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[0:00] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's theatre podcast. Your backstage pass to revealing conversations with stars, creators, and industry leaders, on Broadway, off Broadway, and beyond. I'm Gordon Cox. On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to the Tony nominee Bob Odenkirk.

[0:23] Gordon Cox: Odenkirk is an Emmy-winning actor and writer, best known these days for his work in TV, especially in *Breaking Bad*, and in the spinoff in which he starred, *Better Call Saul*. His movie work includes the action movie *Nobody*, which is getting an upcoming sequel, and he got his start in the comedy world, writing for *Saturday Night Live* and *The Ben Stiller Show*, and creating and starring in the HBO sketch comedy series *Mr. Show with Bob and David*. Now, Odenkirk is making his Broadway debut in *Glengarry Glen Ross*, the David Mamet play about cutthroat real estate agents, desperate to make a sale. He plays the role of Shelley Levine, the older salesman who used to be at the top of the heap, but is now struggling to compete.

Odenkirk is part of a starry cast that includes Bill Burr, Michael McKean, and Kieran Culkin. Since opening this spring, the production has become one of the most popular shows on Broadway and broken box office records at the Palace Theatre. Now, Odenkirk is in the virtual studio with me to talk about the anxiety of Broadway, the honor of just being nominated, and why he's been wanting to do *Glengarry Glen Ross* for 30 years. Hi, Bob. Thanks for joining me.

[1:31] Bob Odenkirk: Hi, Gordon. How are you?

[1:32] Gordon Cox: I'm great. How are you doing?

[1:34] Bob Odenkirk: I am speaking to you the day after I saw you at the big press event for all the Tony nominees. They all get together. Was it fun?

[1:41] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, it was very fun. I mean, I don't know most of those people. I've seen *Operation Mincemeat*, and I've seen *O'Mary*, and I got to see Cole, and I got to see the cast of *Operation Mincemeat*, which I really, really loved, and congratulate them and tell them how much I love their show. And so, yeah, I mean, and then there's a lot of people I don't know. I'm new to the Broadway community.

[2:07] Gordon Cox: Yeah. And when you're in a show, it's not like you have time to see everybody else's shows, right? Because you've got to be on stage.

[2:12] Bob Odenkirk: Yes, that's true. And it's a shame. I would like to see – the only person I've seen on the nominee list is, of course, Conrad Ricamora, who's in *O'Mary*. I haven't seen *Yellowface*, or I think – I'm not sure *Yellowface* is playing.

[2:29] Gordon Cox: Yeah, *Yellowface* was a limited run, so that had ended before you even got started, yeah.

[2:34] Bob Odenkirk: I haven't seen *Purpose* or *John Proctor*, which I've heard *John Proctor*'s incredible.

[2:40] Gordon Cox: Yeah, they're both worth seeing whenever you get a chance, which won't be until probably the end of June, I'm guessing. Is there anything similar – is it at all like being nominated for an Emmy?

[2:52] Bob Odenkirk: It's similar, yeah. There's similarity. I mean, it's a big world full of people doing their very best, and to be picked out as outstanding or worth noting, you just know that it's very – in both cases, it is – to be nominated, everyone's always like, you should have won an Emmy or whatever. I've won Emmys for writing, but I mean, just being nominated is – in the world that we're in with this many good people making good things is just – that's a win. It's a huge win. So, in that way, it's similar. It feels that way. It's different in that there is more of a camaraderie and a community to Broadway than to TV. I mean, when you go to the Emmys, the shows are so vastly different from each other, and the categories are vastly different from each other.

So, I actually know people across the spectrum of shows in LA because I've written comedy for so many years, and I've been in drama now for years. But this feels like it's obviously a tighter community in Broadway, and to be included in that – I guess I felt included in the television community because that's all I did my whole life. But to be invited in and embraced and given a nod here by this community, a smaller community that you can see they know each other, is pretty special. It's a little – in its way, it's a little more special. But in both cases, I consider a nomination to be a massive win.

[4:39] Gordon Cox: Yeah. What was that first performance like the night of the Tony nominations when they came out? That's always a good time.

[4:46] Bob Odenkirk: Well, guess what? It wasn't great. I had a cold.

[4:51] Gordon Cox: I'm sorry to hear that.

[4:52] Bob Odenkirk: I had almost no voice that night, and two nights later were the worst performances I've done of the play. It felt so bad to walk out on stage after being nominated for a Tony, knowing the audience, many of them Broadway aficionados who go rub their hands and go, here goes. I can't wait to see this Tony nominee. He must be a cut above. And you can still hear it in my voice.

