Bob Odenkirk has been reflecting on his near-fatal heart attack that happened on the set of Better Call Saul in July 2021.
The Emmy-winning actor opened up about the incident in a recent interview with The Times U.K. while promoting his new action-comedy movie Normal. He described how there was a delay in reacting to the incident because members of the crew weren’t sure what was happening.
“I went down and Rhea [Seehorn] and Patrick [Fabian] grabbed me, and they were screaming, but [the crew members] thought they were laughing. So there were delays in reacting because we were all so far apart from each other,” Odenkirk said, noting how filming took place with social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Breaking Bad star was completely out during the incident, but he later recalled what others told him. “I was gone. I turned grey,” he stated. “Eventually the on-set medic showed up, and he didn’t know what to do. He’d never done CPR.”
Odenkirk reiterated that he doesn’t remember anything about the experience. The first thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital seven days 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,” he shared.
Odenkirk described his survival as “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.”
As Odenkirk told the New York Times Magazine in 2022, a buildup of plaque caused his heart attack after one of the pieces of plaque broke up. He underwent a stent procedure and returned to set in September 2021 to resume filming the show’s final season.
Since his heart attack, Odenkirk has changed his diet and takes prescribed medication. But that hasn’t stopped him from taking on action roles, including the action thriller Nobody and its sequel, and now the action comedy Normal.
“Oh, it’s good. It’s good,” Odenkirk told People in April when asked about his health. “And I’m still going to the gym for stunt fighting. I go twice a week with my same trainer, Daniel Bernhardt.”
He admitted to considering scaling back his action roles, but ultimately he decided to go full throttle. “Because once I stop, I think it might be a little intimidating to get back,” he said. “But if I keep up the basics, then it’s not so scary to just amp it up in time for a movie.”
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