Peter Gould Teases Season Finale to EW; Michael Mando With Variety
This week, Peter Gould teases the Season 3 Finale to Entertainment Weekly, while Michael Mando discusses Nacho's motivations with Variety. Plus, Michael McKean chats with The New York Times. Read on for more:
• Peter Gould discusses the latest episode with Entertainment Weekly and, teasing the Season 3 Finale, previews, "A lot of things that have been cooking, for maybe up to three seasons, come to a boil."
• Variety talks to Michael Mando, who believes Nacho's made a choice this season: "He knows that he could potentially die, and he’s okay with that. What’s great about a character like that is he has made higher moral choices that go beyond his desire to survive."
• Michael Mando describes Nacho to Vulture as "the antithesis of Walter White, somebody who wants to feel powerful. Nacho desperately wants to find balance, but is thrown in a world where he becomes powerful and knows how much it will corrupt him."
• In a Q&A with The New York Times, Michael McKean reveals, "Chuck was originally invented just to give Jimmy someone to care about, a reason for being other than just the short con. Then Peter [Gould] and Vince [Gilligan] saw us together and decided they didn’t want it to just be the bland older brother who plays by the rules."
• Talking about the latest episode, Gordon Smith tells Forbes, "That sweetness we see in Jimmy seems not just gone but long gone in Saul. We had to start pushing him in that direction and see what are the steps that get him there."
• TV Insider interviews Michael Mando, who explains Nacho staying committed to Hector: "Nacho would obviously never allow anything to happen to his family, and so he stays as a buffer, putting himself in the line of fire."
• Giancarlo Esposito tells The Hollywood Reporter that he plays Gus with "very distinct movements, very definitive movements, a guy who could be calm in his physical body, not a big guy, but certainly could also be very intimidating in his voice and his physicality."
• Jonathan Banks explains to the Los Angeles Times that he returned to play Mike because "I just love Mike, and I thought, 'I'm not done with Mike. Let's do more Mike!' Very quickly you saw this was a different show — same characters, but this is a whole different drift."
• Bob Odenkirk, talking to Gold Derby, says, "Saul’s math is very simple. Does it benefit me? Jimmy isn’t there yet. He still cares about Kim and still has this tiniest thread of hope for his brother. But when that s--t’s gone and he’s cut himself off from every person he loves, that’s when he’ll be Saul."
• NPR interviews Giancarlo Esposito, who talks about playing Gus in Better Call Saul: "It was a very interesting journey to think youthfully. I wanted a Gus that was more vulnerable, a Gus that was ... not so definitive, knowing where he was going, but not knowing exactly how to get there."
• The Los Angeles Times supports an Emmy nod for Michael McKean, noting that Season 3 has given him "ample room to expose his character’s cracks and complexities. The episode ('Chicanery') in which Jimmy unmasks Chuck on the witness stand should be all Emmy voters need. Snarling, sneering, arrogant, exposed — McKean conveys all of it in an acting tour de force."
• Looking ahead, Giancarlo Esposito explains to TV Insider, "Mike is looking for security and for someone to tell him what to do—a partner in some ways. You will start to see the allegiance formulating. Gus knows that if Mike works for him, he will be able to trust him, and that, ultimately, is paramount to their relationship."
• TVLine commends Michael Mando in "Slip," noting, "We’re still sweating after watching Michael Mando’s marvelously composed, nearly silent work on this week’s Better Call Saul."
• TVGuide.com thinks Kim, sadly, needs to die: "The unfortunate truth is that Saul is a great character, but he's not a good guy. And for Kim to watch her friend's transformation into a venal sleazeball is an agony that neither she nor we, the Better Call Saul audience, deserve."
• Bustle theorizes that Kim's car accident is "bound to be a game changer professionally and personally for this strong-willed lawyer."
• In an extensive Uproxx interview with Peter Gould and Michael McKean, the latter says, "Chuck does blame Jimmy for the father’s early death, as well. Certainly his ruination. And Chuck made mom proud; Jimmy made mom laugh. You can’t buy that, you know?"
• According to Gold Derby, Deadline's Pete Hammond predicts an Emmy win for Bob Odenkirk this year: "I think it’s his time, I think the character is great, and he won our Critics’ Choice Award. I think that show is consistently watched and popular and we’re watching him grow into this role."
• Variety interviews Better Call Saul's music supervisor, Thomas Golubic, and composer, Dave Porter, and Porter says, "Music is the last of the creative choices. Sometimes we’re able to bring in something they haven’t thought of yet."
• Addressing the issue of a possible Better Call Saul appearance, Dean Norris tells TVLine that "if there were any discussions, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. [Laughs] It’s always the question on people’s minds, though. I get it."
• Talking to Slate, Michael McKean characterizes Chuck as "a guy who can take what he really is feeling and portray it a certain way, in a certain light, so that it’s useful to him. It’s a person who uses his own affliction to get what he wants. It’s Machiavellian in a kind of way that I don’t think even he realizes."
• Speaking with Recode, Michael McKean says the actors know that "because it’s Vince [Gilligan] and Peter [Gould] in charge, and Melissa [Bernstein], and Nina [Jack], and our other producers, who are all just eagle eyes, we know it’s going to hit the air looking good and that they’re going to do what needs to be done."
• Cincinnati CityBeat calls Better Call Saul "a rare prequel that stands up to the quality of the original, yet can be enjoyed on its own without having watched the source material."
• For recaps and reviews of Season 3, Episode 9, "Fall," check out A.V. Club, Den of Geek, Entertainment Weekly, /film, Forbes, IGN, The New York Times, TVLine, Uproxx and Vulture.
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