Strolling onto the stage with a smoothie in hand, the “Better Call Saul” star immediately began talking about Texas barbeque.
“Everybody comes from out of town, and they just eat barbecue for the first six hours,” Bob Odenkirk said. “I slept great last night and I swear to God, I was like, ‘Does barbecue put you to sleep?,’ because that’s what it felt like.”
On Sunday, Odenkirk (“Breaking Bad”) took to the JW Marriott stage at South by Southwest for “Bob Odenkirk: Entering His Action Hero Phase and the State of Action Films with the team behind NORMAL.” Moderated by Perri Nemiroff and joined by the film’s director Ben Wheatley, writer Derek Kolstad, and producer Marc Provissiero, the group discussed their new film, “Normal,” ahead of the film’s theatrical release on April 17.
“A good action sequence plays out the same way that a good sketch comedy sequence plays out— same kind of heart beat, same kind of extension of the hero’s journey,” Kolstad said.
Kolstad said this intersection between comedy and action allowed him and Odenkirk to connect instantly, leading to their collaboration on “Nobody,” a 2021 thriller written by Kolstad and starring Odenkirk as a former assassin-turned-family man. Provissiero said the film ended up grossing 55 million at the box office and another 60 to 80 million from rentals and streaming.
“Bob received zero back-end on that movie,” Provissiero said. “That’s the honest answer…so the three of us said, ‘Well, we enjoy working together. We know how to do this. We’ve learned the stunt part. Let’s go do it ourselves and see if we can participate.’”
Reuniting for “Normal,” the team said they created the film with the theatre-goers in mind while prioritizing stunts and practical effects over highly edited computer-generated imagery sequences.
“Everything was practical (effects) in ‘Normal,’ pretty much,” Wheatley said. “That was our rule. If there was going to be a stunt, it has to be real. The car blows up, it’s real. If some bullets hit the wall it has to be real, or pyrotechnic. And CG comes in at the very last minute.”
Preparing for his role as an action hero, Odenkirk said he trained rigorously for his stunts, continuing his training now even after the film wrapped.
“They will choreograph a fight for me, and whenever it’s been too graceful or a move that’s just a little magical, I always take that out,” Odenkirk said. “I say, ‘No, we’re not doing that, I don’t want to try to sell people on that.’ I don’t want to make them have to ask, ‘Could he do that?’ I want them to go, ‘Now, he could do this stuff.’”
Ahead of the release of “Normal,” Odenkirk will appear at several screenings across the country, including one in Normal, Illinois, the setting of the film.
“One of the things I love about ‘Normal’ is I’ve seen it with an audience at Toronto (Film Festival), and I saw it satisfy that audience so much, and I thought there’s something special about it,” Odenkirk said, going on to joke, “It’s like a movie that knows it’s a movie and is really happy to be a movie. If it could have a consciousness and a self awareness, it’d be like, ‘I’m a movie. Watch me, look at me go.’”