[5:22] Gordon Cox: Yeah, a little, yeah.

[5:24] Bob Odenkirk: I could not do the part well at all. I could only croak my way through the whole goddamn show. I'm sweating up there and thinking, these people are going, what the fuck? The only thing, they knew I was sick. You'd have to be a fool not to know that guy shouldn't be on stage because he should be in a bed somewhere. But I did skip one show to try to recover. But last week, my Tony nomination week, I did the two worst shows I've done because I had no voice. I don't know what to say. It's live theater.

[6:08] Gordon Cox: It's how it goes, right?

[6:09] Bob Odenkirk: You can still hear it. I've been to the doctor twice. I'm on every drug you can give me. I'm still not all there, but I'm at 70% now, which is a hell of a lot better than where I was. I try to compensate. The truth is the character I play, Shelly Levine, is beaten down. He's probably a guy who gets a lot of colds. He's in Chicago. In Chicago, you do get a cold once a year, twice a year. The weather changes so rapidly. I tried to say it's part of my character, but the truth is you're limited. My vocal range is limited. I care about the audience. I just think about everything I do on stage is for the people in the back of the room. If you were in the first five rows of *Glengarry Glen Ross*, you might think, gosh, he's gesturing a lot.

It's for the people in the back who don't get a show if I just sit with my arms down and talk. I'm trying to give them a show as well. The Palace is a pretty big theater. Thank God we're mic'd. Thank God that David Mamet allowed us to be mic'd. We could not do the show well in that space if we weren't mic'd. I want to do a show for everybody. I want to have my full voice. The audience means a lot to me. I've gotten to meet so many people. I've traveled around the world. I've met so many people who love *Better Call Saul* and *Nobody*. And many of them come from around the world to see *Glengarry*. If I'm diminished in any way, like having a cold, it's really hard on my soul.

[8:09] Gordon Cox: Did I hear this right, that it's been something like 40 years since you last did a play?

[8:13] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, 40 years. It's been 40 years. I did the play *Line* by Israel Horowitz in Chicago. When I moved to Chicago, I was a waiter. I was doing improv and sketch comedy, which I love. That's my first love. But I'd never done a play, and I wanted to do one. I found this play that you may well know about. It's kind of famous. It played at 13th Street Theater for whatever, 13 years. I thought it was a manageable thing to produce, which it is. We did it at the Prop Theater. It was the first production the Prop Theater in Chicago did. That was 40 years ago.

[8:56] Gordon Cox: Was it a good experience?

[8:57] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, it was a good experience. Chicago is a theater town. Even a small theater that's just starting out is going to sell some tickets, which is crazy, crazy. But it does. If you get a decent review in the Tribune or somewhere like that, people will come. It wasn't packed, but we did the show probably for a month. It was a great experience. I think I barely got a taste of it, barely. But that was the last straight play that I did. Other than that, I've done Second City and many, many improv shows and many, many sketch shows and many live tours with my friends from the sketch world, either with *Mr. Show* or *Mr. Show and Friends* or *Bob Odenkirk and Friends*. Those are often scripted, but they're sketch. There's a carefree quality to it that a play like this doesn't break the limits like that. Those things are rough and tumble. We're having a hell of a good time. You may know if you...

[10:13] Bob Odenkirk: I thought this is the funniest Glengarry you'll ever see, but we're doing the play.

[10:19] Gordon Cox: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine I was just going to mention that as you mentioned, you know, Better Call Saul and Nobody, you know, you're best known for your screen work, but all of your comedy work is so sort of, or a lot of it is very sketch based, which is so about that relationship with an audience, right? It's about kind of the live experience and establishing that rapport with an audience. What's the, how do, how does that, how has that served you now coming into all your experience in that realm, coming into Glengarry? You know, every audience is different. So I'm sitting behind the curtain in the first act and I'm listening to them as they get ready for the show. And you can tell every, you know, like I'll turn to Donald Weber Jr., my scene partner in that opening, and we'll talk about the audience, where their head is at.

