As excitement builds for the February 15 premiere of the second season of AMC’s Better Call Saul, attention turns to the prospect of guest stars, set to appear opposite series star Bob Odenkirk in the upcoming episodes. Already confirmed is Emmy nominee Ed Begley Jr. – who will play a significant recurring role.
Executive producer Peter Gould explained to Entertainment Weekly what we can expect from Begley Jr’s character.
“[Begley plays] an authority figure who has the power to make many of Jimmy’s dreams come true, if Jimmy can only play ball. When you first meet him, he is highly avuncular and somebody whom you’d like to spend time with and is a very sweet guy. But, you wouldn’t want to cross him, let’s put it that way.”
Since its creation, Better Call Saul has attracted a great deal of speculation as to whether the Breaking Bad prequel would see Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston reprise their iconic roles as Jesse Pinkman and Walter White, respectively. Series creator Vince Gilligan has, understandably, always been cautious on the subject – wanting Better Call Saul to succeed on its own terms, before drawing it closer to its parent show. Thus far, very few familiar characters have appeared – the most notable (apart from Odenkirk) is Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut.
Fans are hoping that will change in the near future, though Aaron Paul recently explained to Variety, that it might take a little longer to be achieved.
“Hopefully I will be involved, but I don’t know when that may be. I’m not going to say anything more. But, I’m absolutely open to the idea. Hopefully it happens. I’m all about it.
“If I were to be involved, I can promise that it would be done in the most beautiful way, because there’s no way they’re going to bring Jesse Pinkman back just to bring him back. They’re going to bring him back and the audience is going to see how it all unfolded.
“We’ve been talking about it even before they started shooting the show. [Vince Gilligan] asked if I would be open to it, and I said of course. ‘Anything you’re involved with, you don’t even have to send me the material. I’ll just say yes. I owe you my career.’ I have a career because of that man. I would do anything he asked me to do.
“I don’t want to say anything. All I can say is I do know is there are some very exciting surprises coming up in the second season in Better Call Saul. So I highly, highly recommend watching the show.”
Better Call Saul – which charts the transformation of Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill into Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman – returns to AMC on February 15th, 2016.