SAN ANTONIO – A new series starring Bob Odenkirk from “Better Call Saul” premieres this weekend on AMC, and we had a chance to catch up with him at the show’s red carpet premiere at SXSW in Austin.
“Lucky Hank” is about an English department chairman at an underfunded college, Professor Hank Devereaux, who toes the line between midlife crisis and full-blown meltdown, navigating the offbeat chaos in his personal and professional life. He’s also an executive producer of the show.
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“I think that I drew, really, from myself and my own life to play Hank Devereaux in this show,” Odenkirk said. “I guess one of the things people maybe count on me for is to play a certain kind of inner turmoil that I can do, or have within me.”
The show was adapted from Richard Russo’s 1997 novel “Straight Man” by showrunners Paul Lieberstein, who many know as “Toby” from “The Office,” and Aaron Zelman, of “Silicon Valley.”
“There are some pretty ridiculous scenarios in the book,” Zelman said. “It’s one of the fun things about the book - it’s a mix of some, at times, real hilarious slapstick humor, but mostly underneath all that is a much more grounded character study. What’s fun is to be able to kind of show a college professor in that light.”
Also on the show are “The Office” alum Oscar Nuñez and Mireille Enos, who co-stars as Hank’s wife, Lily.
“What Aaron and Paul said to me when I signed on for this was, it’s very, very, very important to us that she’s not just the wife in the show, which, of course, makes all the difference,” Enos said. “The show is about Hank and his midlife crisis, but it’s just as much about Lily in the midst of his crisis, trying to reframe and being like, ‘What about me and my journey and how does that fit in?’”
You can watch “Lucky Hank” over the weekend on AMC. Keep a lookout for more from SXSW!
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