Bob Odenkirk: The Art of Anger in Comedy

I think there's a correlation between anger and comedy, certainly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I think it is, in some ways, comedy is, it's like a corralling of anger into something that can be funny. I see it as a value, but also, Mike, I walk around, I'm like, I'm having a good day. I'm having a good day. What the fuck? What the fuck? Motherfucker! You just got, you know, whatever. That is the voice of the great Bob Odenkirk. It's Mike Birbiglio. This is my podcast, Working It Out Today. We are re-airing one of our favorite episodes from 2025. It's the episode with Bob Odenkirk. The response to this episode has been overwhelming. There's a clip of Bob talking about being a dad when I asked him who he's jealous of, And he said people who still have young kids at home. And it was viewed by literally, and I'm not exaggerating, 35 million people on Instagram and TikTok. And I said that, I'm laughing because we've never had a clip like that before. It's not something we do. I'm not some kind of viral sensation. For whatever reason, that really hit home. And this episode really hit home. I feel like he talks a lot about the process of being a comedy writer, becoming a serious actor, an action star in the films Nobody and Nobody 2. Of course, Breaking Bad and then Better Call Saul. Great episode today. He's just got a lot of wisdom. And also, he's brilliantly fun. By the way, thanks to everyone who signed up for working it out premium. we've been tentatively calling ourselves in the premium community the Berbilia Familia that was one of the listeners suggested that so I've been going with it anyway Familia there's more bonus stuff coming your way soon we just dropped a bonus episode with Connor Ratliff where we punched up jokes I punched up jokes on another one with Pete Holmes if you sign up for premium you get no ads in any of the episodes and you get these premium episodes and we really appreciate it supports the show Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has signed up for text message alert. So I've had the mailing list for years, and then sometimes that goes to people's spam. So we have a new text message alert in addition to that, which is text the word for bigs, B-I-R-B-I-G-S, to 917-444-7150 to be the first to know about my upcoming shows. I'm doing a handful of, like, comedy club small shows to work on my next hour of comedy. I also have some tour dates with John Mulaney, Nick Kroll, and Fred Armisen coming up in the fall. New Hampshire and Canada and Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'll also be on my own at the Netflix is a Joke Festival May 6th at the Wilshire Ebel Theater. It's Mike Birbiglia and friends working it out. It's a bunch of new material. It's not like my new hour, but it's probably like a half hour or 45 minutes of new stuff that's in process. And it is a great theater. Tickets are at birbigs.com. This is a fun one today with Bob Odenkirk. We talk about his Nobody movies. He's got a new movie, Normal, coming out in April. He is, in addition to being the hottest new action movie star, he's a legendary comic actor, writer, and director. You might know him from Mr. Show. At the time we were talking, he was in Gary Glenn Ross on Broadway. He was amazing as Shelley Levine. Of course, you might know him from Mr. Show on HBO. And of course, the dramatic actor from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. We talk about all of this today and even the time he played my brother on a CBS pilot 20 years ago that never went on air. Enjoy my chat with the great Bob Odenkirk. Between doing action movies, doing Better Call Saul, doing decades of comedy, I feel like you're... Exhausted. Well, your career is like, it's like an example. It's like a piece of advice, basically, of like, don't limit yourself. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you this. I was riding my bike around Albuquerque on weekends, which is what I would do to de-stress from Better Call Saul, especially the first two years. And there's, I think, I want to say 300 miles of bike trails in Albuquerque. And I would go ride for five hours. Oh, my gosh. And I needed it, man. The first two years were so stressful. Really? Oh, God. I was like. What about it specifically? The amount of lines, just can I do this at all? I mean, I didn't. I took one acting class in college. Yeah. I had to learn a lot. I mean, I was learning by doing it. Yeah. With a camera in my face. And you better fucking learn now. you have 10 seconds to learn how to act because we're going. And the pressure was just through the roof, you know, and I knew the writing was great. Right. But also it was challenging writing, you know, it, if there's a texture or value to a monologue or a conversation dial piece that's scripted, you have to find that. Yeah. You have to bring it out without being overt about it or being too loud about it yeah you have to get good at acting yeah and you have to do it right now and everyone's watching and they're spending a lot of money and they're going to watch it all the way around all around the world and it's you know see i'm good at saying yes to things broadway show or sure an action movie but then when you get to doing it i'm like what it what am i doing what i think i could you have a history of people giving you more to do yeah Yeah. That's true. So in that case. Starting with Saturday Night Live. Right. Right. So Saturday Night Live, you know. Which I didn't really deliver on. And I talk about it in my book about I was finally good. I mean, Lauren might look at my journey and say, well, that's just normal. Yeah. It took two years. You took two