The Breaking Bad spinoff series Better Call Saul ended its run earlier this year, bringing an end to a story that started with season 1 in 2015. While the series featured many returning characters from Breaking Bad, Rhea Seehorn managed to hook fans with her portrayal as Kim Wexler, a highly skilled attorney who serves as a loyal companion to Bob Odenkirk’s Jimmy McGill. Kim was not so much as mentioned in the original series, but by the end of Better Call Saul, she had become one of the most beloved characters of the franchise.
For her part, Seehorn hadn’t expected for Kim to rise as an MVP of the series for so many fans. In fact, she was so sure that her time on the series was limited that she was always expecting to find Kim’s death scene in every script she was given. Even when her character was given her own storylines outside of her relationship with Jimmy, Seehorn still didn’t want to assume that any of this meant that Kim was safe.
“At some point, I started having storylines that weren’t just ancillary to Jimmy [McGill], and I was thrilled, but I honestly didn’t dare to dream,” Seehorn recently explained, via Empire Magazine.
According to Seehorn, she’d all too often flip through scripts with co-star Patrick Fabian (Howard Hamlin), and when Kim would make it to the end of the episode unscathed, the actress would be surprised. She suggests that this nervousness may have come from a fear of having to leave the series after falling in love with not just her Kim Wexler character, but everything else about Better Call Saul.
“It just became a thing of, ‘I don’t want to get out of this sandbox.’ It’s the best writing, the best character, and the best people,” she says.
Kim Wexler’s Fate Wasn’t Revealed Until the End
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Rhea Seehorn was in an interesting position with her role as Kim Wexler. There were multiple characters in the show who’d go on to die in Breaking Bad, making their fates already known. But Kim wasn’t mentioned in Breaking Bad, and that had some fans worried that this was because the character did in the Better Call Saul timeline at some point. Especially with other original characters introduced in Better Call Saul meeting untimely ends, it’s only fair for Seehorn to grow concerned that Kim could wind up on the chopping block at any given moment.
But Seehorn always gave the role her all, regardless. She was finally nominated for an Emmy this year for her role as Kim, a nomination that was years overdue. She’ll also be eligible for another nomination in 2023, as the second half of season 6 will be eligible for awards.
Meanwhile, Better Call Saul co-creator Vince Gilligan is going to keep collaborating with Seehorn. He has enlisted her to star in his next series which has been picked up for two seasons at Apple TV+.
