The actress talks to ET about the pay-off of playing Kim Wexler in the 'Breaking Bad' spinoff.
While the whole cast of AMC’s Better Call Saul delivered Emmy-worthy performances, Rhea Seehorn
really came into her own as Kim Wexler, a lawyer and close friend to Jimmy
McGill (Bob Odenkirk), in season two. For the 44-year-old actress, who was
previously seen on NBC’s Whitney and
TNT’s Franklin & Bash, it was a
welcome surprise to see her character evolve.
“I was hopeful and rewarded,” Seehorn tells ET about playing
one of the show’s few new characters in the Breaking
Bad spinoff, which saw Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks reprise their roles,
confident she would not be ornamental.
MORE: 'Better Call Saul' Stars Spill on Iconic 'Breaking Bad' Cameos and Locations in Season 2!
“To a degree I knew she was a season regular,” she says of
first going into the series, “But, it paid off just fine. [Creators Vince
Gilligan and Peter Gould] don’t write tertiary characters.”
For Seehorn, that meant seeing Kim’s story unfold each week
as she received the scripts during season two. Unlike what fans like to
believe, she was not privy to the stories ahead of time.
“They’re not being overly manipulative or withholding,” she
says in defense of Gilligan and Gould while enjoying the process of finding out
things about Kim the same way the audience did. “It was this beautiful
evolution.”
MORE: Why 'Better Call Saul' Is the Most Anticipated TV Spinoff Ever
What unfolded was a performance that outshined the series’
marquee stars, quickly becoming the kind of female character that any actress
would love to play (or be jealous that they aren’t). Seehorn plays on Kim’s
moral ambiguity as the character walks a fine line of chastising Jimmy for his
behavior, while also enabling him, all the while developing an unexpected
romance with Jimmy.
“It was fun to play somebody like that, who really holds
their cards to their chest,” Seehorn says. “Even though we see more and more of
her, she’s kind of a poker-face person.”
“She's not all one thing or the other,” she continues. “This
moral ambiguity and this grey scale is so much what the show is about. There are
no heroes and there are no villains. What is good and bad or what is right and
wrong? People are having to ask themselves where they fall in that scale. It
isn't all one thing or another. And I'm so happy to be included in that.”