years to figure out how the fucking show works. Yeah. And in the third year, you were helpful. Yeah. That's fine. Sure. And then I leave. Yeah. Which is not actually what you're supposed to do if you've. Right. You know, I really feel like that's where I owe him money. Yeah. But then they did your sketch with Farley after you left. Right. You say this is your book. They did it verbatim, which is literally what, as comedians, you constantly hear people go, they stole my sketch. They did it. Oh, they gave me credit. Oh, they did give you credit. Oh, yeah, no. Even though I'd left the show, my name's on, they paid me. They gave me credit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that sketch, I mean, living in a van down by the river when I was growing up, I would say is the North Star of sketch comedy. It is a perfect comedy sketch. It is. Well, what it is that's so good is it's got good structure to it. But it's, especially one reason I think maybe you like it is comedy sketch writers especially want the writing to matter. They want the writing to be the star. But the truth is in sketch comedy, the performance is the star. It is 70% performance, 30% writing, maybe more performance, maybe 80%. It just is. That's what that field is, the quality of that field. Yes. And that's sort of a, you could say maybe a 50-50 sketch. Maybe it's 60 performance, 40 writing. because the writing is structurally kind of perfect. Yeah. You know, I got lucky. But it's closer to an equal apportionment. And then the other thing about it is you could do it as a, I could do that sketch as the motivational speaker. And it'd be pretty funny. Yeah, you'd be great. My natural rage would be on display and fun. But no one could beat Chris. I mean, there's no one who could do it better than Chris. I mean, it was a character that he was kind of doing, this coach character. Yeah. Which is why I went home and wrote it. After we had done an improvisation where we were doing an anti-drug speech, it was improvised to a high school group, and he did his coach. Yeah. And Matt Foley, I don't know if he used the name or not, but that is a name he came up with. Yeah. But he did that, everything, you know, the swagger and stuff. Well, it seems like... And then I took it and I just, it really was based on kind of Tony Robbins. Sure. Yeah. And which was very popular at the time. Yeah. And I think Tony's story too is that he was like a fat kid. Okay. When he was young or something. Like I used to be this. I think that's right. Yeah. And I'm like, what about a guy who's like, I'm still this. You don't want to be me. You don't want to be me right now. it's so i think the reason why it works and you tell me what what else is working but it's like it works because it's simple and it's hypocrisy yeah it's a it's a character who's like you need to do this thing but i can't do it but you should do it yeah and uh also he's so in love with himself and his performance. He knows he's a good presenter of this shit. Well, look at what we have here, Bill Shakespeare. You know, he's like really loving himself. So he's happy. He's happily just putting himself down and because it's Chris Farley. Come on, he's the best. Yeah, I always thought there was a movie in that, but of course a sad movie, you know, about a guy who really lives in a van down by the river and he's thrice divorced. And he's angry. And that's actually one of the things that you and I have in common. When you came to my show at the Beacon, we talked about it afterwards. Our dads both had like anger stuff. Yeah. I feel like my dad taught me two things. He didn't mean to teach it to me. He gave to me genetically the ability to go from zero to 80 in a second of anger, which I do in Glengarry. Yes, yes. And my dad was like that. And so I feel like I just genetically got that. Yeah. And he taught me how to swing a golf club. That's good. And I don't play golf much. Yeah. But if I do and I play, let's say I, if I'm going to play, I hit a range for three days beforehand. Yeah. And within three days, I've got a decent swing. Yeah. I think there's a correlation between anger and comedy, certainly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure. I think that you see a lot of people like you and I and many others who had some angry dads. Because I think it is, in some ways, comedy is, it's like a corralling of anger into something that can be funny. Yeah. Well, a lot of times, one of the funnest things, David Cross and I, when we would do Mr. Show, it's amazing how often in the morning we would do our, you know, generating ideas, just sitting there oftentimes with the newspaper out, but it would, the sentence would start with, you know, it pissed me off. That's right. And it's some stupid little thing. Yeah. You know, person in front of me, I was trying to get fucking coffee this morning and this fucking person couldn't figure out, you know, how to make change for like, and you're like, you just turns into a comedy bit, You know, I feel that's true of a lot of Larry David's stuff, you know. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's the, it's, and that part of the fun is the degree of anger at the small thing. It's not an important thing that you're that angry about. Right. You're so angry. Right. But that's fun for an audience, right? Yeah, it's the thing that your dad had of going from zero to 80. Yeah, yeah. On something that can be tiny. Yeah, yeah. Which is hilarious. And I still have it. Yeah. And I don't consider it a good thing in real life. And you know what bums me out about it the most is, what's good about it is it's good in acting. It's kind of like a lack of barriers, emotional barriers, an ability to fly between feelings, which is- It's crucial. I see it as a value, but also, Mike, I walk around, I'm like, I'm having a good day. I'm having a good day. What the fuck? What the fuck, motherfucker? You just got, you know, whatever, some little thing. I'm like, really? You just did that? Yeah. What is wrong with you? Yeah. Your life couldn't be better. Yeah. And you are having a great day. Yeah. And this small thing happened. It's not a plus. So I want to I really need to take a chapter here now and work on myself because part of it too is that I got into this avenue of acting and these action films were I felt a lot of pressure there Mike because I working in an area I didn start in And I had to learn in the last 10 years try to learn quickly try to pay attention to the people around me and understand what matters in this world Yeah. But also, I didn't, it was almost by accident, like, well, slow down. You didn't choose this. Right. You know, I think I got to get back to maybe some comedy. Yeah. It's something that I think I've felt very alone in this pursuit. And, of course, you have a team around. You have other writers. You have producers and stuff. But I don't think Mr. Show, even though I had a great deal of power there, felt like a team effort still. And I like that. Yeah, it's interesting. Are you alone doing your show? Yeah, it's true. yeah i have a director and and a team and producers and my brother and my wife but but it is lonesome being a stand-up is lonesome yeah it is it is it's a lot of times you're out there in terreau indiana just going okay it's just me hence the podcast okay yeah exactly but but you've worked with i mean you do these action films uh you better call saul and even like greta gerwig's movie steven spielberg's movie and you're working with huge directors do you feel like when you're working with someone like greta or spielberg are you learning as a director because you are a director are you in your director brain thinking oh i should i could use i could do that i think the one thing i learned from directing three films is the first job you have as a director is picking the right story yeah and the story that you don't just go oh that would be fun but that you understand why you should tell that story and i don't think i really did that particularly well uh i think melvin goes to dinner was the first film i made a very low budget film and based on a play is the best film that I made. And it's because nobody was asking me to make it as a movie. I wasn't getting paid any money to make it as a movie. I just could see, I had a vision for how to put that on screen. It was oozing out of it. Yes. And the other films were more like a task of how would you direct this? How would you make this? And I had ideas, but they weren't the best. They weren't great. They didn't deliver a great film. and uh so that's your first job yeah and i imagine i might one day again have that feeling about a story yeah but i haven't yet i haven't yet certainly not the action films that i've made i haven't said i should direct i should direct this yeah no and the opposite i've said you get somebody who knows this stuff and uh i've certainly worked hard on the writing and structure of the story but even there I back off, especially with nobody. I mean, I sort of, to some extent with the action films, I sort of say, I'm here to work on it until we get to page 50. And once we get to page 50 and the big action is going, you tell me where to stand. Because until, once that starts, I don't know what's, you get into a magical, mythical world of violence and well, I don't have any bearings and i can't tell you have you gotten advice from like a keanu reeves or a tom cruise about how to do action films how to be an action star um no it's all learning on my own and the one thing that's the greatest challenge for me is and i fucked up um two times on screen that I don't want to tell you. And it's on, it's in the final cut. But I also have fixed it a few times. So what I do that is wrong, that I do wrong, is one of the things that I thought I could, when I thought about doing this, when I saw the opportunity was possible, I thought a lot about what can I bring to this genre? Yeah. Well, I really am not super handsome, super young or super muscular. so I'm really a guy you don't expect to be the hero sure and to win the fight so one thing I can do is bring a vulnerability and a presence a surprise when I kick into some gear because you really don't expect it no matter you know you can put you know the rock you can put glasses on him and a tie and you still go he's gonna kick somebody's ass yeah that's right say he's an accountant right You just like finish the book so you can kick the ass. Right. It's like the, yes, the adage about the gun. Once there's a gun on stage, the gun's going to go off during the play. The rock is going to kick someone's ass. From the first, you know, shot. That's the gun. And I'm not. Yes. And so I thought I could bring a vulnerability. Yeah. Well, that vulnerability, and I wanted to play pain. Yeah. Like, obviously not real pain, but I wanted to at least play, you know, ah, fuck. You know, that hurt. Yeah. And holding stuff and limping and kind of building it as the fight goes. I'm getting less flexible. Yeah. So I thought I could play that. But I discovered using some sensitivity and instinct that you can be too vulnerable. Oh, interesting. They still want a hero. Yes. And so. Right, the audience wants a hero. Yeah. And if you're too weak, there's a point, I think, where you're watching that person, you go like, I can't be on his side. I think he's going to get killed or he's feeling too much pain. And I think I've taken