Better Call Saul ended with what many called one of the best series endings ever. But things almost ended much more abruptly. Producers considered canceling the show after lead Bob Odenkirk suffered a heart attack.
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In 2021, the actor suffered a heart attack while on set in New Mexico.
"Are we going to have to be careful of pushing him too hard?" co-creator Peter Gould told the Hollywood Reporter. "Bob was all ready to go. In fact, when he was still in the hospital, he was calling me and saying, 'Maybe you should send me some scripts.'"
However, Odenkirk's wife was not sure about the actor returning soon after his health scare.
"We shut down for a little while, obviously," Gould told The Hollywood Reporter. "We all had access to counseling, and we were all waiting for the news of how he was doing ... When we found out he was going to come back, we didn't know what it would be like. [Naomi] was in the background saying, 'Don't send scripts.'"
Bob Odenkirk On Health Scare
But fortunately, Odenkirk was adament about returning. It would have been almost impossible to continue the show if he didn't come back. Odenkirk is both the lead, and the show itself is a prequel.
"I don't know if I've answered the question about backup plans, but there can be none," he concluded. "We wouldn't have had a show. We would've scrapped the whole thing."
Meanwhile, Odenkirk himself previously talked about his heart attack. He said that he doesn't remember much about the experience itself.
"I think people do have epiphanies when they have a near-death experience, and oftentimes, it's 'I have to change something,'" he told Hoda Kot. "And I think my epiphany is I have to appreciate what I have, because it's really great and I have really great people around me."
