<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 As with his iconic comedy sketches for \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d or \u201cMr. Show,\u201d just give actor and son of Naperville Bob Odenkirk a moment with an idea and he\u2019ll come up with a premise unique and funny enough to steal attention.<\/p>\n
It shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone that the writer who helped bring Chris Farley as Matt Foley to life could figure out the secret sauce to Hollywood stardom, even in the unlikely world of action movies.<\/p>\n
In town recently to promote his new movie \u201cNobody 2,\u201d Odenkirk, who produced and stars in the film, talked about his dramatic turn to grittier roles, first in FX\u2019s \u201cFargo\u201d series and then as the scheming Saul Goodman in \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d and \u201cBetter Call Saul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being able to find the funny in those characters helped him find the balance between dark humor and extreme violence in the original \u201cNobody\u201d (2021). \u201cI\u2019m not a handsome guy, or a young guy,\u201d Odenkirk, 62, said recently in a conference room overlooking North Michigan Avenue. \u201cI think I work well on the screen as a regular guy who has a certain amount of pressure he\u2019s under.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second installment of the franchise, Odenkirk returns as Hutch Mansell, the mild-mannered suburban husband and dad with a dark past stumbles into trouble while taking his family on vacation. On cue, he releases his pent-up rage on irredeemable bad guys in a satisfying comic wave of cathartic violence that often leaves him just as battered and injured as his victims.<\/p>\n
Veteran actors Christopher Lloyd, Connie Nielsen and RZA return from the first film, while Colin Hanks and Sharon Stone join the new film as villains.<\/p>\n
While the fights in the films are highly choreographed, Odenkirk\u2019s Mansell is as far as you can get from invincible killing machines like Keanu Reeves\u2019 John Wick, or Matt Damon\u2019s Jason Bourne. When Mansell takes a punch to the face, is stabbed or shot, you can see Mansell writhing in agony in a way most movie heroes never would. It\u2019s something that Odenkirk specifically saw in the early stages of his character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to play a guy who, in the middle of the fight, when you cut to his face, looks worried, scared, unsure of himself \u2014 because all of those guys are sure of themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cJason Statham, Liam Neeson, they are utterly, 100% sure that they\u2019re gonna win this fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my guy,\u201d his voice rising, \u201cis in the middle of the fight, he\u2019s hurting, he\u2019s limping, he\u2019s holding his side and seems to be getting a little bit weaker and in his eyes looks like \u2018Oh my god! I\u2019m in trouble.\u2019 And I thought there\u2019s something I can contribute to this genre.\u201d<\/p>\n
Audiences responded positively toward Odenkirk\u2019s grim turn and the over-the-top violence in the first film, which earned $57 million worldwide from a $16 million budget.<\/p>\n
The experience of jumping from being a writer of edgy and irreverent skit humor to full-on action star, albeit an older one, has been somewhat of a surreal experience for the Second City alum, whose Midwestern roots makes it hard for him to accept being the center of an action franchise. Bliss for Odenkirk is returning to town, visiting family in the area and seeing as many Cubs games as he can fit in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never saw myself as this, as the lead and I never pursued it. It just came to me,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
Odenkirk added that he was hoping to make a personal film that takes place during his teen years in the late 1970s \u2014 about the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979.<\/p>\n
Odenkirk, who starred in an episode of Comedy Central\u2019s \u201cDrunk History\u201d featuring the riot, says he\u2019s eager to make a film based on the raucous event that he co-wrote with his good friend, the late Chicago actor Jim Zulevic.<\/p>\n
Odenkirk and Zulevic\u2019s take on the history is more of a lighthearted fun teen romp and a showcase of shock jock Steve Dahl on a wild and unexpected summer night, rather than the ignominy that the night would come to represent to some.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel good about that movie and I like it a lot,\u201d Odenkirk said. \u201cIt\u2019s really about kids and getting so swept up in that night and it\u2019s about Steve Dahl and his story, which is a fun story and a rebellious character, funny to follow around. And of course it\u2019s about an event that just got out of control. I mean, it\u2019s really a funny story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Odenkirk says any attempts to get it made have faced pushback from film studios uncomfortable with stories taking place in the past. \u201cHollywood is afraid of period pieces because they feel like kids today would be like \u2018I don\u2019t really know what you\u2019re talking about,’\u201d he said. \u201cI think Hollywood is a little too gun-shy about period pieces. It\u2019s fun to go back to another time.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the 1979 uproar at the old Sox Park has since become a cultural touchstone as a signal of the end of the carefree and commercial disco era, recently many have shared darker reflections based on the event\u2019s perceived anti-Black or anti-gay bias against disco.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t count Odenkirk, who was about the age of most of Dahl\u2019s rabid young fans at the time. Odenkirk believes the event was more of a strike against the corporate control over music.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always been this argument about Disco Demolition and that it was homophobic at its core. And while we address that in the movie, I don\u2019t perceive it as that being a core purpose for the event,\u201d he said, calling it more of a lashing out by rebellious youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s hard for people to grasp how the record business and the radio business were different back then and the bosses of that business were in New York and LA. It was more of an anti-New York and LA thing than any of these other things that they are nailed with.\u201d<\/p>\n
_____________<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CHICAGO \u2014 As with his iconic comedy sketches for \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d or \u201cMr. Show,\u201d just give actor and son of Naperville Bob Odenkirk a moment with an idea and he\u2019ll come up with a premise unique and funny enough to steal attention. It shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone that the writer who helped bring Chris Farley […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1967251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[310297,31924,344206,348087,348088,348086,348481,347735],"class_list":["post-1967250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bob-odenkirk","tag-chris-farley","tag-hutch-mansell","tag-jason-bourne","tag-mansell","tag-matt-foley","tag-odenkirk","tag-saul-goodman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Bob-Odenkirk-talks-about-being-an-everyman-action-hero-\u2014.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1967250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1967251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1967250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1967250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1967250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}