it too far at times. Yeah. And I'm proud of myself in Nobody 2. There was a scene, it was towards the end, and I shot it and we shot it and it was cold and it was an all-night shoot. And we got the shot. Okay, we got it. And I was like, wait, let me watch it back. I watched it back. I said, I gotta do it again. Yeah. I gotta do it again. Wow. Because I was just being too vulnerable, too hurt, too in pain, too... And I'm like, I can't keep cheering for that guy almost. Oh, that's interesting. And so we did it again. And I said, and only use that take. Oh, wow. Use that take. Yeah. Do not touch the other takes. Anyway. We played Brothers on a TV pilot that didn't go to air. Yeah. Good one. Pretty good, I think. Yeah. It was like in 2008, and we should play Brothers again. I think so. We got to figure out a movie where it makes sense that we- I actually have a story. You have a story? I totally do. Are you serious? Yeah. You have a Brothers story? Well, a brother's in it, and it's important. Oh. Yeah. And are you, did you write it yet? I've been working on it, yeah. Oh my gosh. It's a, it's like the opposite of everything I've been doing. No kidding. It's like a, like a, well, Nicole Hollis Center and I were talking about it. Oh, I love Nicole. So it's like a Nicole type movie. Oh, I love Nicole. One of my favorite filmmakers. Yeah. So I continue to develop it, Nicole, if you're watching. and I'm gonna keep trying to get that to happen. But it would be great if you write it. Oh, I would love that. Well, it's funny because you're saying this thing that rings true to me so much, which is about movies, which is it has to be a story that you have to make. Right. It has to be. Right. And I feel like you learn that, you can learn that the hard way. Yeah. Because movies, people don't realize this, it takes you years to write a movie at least a year right movie takes you a year to shoot a movie basically a year to edit and by the time it gets out it's like at least three to five years that you've spent on one story right so that better be a good story and when it comes out in the world it will be attacked and you want to feel like it was worth it i had to try i couldn't not try to write and make that movie and whether you think you pulled it off and all the critics are wrong or you think i'm sorry the critics are right then i just didn't finish this thing yeah i didn't get it you still want to feel like i i did everything i could and i i wanted to tell that story because when you feel like i didn't need to yeah i didn't want to fully i wasn't all there and it didn't work that's the fucking worst that's pain and you're saying the critics are right and i didn't try as hard as i could have awful that's the fucking worst it's the worst first you want to call every critic and go You're right. What you want to be able to say is, you're right, but fuck you, man. I had to do that. I had to do that. I stand up for myself. Well, it's funny, like, I just saw you in Glengarry Glen Ross, and you're brilliant in it. Your character is an amazing David Mamet character who has high highs and low lows and high highs. From one line to the next. But what's funny about it is seeing, within a week of itself, seeing you in Glen, Gary, Glen Ross, reading your book, your book is a lot of that. Your book is you're up, you're down, you're up, you're a big star, you have nothing, you're frustrated. Do you feel like you drew on that in the performance? I'll tell you the truth. Oh, for sure, for sure. I do draw on all the ups and downs, yes. Yeah. I will say in my book, I had a great desire to talk as much as possible about failure. Yeah. And I think I did. Yeah. But the truth is I didn't share all the failure. Right. There's more. There's more. Yeah. That didn't make it into the book because it was too much. Yeah. It was, it also, the honest, let's face it. it's hard to talk about a TV show that you maybe spent eight months on that you made or didn't make, made the pilot, rewrote the pilot four times. Yeah. And nobody's ever seen it and you can't read it anywhere. Yeah, that's right. It's hard to share that with an audience. Yeah. And go like, oh, it was good here and it was bad there. And like, I don't know, I can't read it. I can't see it. Yeah. I just got to believe you that this is what, how do I know any of that is true? That's right. You know, but I mean, I wrote pilots that got passed on. I wrote and made pilots that I went, oh, fuck, I didn't figure it out. Yeah. And I wrote pilots that I thought, this is really good. Yeah. And I had one network executive once call me and go, this is the best pilot I've ever read. Yeah. We're passing on it. That's funny. And I knew. He's the best pilot I've ever read I'm passing on it. And I knew he was right. I knew that it was solid. It's just a fickle business. Like it- I think, yeah. And then the why they pick one show over another can be reasons that seem empty and stupid. Yeah. But maybe pan out or they have a whole different job than you. Your job is to think about what you care about and a point of view you have on it, something worth sharing with the world and then pursue it. and then their job is to decide what to show people. I don't know. Support for Working It Out comes from Article. Article offers a curated range of mid-century modern coastal and Scandinavian inspired pieces that not only shine on their own, but also pair seamlessly with nearly any other Article product. I love this Article furniture. They have a thoughtful design approach that makes it incredibly easy to mix and match, helping you create a space that feels cohesive as well as stylish. I feel like if you went on the article website, you could spend hours there. 