You can already feel it. And sometimes they'll surprise you though. Over the course of this show, one of the ways that they surprised me is a quieter audience, say a matinee audience, which is great by the way, because we're all old guys, so we bring great energy to matinees. And they're going to listen more. They're going to pay really closer attention. But when they get to the Bill Burr, Michael McKeon scene, which is the second scene, those guys just make the most of the comedy in that. And that scene loosens the audience up. That scene really tells the audience, there's a lot of comedy in this play. If you see even photographs of other iterations of this play that have been on Broadway, the one word I would say runs through all of them is grim.

They look grim. And it's completely understandable because, you know, the scenario is kind of hell on earth. You know, these guys are in a cage match of salesmanship and they're tearing each other to pieces and they're loving it, getting off on the adrenaline of it and the winds when they come and it's crushing them. It's tearing them to pieces and they're tearing each other to pieces. And so it's a beautiful statement about capitalism unfettered. And my character is just coming to the end of his run, but he doesn't know it yet is the way I play him. The way I play him, he doesn't even have an inkling that he might actually be cooked. And so he's still raring to go in the first scene. He is raring to go.

He's mad. He's frustrated, but he is ready to rock. And when he succeeds or thinks he succeeds, he is as joyful as he was when he was 27 and he succeeded. He's got pure joy and he's sure he's sure this is it. He's he's on the road now. He's on a good path, which makes hopefully his loss of everything a deeper fall.

[13:21] Gordon Cox: Oh, I'll have more with Bob right after this break.

[13:34] Gordon Cox: And now here's more of my conversation with Bob Odenkirk. You mentioned that a lot of the comedy stuff you did was more kind of rough and tumble, whereas this I imagine it seems to me that there is a level of precision required in delivering Mamet dialogue, which sounds very naturalistic and off the cuff. But of course, there's anything but. Tell us a little bit about how you as a cast kind of got that rhythm going among all of you and got those words right.

[14:02] Bob Odenkirk: A lot of work was done on getting us word perfect. It was very much a focus of rehearsal. It's something David requests. And, you know, a lot of people feel and there's something special about that, including me. And that's how I felt on Better Call Saul as well. Early on in Better Call Saul, I started looking at, in fact, in Breaking Bad when I first got the script, I almost started marking up that first script, like, well, what if you said it this way? You know, what if you shorten this? You know, like I'd been doing my whole life in comedy. And then I immediately thought, well, you know what? I don't think a real actor does that. I think a real actor goes, these are the words. What character do they describe as scripted as laid out in front of me?

Who is this guy? If he talks like this, if he uses these phrases, if he repeats himself, if he backtracks, you know, who is he? Who does that tell me who he is? And so I learned to treat scripts like that on Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad. And of course, it translated perfectly to Mamet. And I find it utterly true what is said about Mamet's dialogue. There's a rhythm. There's a song to it. There is purpose and emotional meaning to the backtracking, the repetitive nature of things. And of course, there's a naturalism to it. You know, people are sloppy when they talk. They aren't scripted in real life, as this interview makes evident. And they reiterate things for emphasis and because their brain slips.

Right. Yeah. It also seems like in terms of the similarities between, you know, your work with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul with this play, it seems like they're playing in the same kind of thematic sandbox in a way and that it is about, you know, the things people do to survive and all that stuff.

[16:05] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah. I'd simply be a contrarian to argue that point. It's just it's true. There is a there is a lot of there's overlap between Saul and Shelley, you know, both get carried away with their excitements. Both are have incredible self-belief that is unflagging until the third act when it flags finally. And both are caught are are able to do a sleight of hand or a sleight of mouth in swindling other people and winning them over. And and in weirdly, I think, when swindling themselves and their own awareness, they're able to fool themselves into carrying on and maybe even blundering forward.

[17:10] Gordon Cox: Yeah. How did Glengarry Glen Ross as a project get to you? Were you interested? Were you pursuing theater or did it come to you wanting to do this play?

[17:15] Bob Odenkirk: I've always wanted to do it. I wrote to David Mamet when I first moved into the house with my wife, which would have been like ninety seven. Maybe maybe. Yeah. ninety nine. I wrote to David through Eddie Gordetsky, a comedy writer who knows I know who knows David well. And I asked him if I could do an all comedy cast of Glengarry Glen Ross with Fred Willard as Shelly Levine. And I would be Ricky Roma and other friends, David Cross and other people would be in it. And I said, is it OK if we change instead of selling land? They're selling pots and pans. And he never wrote back. And then about four years ago, I tried to start doing it again with a comedy cast with David and I wanted Bill Burr. And we set it up in L.A. And then David Mamet had a change of heart.

