Bob & Bill Odenkirk Interview

Hollywood star Bob Odenkirk was raised in Naperville, Illinois alongside his younger brother Bill and five other siblings. Buoyed by their childhood in what they describe as a “chaotic” home with equal measures “bad stuff and good stuff”, both Bob and Bill eventually pursued careers as comedy writers. Bob began his career at Chicago’s Second City comedy club and moved quickly to bigtime gigs at Saturday Night Live, The Ben Stiller Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien. He began acting in The Larry Sanders Show and then created and starred in Mr. Show with Bob and David from 1995-1998.

Bill Odenkirk had an entirely different route to comedy writing. After high school, he attended Loyola University and then University of Chicago for graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry. Odenkirk decided to switch careers after spending time in New York with Bob and creating material together. Bill was soon hired as a writer on Mr. Show. He then went on to write for Tenacious D, Hulu’s Futurama and Disenchantment. He has written and executive produced many episodes of The Simpsons.

These days, Bob Odenkirk is best known as a TV actor with the breakout success of his turn as shady lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and the spinoff Better Call Saul. His most recent release, Nobody 2, follows the success of the first Nobody film, where he plays a beleaguered assassin just trying to live a normal family life. Bill Odenkirk has relocated to the Champaign-Urbana area, where he is developing comedy projects and working on new episodes of Disenchantment and other shows.