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Here's the thing about RULA. RULA helps to make that part easier. RULA works with major insurance plans. Sessions can cost as little as $15, and in some case, $0, depending on what your benefits are RULA isn just a directory They help book appointments They stay on top of your schedule and keep track of progress so you actually can get somewhere with therapy Whether it therapy or medication management Rula makes it simple to get the full scope of care you need no time wasted navigating between platforms or offices Thousands of people have already used Rula to finally get the care they needed. Go to Rula.com slash Brubigs and get started today. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash Brubigs. Take the first step, get connected, take control of your mental health. I met you, and you wouldn't remember this, when you did the naked improv sketch at Radio City. I was at that show. So crazy. It was unbelievable. It's such a thin premise. We did it probably seven years earlier, and we did it at our first time we ever did anything together. yeah me and david which was the montreal comedy festival yeah he invited me to come up with them and we just made up shit that day and did it that night somewhere yeah and we did that bit and we talked about if we ever did a big charity event this would be a bit to do and we did it one more time yeah i don't remember where and then we got invited to do comic relief eight and we're like well we're doing that sketch it was on hbo and i was in i was in the live audience and the premise is basically you're doing improv yeah hey everybody we've had a good time we had done some bit earlier we had a good time tonight i'm it's i'm a you know we're actors from la david cross bob odenkirk i am actually david's a teacher of improvisation and i've been taking his classes and we're gonna do a, if you're up for it, we'd like to do an improv for you. And David goes, okay, we're gonna have fun. It's called Naked Phrase Guess. Bob, you're gonna, I'm gonna ask the audience for a, you're gonna leave the stage. I'm gonna ask the audience for a phrase. Then I'm gonna tell it. Then you're gonna come back on stage and we will do a scene and you will have to try to guess the phrase from the clues of acting the scene. Yeah. I go, that's great. That sounds like fun. I've never done that. That's great. And then he goes, okay, great. So go off stage, you know, where you can't hear. We'll have somebody monitor the door and take your clothes off and come back out here when you're told to come back out. I go, yeah, great, great. I go, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry, what? Just go. You have to go where you can't hear. So otherwise you're going to hear the phrase. So go off to that room. We have a room for you. Take your clothes off. and then come back out on stage and we'll get going. And I go, okay, I'm sorry. You want me to take my clothes off? Yeah, well, it's called Naked Freeze, yes. And that's what it, you have to, it's part of the thing. Okay, I don't know. I don't know. I've never done this. Okay. And I go and I take my clothes off. I did put a sock over my. Yeah. And I put my hand over the sock. And then I came out in Radio City. music hall david had gotten a phrase and then part of the joke is that i get the phrase pretty quickly yeah but he keeps going and the audience is like he said the phrase you know and at some point i'm sensing that i'm just being played with and i go you fucking asshole you fucking lied to me i go you said it whatever and everyone cheers for me and yeah the crowd went nuts i thought it was like one of the most punk rock live comedy bits i've ever said i'd ever seen i couldn't insane stupid and and i was totally i had no issue with it and i could do it today and proudly show off my 62 year old body but the truth is the hardest part is when you're done with the sketch as soon as the sketch is over you're like i'm fucking naked what the fuck happened and i know that's weird because you're like you're sentient you know you got naked and got but again there's something wrong with me yes which was probably one reason i have some facility as an actor and i'm able to do that yeah and not until the sketch is over am i embarrassed at all right because right you say this in the book you're like i wouldn't as bob odenkirk get naked but that's what the character he's got to get he's got to get naked look when i watch myself in editing bays yeah i've never said cut me or cut me back or that i say that guy that guy that guy's enough of that guy yeah i i'm talking about me but yeah i don't say i just don't think of it that way yeah that makes sense yeah it's a little fucked up because it's um there's certain type of disassociation yeah yeah yeah it's so i met you at the party after comic relief that night i came up to you oh my god i'm a college improviser and i love that sketch and it was amazing and you were talking to bob zamuda who is andy kaufman's comedy partner yeah legendary bob zamuda and it was really funny i'll always remember this you go listen I'm talking to Bob Zemuda right now I can't talk to you but good luck and it was like I I appreciated the candor of it yeah do you feel like that's indicative of like a certain type of candor you have because that's so specific I do think that all I know how to do is sometimes just being simply honest is the just the very best thing you can ever do yeah in awkward moments yeah i'm awkward right now this isn't upsetting to me or whatever you yeah want to say um you know we do the sign line at the autograph line after the broadway show i don't know when this became part of