Broadway BUZZ

Bob Odenkirk is an Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, actor, and New York Times bestselling author. In 2015, Bob Odenkirk reprised the character he originated on the hit drama Breaking Bad, playing the title role in AMC's Better Call Saul, which earned him a Critics Choice TV Award, six Emmy nominations, as well as Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominations. Odenkirk began his stage career in Chicago in 1984, doing sketch and improv shows all around town. He produced and starred in the play Line by Israel Horowitz, the first production of Chicago's "Prop" theatre. His early years onstage consisted mainly of sketch shows,manyofwhichhewasaprimarywriter. After being hired as a staff writer at Saturday Night Live in1997, every summer was spent onstage, first with his friends, Robert Smigel and Conan O'Brien in Happy Happy Good Show, then in his well-reviewed one man show, Show-Acting-Guy and a Second City mainstage revue Flag Smoking Permitted in Lobby Only which featured the first appearance of Chris Farley as "Matt Foley, the Motivational Speaker", penned by Odenkirk. In 1991 Bob moved to Los Angeles and soon pulled in his second writing Emmy for The Ben Stiller Show, but his greatest writing achievement was to come. Mr. Show with Bob and David on HBO from 1995-1998, was his personal valhalla, a place where Bob's brain was on full display (married with the hilarious brain of his life-long friend, David Cross). The show became and remains a "cult hit", dubbed The American Monty Python by David Wild in Rolling Stone Magazine, Mr. Show inspired legions of comedy actors and writers. Bob performed in countless Mr. Show pieces, but his journey as an actor got a powerful boost upon being cast as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, season 2. Over the next four years on that show, followed by six in the beautifully scripted and complex Better Call Saul, Bob's crash course in drama acting expanded and deepened. This experience led to roles in Steven Spielberg's The Post, Greta Gerwig's Little Women, and Alexander Payne's Nebraska. In a surprising move, Odenkirk then starred in the action film Nobody (Universal), which achieved a #1 debut at the US box office in 2021, and which opened up yet another avenue of performance for him. Bob is currently shooting the sequel: Nobody 2, and soon after will shoot the suspense-action film Normal, also scripted by Derek Kolstad, the creator of Nobody and the John Wick franchise. Bob is excited to return to the stage in his favorite play, David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, eager to rediscover the live stage work that filled the first half of his career.