Bob Odenkirk Told Us What Pixar’s "Incredibles 2" Has in Common With "Better Call Saul"

We literally called him to find out.

After years as a cult sketch comedy performer and writer for shows like Saturday Night Live, Bob Odenkirk has evolved, Pokémon style, into a respected thespian.

For that, you can thank Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul, in which he brings unexpected heart and pathos to the part of Saul Goodman (née Jimmy McGill), a conman turned lawyer turned conniving lawyer.

Now, on top of the acclaim, Odenkirk gets to enjoy such perks as a prime voice part in Pixar’s Incredibles 2. No audition was necessary. These days, it’s not just Saul who gets the calls.

"[Director] Brad Bird called me and invited me to be a part of it," Bob tells Student Edge.

At first, he was kept in the dark about his character, Winston Deavor, except for the fact “he was a mogul and he was a person who loved superheroes and wanted them to no longer be illegal,” as they are in Pixar’s superhero universe. (If you didn’t remember that factoid, we don’t blame you; it’s been 14 years since the first Incredibles hit cinemas.)

"But over time, a little over a year of recording sessions—I think there were four or five—the story evolved and the character grew to become more…" Bob recalls, before stopping himself.

"Geez, no spoilers here."

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Without giving too much away about Winston—and his relationship to the 'Incredible' Parr family—Bob revealed he largely went into Incredibles 2 blind, not fully knowing how the character would change. Eventually, as Bob puts it, where Winston Deavor ends up was "a shocker" to him.

"In order to do this kind of film you have to trust the director and writer," he says.

"They don’t give you a script. So, you don’t get to read what happens and know what’s going to happen. I was trusting Brad Bird to make something unique and special with the story and with the character, because he’s always done that, and I think he’s delivered here too."

Funnily enough, if anything prepared Bob for that kind of trust exercise, it was the dark and sometimes despairing world of Better Call Saul.

"[On that show] they offer to me to discuss where the story is going and what happens next and all that, and I never take them up on it," he reveals.

"I leave that entirely in Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s hands—they’re the creators of Better Call Saul—and I’m very, very happy," he says, before adding, "I think I’m a better actor when I don’t help."

Something else Incredibles 2 has in common with Better Call Saul: a supporting performance from Jonathan Banks, who plays Mike Ehrmantraut on TV and is the Incredibles’ FBI handler Rick Dicker on the big screen. We asked Bob if he was, at the very least, jealous of Banks’ character name.

"We had a laugh about it, sure," he says.

"We have a lot of laughs about everything because we have a great time together, me and that guy."

Then, his attention turned—perhaps half-sarcastically—to another spin-off (as if one wasn’t already enough): "Just get us on screen together! Will you campaign please?"

Maybe he’s not being sarcastic. Maybe he’s being as earnest as anyone has ever been, and I'm only hearing sarcasm. As he admits, "[people] think of me as too cynical."

He delivers that answer when I ask if he’d ever been hired to do 'punch-up' on an animated script, back when he was toiling as a writer and comedian. ('Punch-up', memorably defined by comic Patton Oswalt on the album Werewolves & Lollipops, involves a bunch of funny people adding jokes to pictures very, very late in the process.)

Turns out, he'd never worked 'punch-up' before. So, I had to ask: Does he think he’s too cynical to 'punch-up' animated movies?

"No, I think I’d be wonderful at punch-up!" he exclaims.

"I think I’d be supportive and try to make things work.

"But it’s okay. I also like to have a reputation as being critical. It makes me cooler! And also, it keeps people from showing me more stuff than they do."

Incredibles 2 arrives in Australian cinemas 14 June.

Photo: Disney / AMC