broadway yes it's fucking you have to do it the stage door you fucking have to do it's a big thing i missed one night i got a call from the producers wow i heard you're not doing that i go wait i skipped one night i thought it's not part of the job right no but you know the audience kind of i'm like i mean really you want to put that in the contract next time you know um but i get it it has become a tradition it's a culture it's not cool it's we just did a show for you maybe two in the day maybe two yeah and now i have to sign 80 fucking autographs and you know but whatever the people are couldn't be nicer yeah and i get you get compliments from people but it can be weird there can be weird moments yeah and you know the best way i think the best way to handle it is just say this is a weird moment yeah you want something from me that i don't have time to give yeah i understand that but i can't do it and just say as honestly simply just call it what it is as possible what's happening here and why it's not anyway not that you needed that explanation no no um it's funny because you have a thing that i try to practice too which is you're obsessed with like you know if you have a movie script you have friends over and do a reading of it yeah yeah you kind of workshop things i always say to people who watch this show or listen to this show if you're a creative try to find a few people who do the same thing and just read each other your stuff and talk about your stuff. And, you know, that's kind of always my advice. And it's like, how did you arrive at that as an idea? Yeah. Maybe you could say it's taken a little while. I do think, you know, I had a strange misplaced confidence when I was very young doing it, but you need that too. You need this kind of weird like, fuck it, I can do this better than them when you're like, no, you definitely can't. You need that weird drive and certainty or maybe just the joy of doing it is so great that it gets you through. Yeah. Yeah. But I'll tell you, there's, that's been a hard thing for me to navigate is how much I share the decision making with other people. I came out of Mr. Show feeling like that was fun. I'm really proud of it, but I was too much of a, I was too powerful in that room. And I was too demanding of people that my way or the highway. I'm proud of it. I think everyone is, but can I be a more collaborative person? Yeah. And I would say I went and made some projects where I was too collaborative. Yeah. Where I said, I don't like that thing, but these two people like it, so it stays in. Yeah. And that can be a mistake too. Yeah. Because it's like, it's hard to modulate. Right, because where- I think when you're directing a movie and you're writing a movie- Yeah. No matter, you got to try to see other people's points of view. See what they're pointing to when they say, why don't you do this with that? Why doesn't this happen? See what they're pointing to. Maybe you don't use their choice of where it goes, but they're pointing to something, uncertainty, a weakness maybe. Yeah. And it could be a weakness just in your presentation of like, they're not hearing what you think is important. So they're going another way. So you have to make that clearer, you know, but you do have to own it in the end. Yeah. You know, as your movie proves, you do have to go like, I just think it needs to be this way. you have right well it's the difference between you having the vision and you supporting someone else's vision i think yeah i'd say these action films have been very collaborative and because again there is a point in those films where i don't know what i'm doing um and i know that and i say i don't know right you're the vessel i yeah i'm i don't know what's happening i don't know what you can do here now. Right. Or on page 60 and I just got thrown, you know, across the room and, you know, that guy has sent 80 people after me and I don't know where to start with that. You've had, you know, in your movie, there's like a, in the first one, there's a home invasion. Yeah. You had a home invasion? Two. Two home invasions, yeah. One was very disturbing. One was also disturbing, but a little less so. What was the first one? Well, I really won't tell the whole story, but I woke up. My kids were young. My son was 12. My daughter was 10. And it was like 6 a.m. And I got up. Our house was kind of split into two sides. of the bedrooms over here and then this side of the kitchen and the living room and i walk into this area and to get the breakfast started and stuff and all the windows are open and the door my god is open and i thought fuck first of all the cat got out of course we gotta find the goddamn cat and then also but who did that and then i thought well okay okay okay okay there was a 2 a.m there was a skunk my wife got up she opened all the windows the door fell open okay and she put the cat downstairs yeah so there that's must be what happened a skunk because that can happen yeah not that it happens a lot yeah so i tell my son go downstairs see if you can find the cat and I'm going to go outside and see if I can find the cat under the porch area. It shut all these windows. So I go out there. I'm looking, looking, looking, and my son comes up and he goes, there's a man downstairs. Oh, my gosh. And I go, okay, do you know who it is? And he goes, no. And I go, okay, we'll go to the other side of the house, shut the door, tell mom and you guys stay there. I'm going to call the police. I call the police. I open the front door. I get out my baseball bat. Yeah, sure. Come on. Come on, Louisville slugger. Let's go. You know why we got those bats. So dumb. So dumb. But what the fuck else am I going to do? I don't