He agreed we could do it. And then he had a change of heart. And that was a bummer. And I came to New York and I met with David Kladner of William Morris, my agent in theater. And I said, you know, I want to do Glengarry. And he said, well, you can't. They're going to do it on Broadway. They already have a cast and you can't do it. And so we talked about other projects, read some other plays. And then I guess things changed with the casting as it was. And I was invited to play Shelly and I was thrilled. And then, of course, quadruply thrilled when I found out Bill Burr and Michael McKeon would be in it. And there's your comedy cast. And Kieran's no slouch either. He's a great joy and a funny, funny character to watch.

[19:24] Gordon Cox: Now, was why what did you respond to in the play? What did you love so much about it that made you that has made it important to you?

[19:29] Bob Odenkirk: I can't help but think about my roots in Chicago. Yeah. You know, my dad, who was not a friend of mine, when we were young, he would take us to his office occasionally, me and my older brother, until I was about seven or eight years old. He would maybe once or twice a year. And we would go to lunch with him and his friends and they'd get drunk. They were all drunks. They all destroyed their businesses. They all ended up divorced. And most of them had car accidents, multiple car accidents. And he would take us to lunch. And those guys were the guys in Glengarry. They were in a different business. They were in printing, which was a different business than it is now. It's now you can do a lot of design work at home. You can do it on your computer. You don't need the kind of machines and

[20:57] Bob Odenkirk: And immature. But, you know, so are most of us. Very self-destructive people, too.

[21:07] Gordon Cox: Yeah. There's a very loud truck outside the window that I may need to take a little...

[21:13] Bob Odenkirk: Can you hear it?

[21:15] Gordon Cox: Yes, I can hear.

[21:16] Bob Odenkirk: Okay, great. Yes, we might take a little pause while I wait for this truck to continue past the window. Sorry about that. Wow, I wonder what I was doing out there.

[21:31] Gordon Cox: That's all right.

[21:33] Gordon Cox: Where are you based normally? Are you in L.A.?

[21:37] Bob Odenkirk: Where am I based? I was in Winnipeg for five months this year, shooting two movies.

[21:45] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Now, one of them was Nobody 2, right?

[21:49] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah.

[21:50] Gordon Cox: And what was the other one?

[21:51] Bob Odenkirk: That's called Normal.

[21:53] Gordon Cox: Oh, okay. Yeah.

[21:54] Bob Odenkirk: Also scripted by Derek Kolstad, who wrote John Wick and Nobody. And it's a comic action film. And I really love this story that he wrote. And he let me help with the story. And then he wrote the script. And it's, you know, it's kind of, let's say, if you mix the movie Fargo with an action movie. And yeah, so I really loved it. So we got to shoot that.

[22:26] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah. We're gonna keep going. This thing is parked out here. I can edit it out of my track, and you can, and it's not on yours. So sorry about that.

[22:38] Gordon Cox: If you want to hit mute while I answer, you can do that.

[22:41] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, yeah. And actually, it doesn't, it won't show up. Either way, my track will be muted when you're answering anyway. So yeah, yeah. Now that you're in Glengarry, now that you've had the opportunity to be in it, and you've been in it for a while now, what has surprised you about the show? What have you learned about the show?

[22:57] Bob Odenkirk: Well, a great play has, I think, has room to grow and move and evolve from performer to performer and from night to night. And this play is a great play. And in particular, the part of Shelley Levine that I play, there's both the choices I make, and the choices that just happen in the course of performing, and the choices that come from the audience's engagement with the material, and how they're watching it. You know, every night is truly different.

[23:40] Bob Odenkirk: And I also have a lot of freedom within the play to make choices as it goes. And how are you finding this play that was, you know, written in the 80s, won a Pulitzer Prize, how are you finding it landing now in 2025? How do its themes resonate?

[23:55] Bob Odenkirk: I hope that, while it's true that the audience is definitely getting the comedy, because they're laughing, they're loving this play, the energy that we bring to it, and Bill Burr is screamingly funny, just the beginning to end. And so they're getting the comedy, and they think they're getting the tragedy of it. Because, you know, in the end, Shelley is really fucked. I mean, he's fucked himself, and he's just gone. He's done. And however much he's been able to avoid facing his mortality as a salesman, and as a human, he cannot avoid it in the end, in this play. I hope they're seeing the relevance, and I think they are, some people have commented on it, of the gig economy, and the way the gig economy, where people work for corporations, but they're hired out as LLCs, and as private, you know, you're a private operator, and we're just hiring your business.

