Bob Odenkirk doesn’t remember anything about his heart attack last summer — not the CPR, not the three defibrillator zaps that brought him back to life and nothing from the eight days he spent recuperating at Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital. Even the week after he went home is sketchy. He vaguely recalls his wife, Naomi, and adult kids, Nate and Erin, being with him and time spent with his “Better Call Saul” co-stars (and Albuquerque roommates) Rhea Seehorn and Patrick Fabian.
But that’s it. No white light moment? I ask him. No encounters with St. Peter or a dearly departed pet?
“No,” Odenkirk answers. It’s a hot day, the Santa Ana winds are blowing and we’re sitting indoors at a poolside restaurant at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, sipping mojitos, far removed from the day Odenkirk collapsed on the set of “Better Call Saul.” I express a little disappointment that Odenkirk cannot offer me reassurance about an afterlife.
“You’re disappointed? I’m disappointed,” Odenkirk says. “I wanted to have that tale to tell. I wanted to tell you which of my relatives was first in line to greet me. I wanted to see Abraham Lincoln playing chess with Elvis Presley and get in on that game. I think Lincoln’s probably going to win. But only after Presley throws the board across the room and knocks Lincoln’s hat off.”