know. I didn't have a golf club nearby. Then what? Train. Get mace. I'm on the edge of my seat. Pepper spray. Then what? Then I yell downstairs. I go, the police are on their way. you can walk out the front door if you want. I'll let you walk out. Just come up and walk out and you'll be fine. The police are on their way. Wow. Nothing. No, said it again. Nothing. Of course, if the guy had come up the stairs, I'm standing there with a baseball bat. I don't know. Police show up, go downstairs. Time goes by, a few minutes, comes back up. He goes, I called for backup. I mean I think I counted 13 cops two detectives and 11 cops with guns go downstairs They eventually brought the guy up He was I don wanna go into the specifics but he was not anyone I knew And he was clearly like a methed out. His eyes were going two different directions. Wow. And then a few years later, not dissimilar really, we woke up, car was gone. My guitar was gone. All the computers are gone. and on security cameras, the guy comes in at 2 a.m. He was able to open the garage from the remote that was in the car that was parked outside. He goes in, he takes all the important stuff, puts it in my wife's car and drives away and shuts the garage door. He was a pro. He was there to take things, not to interact with anyone, not to have any problems. Gotta respect that. Yeah, no weapons on him, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. Had a plan. Had a plan. Had a vision. Yes. He's an artist of sorts. And so the way those two incidents are operative to making these films is the feelings I had regarding those incidents, it's just we're always fresh. Yeah. Years later. Yeah. How could you ever shake that? Years later. Yeah. And I'm a nonviolent guy. Yeah. But honestly, you let me have a few minutes with that first guy. Yeah. I don't want to see it. I would throw anything I could at him. Yeah. All your dad's anger would come out at that guy. I don't give a shit. Yeah. I don't give a shit how high he was. Yeah. I don't give a shit what his problems were. Yeah. Well, it's your baby bear. Yeah. It's animalistic. It's you're protecting your family. What's potentially good about a movie with such expression is you get to express it. You get to unlock it. Yes. And I like just acknowledging that it exists. Yeah. Yes. And not pretending that you don't feel those things. Yeah. Yeah. I do feel those things. 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Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. helixsleep.com slash Burr Biggs. This is a thing that we loved that you said, which is out of 100 movies, there's two classics there's 12 worth seeing there's another 15 that are fine the rest are just a mess why do you think that is and what are your two good movies what are two good movies there's too many moving parts in a movie there's just too much that you you have to have a degree of luck and magic and you should kill yourself when you make a movie and you should work on every detail and you should take it to the limit. And when you're in editing, here's what you should do. Everything you can think of to make it work. That's right. But it still may not work at all. Amen. That's just movies. That's movies. It's true. And honestly, the most buttoned down films, obviously Kubrick is referenced as a filmmaker who was wildly detail oriented. Yes, perfectionist. I'm not a huge fan of his stuff. No, it doesn't make me feel anything. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a painting that- The closest for me is like Full Metal Jacket. Right. Where I'm like, oh, it shakes me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And God bless him. And maybe The Shining, maybe The Shining. Yeah, I'm glad for the fans. He's got massive fans and I respect them. They're smart, but it's kind of like, you know. But what's your, okay. So if it's not Kubrick, then who really puts you in that zone? Oh, well, I love the movie Chinatown, I think is- Yeah, Chinatown's amazing. My favorite film. Truly. American Graffiti is a great film. Ron Howard. Really great film. Ron Howard. I want to tell you what I think the best acting maybe ever is. Yeah. Not Daniel Day-Lewis. Okay. He's great. Very good. Ricky Gervais in The First Office. Unbelievable. No argument. No argument. he's fantastic it's crazy how real he feels and how much how much there's layers in what he's doing how much like pain is inside this absolute clown of a human clearly tapped into something personal in himself yeah it really ranks yeah i think so too uh slow round um who are you jealous of everybody right now i really am it's crazy i've just done this thing and but after the last five years i feel so off balance yeah yeah can you who's the person you thought of that you didn't say specifically oh who i'm jealous of who you're jealous of gee i anybody who's still got little kids at home growing up oh yeah there's no question i knew what i was doing when i had kids growing up yeah i was being a dad i mean that was my job and i didn't have to ask myself what am i doing here what am i doing how can i be a part of this world how can i be meaningful today yeah i didn't have to ask that question because the fucking answer is pick up everything between here and the door yeah that's right and make sure they get to school and have a laugh with them yeah you know it was life was i understood my purpose best answer and you know i'm surrounded by these guys who have kids you know uh karen colton and bill and i envy them yeah i envy them as stressed as they are yeah because they have to do this job and take some away um i guess you know who you are when you leave here you absolutely know who you are yeah you're a dad anyway no