And so we don't owe you any health insurance, we don't owe you anything, we can let you go, you're just your own company, and we're hiring you. Where the gig economy is a version of this contest board, of it's you guys against each other, and you're all private operators, and I can fire any of you at any time, the company owes you no allegiance, the company owes you no support, outside of do your fucking job. And the independence that people might feel from the gig economy is a trade out, and I'm sure some people feel that, and it feels good, even for a little while, but I think most people, within some degree of time, and life experience, see that you can't do it alone, and lacking the sense of, some sense of obligation from your community, or from your company, towards you, you know, life can be awful hard. So I think that it's very, very relevant, the core themes.

[26:06] Gordon Cox: And you're in Glen Ross through June 28th, what else have you got coming up that we should know about?

[26:16] Bob Odenkirk: I'm going to take a vacation. Okay, yeah. I did two movies in a row before this, so I've been basically working straight for about, you know, a year, a little over a year. One of them is a sequel to Nobody, yeah?

[26:33] Bob Odenkirk: I wrote on both of those films, so I had like quadruple duty, and they were action films, and action films can be exhausting, you know. Look, I'm thankful for the work and the opportunity, who wouldn't be? But I do need a break, so I'm going to go to see the Edinburgh Festival, which I've never been to, and I'm going to spend time with my wife, and see my kids, and work on a project with my son, who wrote this very funny TV pilot that I really, really love. And I don't, other than that, I'm going to chill out, and figure out what's next.

[27:15] Bob Odenkirk: I can tell you one thing, a few weeks ago, I was doing an interview with a newspaper, and they said, are you going to do more Broadway? And I said, boy, I don't think so. You know, I was very intimidated. I mean, the truth is, this was very intimidating, and I told myself it wasn't. I told myself, this is no big deal. It's just a stage. I've been on a million stages. I've been on stages in the last year, even though I've been doing movies. I've done improv shows, and shows with my son at Largo in LA. I've been on, I'm always getting on stage, you know. But it was another level by a lot, and I didn't prepare for it, you know, anxiety-wise. And honestly, Bill Burr, and Kieran Culkin, and Michael McKeon, sort of propped me up in the rehearsal process, in the first weeks of previews, and encouraged me in ways that I needed.

And now, I would say, and so when I did answer the question, would you do more Broadway? I was like, oh, I don't think so. But now that it's played so well, and now I've enjoyed the Broadway experience, I understand what it means to do a play, time and again, with this audience that comes to the theater going, this is going to be a great show. I hope this will be a great show. That is a different mentality than most audiences have. And I'm not saying people are adversarial, or everything is like a comedy club at 2am. It isn't, you know. But the audiences at a Broadway come to the show with the best fucking energy. And you get to work from that. You get to take off that, and build off that. It's the fucking best. So now I'm looking at other plays.

[29:07] Gordon Cox: Is there another, is there a play or a role similar to your relationship with Glengarry that you have always wanted to do, that you've always had a desire to do?

[29:17] Bob Odenkirk: Richard III.

[29:19] Gordon Cox: Okay. All right. You heard it here first. Broadway.

[29:24] Bob Odenkirk: All right. Well, listen, it's been great to talk to you, Bob. Thanks so much for your time, and enjoy the rest of the run. Enjoy the run up to the Tonys, and we'll see you in Richard III in a few years.

[29:34] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, but I'm going to rewrite it, so.

[29:36] Gordon Cox: Okay. That one you can get away with. I think so. Yeah. He's a little looser than Mamet is.

[29:42] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah.

[29:42] Gordon Cox: He won't make a peep.

[29:44] Bob Odenkirk: Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks so much, Bob. Nice to talk to you.

[29:47] Bob Odenkirk: Take care, bye.

[29:48] Gordon Cox: That was Bob Odenkirk, now nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross at the Palace Theatre on Broadway.

[29:55] Gordon Cox: If you enjoyed this conversation here on StageCraft, please help us out. We'd so appreciate it if you would take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting app. It really does help. Or tell a friend about StageCraft. Find past episodes and subscribe at all the places you get your pods, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and on the Broadway Podcast Network, a great place to find more theater for your ears. Until next episode, find me on Instagram and X at Gordon B. Cox. You can also check out my newsletter about international theater. It's called JQEES, and it's at gordoncox.substack.com. Thanks for listening, and see you at the theater.