Bob Odenkirk recently reflected on his near-death heart attack that took place on the set of Better Call Saul.
The two-time Emmy-winning writer/actor sat down with The Times U.K. while promoting the overseas release of action-comedy Normal when he opened up about the health incident, which took place amid the pandemic and filming the last season.
“I went down and [stars] Rhea [Seehorn] and Patrick [Fabian] grabbed me and they were screaming, but [the crew members who noticed] thought they were laughing,” Odenkirk said. “So there were delays in reacting because we were all so far apart from each other.”
“I was gone. I turned gray,” he recounted based off of what people told him when he awoke in the hospital a week later. “Eventually the on-set medic showed up and he didn’t know what to do. He’d never done CPR.”
The Saturday Night Live alum said he didn’t remember anything about the incident: “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 noted that he was thrilled to be alive following the medical scare: “That was such a gift, to experience a few weeks where I felt that way about my presence in the world,” he concluded. “I felt just very, very delighted and engaged.”
In late July 2021, Deadline reported that Odenkirk had collapsed on the New Mexico-set of the Breaking Bad prequel show and been rushed to the hospital. The next day, his reps confirmed that he was in “stable condition” after suffering a “heart-related incident,” which was later revealed to be a heart attack caused by a blockage that was fixed without surgery. Odenkirk returned to set just over a month afterward, resuming filming in September 2021.
Odenkirk has previously spoken about the near-fatal occurrence, telling The New York Times Magazine in 2022 that he had taken a wait-and-see approach on the advice of a doctor after finding out in 2018 that he had plaque buildup in his heart. Everything had been fine until “one of those pieces of plaque broke up.” The following morning, he underwent a stent procedure, and has since changed his diet and been prescribed medication.
