this guy parking his van by a river — yes, that was the image I had.
Q: Is it true, as a kid, you called yourself a lawyer and had fake business cards?
A: In junior high! It was a joke. I wore a suit to school. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Q: A distrust of institutions — even ones that shaped you, like Second City — runs throughout your memoir. It’s like you’re pushing against those legacies.
A: That’s fair. Except for Python. Monty Python was an incredibly unique set of guys and circumstances that worked together to make something ageless, as opposed to “Mr. Show” and everything else, really. Even the great early days of “SNL” can be hard to watch now. It’s of its time. Python doesn’t feel that way. Otherwise, yes. I don’t think there is a comic moment that reaches across time to still matter the way it initially did.
Q: Even your first national laugh — written for “Weekend Update” (“The statute of limitations on respecting Bob Hope for his early work ran out this week”) — reads now like a young comedian’s statement of intent.
A: That’s true, and yet, what I am most proud of now is how some of those sketches on “Mr. Show” — you could do them tomorrow in a theater group or in a high school comedy class and you would still get big laughs. I’m proud of that. So I’m a conflicted individual.
Q: You write in the book that the only real argument that you and David have ever gotten into was over whether or not you technically qualify as a boomer.
A: That’s David’s issue! And he’s only a couple of years younger than me! Look, I was kind of the more powerful voice of the two of us. I had two Emmys for writing then. I had a lot more experience as a writer, I was sure of myself and my instincts, in terms of constructing a sketch or just making “Mr. Show.” It was very much a shared show between David and I, and I hope he feels that way, but I was a very strong voice and I guess that made it easier for him to just concede to being in a team. That is not David’s style. He’s a solo guy — like, in life. The boomer thing might have made it easier for him to believe, with every fiber of his being, that I was simply older, therefore he had no choice but for me to be in charge a little bit more. I was from that earlier generation!
Q: When “Mr. Show” ends, you had a long period of what reads like desperation. You declared bankruptcy?
A: I was bankrupt, but I didn’t (formally) declare bankruptcy — two different things. But I hear what you’re saying. I was deep in debt and had to take out a big loan to keep going with my life and family and the house we lived in. It was a shocking discovery that I needed this loan. As it turns out, we didn’t drain the full loan and eventually I got back on my feet, within two or three years. But it was a bad, bad place to be, I was very frightened, and I stayed that way for a couple of years as I tried to find my way back.
Q: During this time, you wrote a screenplay about Steve Dahl and the Disco Demolition night at Comiskey?
A: Oh, years ago, with my friend Jim Zulevic, who passed away. It wasn’t a great screenplay, but it was a good approach. Essentially, “Dazed and Confused” mixed with “Private Parts” — so Steve’s story and the story of a group of kids going to the event. It was the right instinct but I don’t feel a great script was overlooked. Maybe I’ll revisit that.
Q: The last time we spoke I think you were still not sure if you were considered a comedian anymore. Is it fair to call you an actor for hire now?
A: I don’t think of myself that way. I don’t think I will ever be that. I added a little dimension of being able to play drama and portray someone very different from who I am, but no, I don’t see that as where I reside now. I am starting to write a new show with David — we start tomorrow actually. “Guru Nation,” about cult leaders, which will be closer to, oh, like ... “Mr. Show” mixed with “Arrested Development.” But I am not trying to stay in sketch comedy. That’s not for an older generation. It’s the province of younger energy. And why is that? I don’t know. Young people like a lot of ideas coming at their heads, which is what good sketch comedy is. John Cleese has this theory: When young people play a professor or judge or police officer, there’s a sense the actor is not that actual thing. They’re putting on a show. When older people do it, maybe people think, Oh, you could be a professor or judge, instead you’re a sketch actor. And that’s so sad!
Q: How do you rectify your earlier comedy reputation — an angry kid, chip always on your shoulder — with the very warm feelings that people have for you now?
A: I don’t how to answer that. I don’t deserve that good will. Since I had a heart attack last year, people have been sending it my way even more. I will take it as long as it lasts. But it’s a mystery to me. Really. People go into comedy for all different reasons. Chris Farley was incredibly lovable as a person. You don’t have to be a pissy troublemaker to go into comedy. But most people who go into comedy are. They have sand in their shoes. They’re peeved. Which makes how they see the world around them funny.
Q: Do you feel better since the heart attack (while shooting “Saul” last summer)?
A: I am better. I have two stents in, I am taking the medicine I was given, I have a great workout. I don’t have to slow down. I did for a couple of months, but I am past that now.
Q: You’re almost 60 now, and since you spent so much of your career as a kind of cult favorite, does being defined and known by “Better Call Saul” offer comfort?
A: I know what you mean. I think being allowed by providence and the universe to finish (“Better Call Saul”), that feeling of completion and accomplishment was a big thing for me going forward. If it hadn’t happened, for a variety of reasons, if I had not finished the story, no, I probably wouldn’t have this feeling that I could move on. Now that I have this notch under my belt, finishing — we finished a week ago — is part of the confidence.
Q: It’s also such an odd time for it to happen. Where will you be in five years?
A: This is a great question. I will be 64. Probably, I will be doing something in show business. I know I will not have retired. I might get booted. But I will not willingly go.
Q: The statute of limitations on appreciating Bob Odenkirk could expire.
A: Certainly it could on respecting my early work. And that would be fair.
