10 Things You Don’t Know About ‘Nobody 2’ Star and ‘Better Call Saul’ Alum Bob Odenkirk

Bob Odenkirk reprises his role as a doting dad who gets dragged back into his former life as a ruthless assassin in the new dark comedy Nobody 2.

Here are 10 things you probably don’t know about the 62-year-old actor.

1. Bob was born in Berwyn, Ill., the second oldest of seven children to printer Walter Henry Odenkirk and Barbara Mary Odenkirk. Bob grew up in Naperville, Ill., outside of Chicago. He graduated from Naperville North High School at age 16, per Chicago Magazine.

2. Although he grew famous playing sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and starring in the spinoff series, Better Call Saul, Bob’s forte is actually comedy! He’s been writing hilarious sketches for more than 35 years, and his brother Bill has been a writer for The Simpsons, per Wired.

3. Bob’s comedic streak seems to have come naturally. He says his heavy-drinking Korean War vet dad, Walter, “was really funny. It’s a shame he didn’t try to write comedy. Maybe he would’ve been a happier guy if he’d come to Hollywood.”

4. Bob worked as a writer for Saturday Night Live from 1987 to 1991, but admits he was a “stuck-up young man” who criticized sketches in front of SNL creator Lorne Michaels — including the famous 1990 bit featuring Chris Farley’s Chippendales audition opposite Patrick Swayze because he felt it made a joke out of Farley’s overweight build.

5. Remember Chris Farley’s motivational speaker Matt Foley, who lives in a van down the river? That was Bob’s creation!

6. Bob technically died when he suffered a devastating heart attack while filming an episode for Better Call Saul in July 2021 — he needed three defibrillator shocks. “When the defibrillator doesn’t work once, that’s not good,” Bob says. “When it doesn’t work the second time, that’s kinda like forget it. But then they jacked it up a third time, and it got me back to a rhythm.”

7. He apparently upset SNL cast member and future senator Al Franken so much that Franken threw a football at his head. But Bob says it didn’t hurt too much.

8. He theorizes, “All people are sad clowns. That’s the key to comedy — and it’s a buffer against reality.”

9. Bob lost out on the role of Michael Scott on The Office to Steve Carell.

10. Bob’s flaw? “I have too much guilt over small things,” he confides. “I’ve always been super responsible.”