Obviously, Odenkirk survived the health scare, but it was a scary situation for everyone involved. With Better Call Saul coming to a close, Odenkirk reflected on his heart attack and what it will mean to revisit that experience, so to speak.

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In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Odenkirk said that while they were filming the episode titled “Fun and Games” last summer, Odenkirk suffered a heart attack, which is why he doesn’t recall much while filming the episode. Odenkirk pointed out not only that he had the heart attack, but also the sequence of events in the Better Call Saul episode leading up to the heart attack itself. “Next week is the scene where I have the heart attack. And probably about three-quarters of the scene was shot before I had the heart attack, the day of the heart attack, and then the other quarter scene was after.” Odenkirk later added that he has no memory of filming the episode as a result of the health scare, but he’s okay now. “The strangest thing about it is that I really have no memory of that day,” Odenkirk said. “I’m really watching something that I don’t have any memory of acting in, which is a rare thing. I mean, usually you watch some, and you have some recall of that even if it was shot months ago. But in this case, it’s such a complete blank. It’s very strange. I gotta tell you, it’s a weird thing to have lost basically about a week and a half. Clean, just clean, clean nothing. That’s a strange experience anyway. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

As we know, Odenkirk is alive and well and finished out the rest of the season following the heart attack. Nonetheless, it is frightening to know that he could have died before the show wrapped up. It would have thrown the show for a loop knowing that he wasn’t around to finish a TV series where he was the main character, and, of course, his family would have to deal with his tragic unforeseen death. Luckily, Odenkirk will take the necessary steps to avoid getting another one in the near future. With his time as Saul Goodman coming to an end soon, hopefully he won’t have to take on another demanding role like that.

Having an actor die has thrown a wrench in studios’ plans for both movies and television shows. Take Shrek for example. Saturday Night Live alum and comedy legend Chris Farley - who Odenkirk worked with before SNL in Chicago - was the original choice to play Shrek and had recorded most of his lines as the iconic animated ogre before his tragic drug overdose. When they re-cast him with Mike Myers, they actually changed a lot about his character design to meet Myers’ demands, which delayed the project. Even though Shrek turned out to be a ginormous success for Dreamworks, Farley’s death created quite a few issues for them beforehand.

All in all, it would have been awful to see Odenkirk not finish out his time as Saul Goodman. Since 2009, Odenkirk has been masterful when creating one of the greatest fictional lawyers ever. Better yet, Saul Goodman was among the first “criminal” lawyers to get a fully fleshed-out story, and that was over the course of two television shows. Odenkirk absolutely deserved to have his last hurrah as everyone’s favorite slimeball attorney.

Better Call Saul will air its final five episodes on AMC on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. EST.

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter