Bob Odenkirk says suffering a heart attack in 2021 was “such a gift”
Bob Odenkirk has admitted that despite suffering a heart attack in 2021, he found the effects of the experience to be “such a gift”.
The actor suffered a heart attack and collapsed on the set of Better Call Saul while filming was taking place in 2021, while Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were still part of regulations.
Subsequently, in a new interview with The Sunday Times, Odenkirk said the experience of him collapsing and receiving medical help was made more complicated due to social distancing, with his co-stars Rhea Seahorn and Patrick Fabian first coming to his aid.
“I went down and Rhea and Patrick grabbed me and they were screaming, but [the crew members who noticed] thought they were laughing,” the comedy actor, who played the titular role of Saul Goodman, explained.
“So there were delays in reacting because we were all so far apart from each other,” he added. “I was gone. I turned grey. Eventually the on-set medic showed up and he didn’t know what to do. He’d never done CPR.”
The 63-year-old said he has no memory of the incident, which took place while filming the final series of Better Call Saul in Albuquerque, New Mexico, nor the aftermath from it, and only recalls waking up in a hospital a week later.
“A lot of people get that wonderful reel of film of their life, or they have a person who says, ‘Do you want to go back?’. None of that for me. The first memory I have is leaving the hospital a week after I got there,” Odenkirk said.
Despite this, the process of recovery from the near-fatal experience is something that the actor has relished in, he claimed, as it has provided him a new perspective on life.
“That was such a gift, to experience a few weeks where I felt that way about my presence in the world. I felt just very, very delighted and engaged,” he admitted with regards to his second chance at life.
Odenkirk is now set to star in the new action comedy film Normal, in which he plays the lead role of a sheriff investigating a botched bank robbery in a small town. The film, directed by Ben Wheatley, is based on a story co-written between himself and Odenkirk, and is in UK cinemas now.
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