i love that that's what's the best piece of advice someone's given you that you used oh that i used oh uh daniel bernhardt told me my trainer in the kind of an angry way not that he was angry at me but he was like we were exercising and i was like talking about losing weight not that i want to lose weight but it just had come across in our conversation he goes you don't lose weight by working out yeah you lose it by eating right he's angry yep i go what he goes people think you fucking lose weight by working out it's 80 diet and from that moment on i cut way back on sugar yeah and it's been amazing yeah amazing i did not think that was going to be the answer why what did you think it would be because something about writing or something or being alive. I mean, I... You're one of the most pedigreed comedy writers in the last century. I'm like, what's the best piece of advice someone's giving you? He's like, you gotta cut sugar. You gotta cut carbs. You just gotta. Yeah. Arguably, I've been the most, the biggest gym rat of the last six years. Can you remember a moment in your life where you were kind of an inauthentic version of yourself? Oh. A lot of times. Yeah. Pretty much any interview I do. Oh, really? Well. But this feels pretty real. On the red carpet. Oh, on the red carpet, yeah, yeah. Not here. This feels pretty much how you feel. Yeah, yeah, but any red carpet interview. Yeah. Any red carpet interview. Yeah. Look, look, look. It's a thing. Did you ever think you'd be a celebrity? No. No. No. Yeah, I thought I'd be a writer. Yeah, I thought I'd be a writer. Case react. Yeah. And I understood that PR was part of that at some point. Yeah. But the amount of PR that I've done, what I asked to do, I mean, of course, it appeals to your ego. People want to, what do you think? What do you do? Yeah, yeah. Where'd you come from? Yeah. And that's pretty great. It's a pretty nice, special feeling. Yeah. But I never trained for it, planned for it, thought much about it. And at some point I realized what you have to do is you have to remember that you are sitting at a wedding table. And it's not your wedding. And the uncle of the person getting married is sitting next to you. And the neighbor and a young person who's around you are younger than you, a nephew. Yeah. and you don't know them and they don't know you. They don't really know what you do. And they are always, that's who you're talking to when you're on a talk show, when you're on a red carpet. And you've got to be polite and you have to be clear. Yeah, yeah. And when people go, you're better, call Saul. You have to go, yes, I play that character. My name is Bob Odenkirk and I'm an actor. and I was on a show called Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. And you may think you sound like an ass, but you're not because there's a bunch of people watching who are going, oh, I never knew that. Breaking Bad, I've heard of that show. And we all think we can just be ourselves and chat and make comments and be calm and casual. You can't. You have to be on your presenting. And these are kind strangers who have somehow through YouTube or the TV that was just on being forced to listen to you. They don't know who you are. The final thing we do is working it out for a cause. Is there an organization that you like to support? And we will contribute to them and then link to them in the show notes. Oh, great. um food on foot is an amazing organization in la that i help out and they really have a program that helps people who are unhoused find work and housing that's fantastic it's a long-term thing yeah work with people over the course of a long period of time yeah and it is uh wonderful and they've done amazing work we'll we'll contribute to food on foot we'll link in the show notes and Bob Odenkirk, such an absolute honor. Thank you, buddy. I barely have the composure to speak with you because I'm in such awe of all of your work. Well, that's very nice of you. Working it out, cause it's not done. We're working it out, cause there's no... That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can follow Bob on Instagram at TheRealBobOdenkirk. The full video of this one, like two people looking in a mirror. basically twins, it's on YouTube. Subscribe because we're going to be posting more and more videos. Check out Burbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list and be the first to know about my upcoming shows. Our producers of Working It Out are myself, along with Peter Salomon, Joseph Burbiglia, and Mabel Lewis, associate producer Gary Simons, sound mix by Shubh Saren, supervising engineer Kate Belinsky. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, and our daughter Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows. thanks most of all to you who are listening if you enjoy this podcast please do us a little favor go on Apple Podcasts put a little review in say hey I like this one I like this other one super helpful especially if people are just finding the show and they don't know where to start thanks most of all to you who are listening tell your friends tell your enemies let's say you think someone's your friend and then you do an improv scene where they trick you into becoming naked in front of Radio City Music Hall. And after the show, you go, hey, I want to talk to you about something. I was completely naked in Radio City and it was a little embarrassing, but, you know, maybe we could talk out our process together. And we could learn a few things by listening to this podcast. It's Mike Birbigley. He talks out process and jokes and tags. And maybe the tag could be you get naked next time. Thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time. you