Jonathan Banks on His 'Better Call Saul' Emmy Scene: 'If You Suffer Great Loss, It's Never Going to Be Okay'
Better Call Saul star Jonathan Banks just earned his third Emmy nomination — all in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category, perennially one of the most talent-packed of all the Emmy categories — and if you ask Saul fans which episode sealed the nod for him, they’ll almost certainly recall Season 1’s “Five-O,” the installment that finally shed light on the backstory of Banks’s former Philly cop Mike Ehrmantraut.
The character, who was introduced into the Vince Gilligan-created Albuquerque universe in the Season 2 finale of Breaking Bad, was operating from a place of intense heartbreak, and even more intense guilt: Mike’s ***, also a Philly cop, had been ******ed by some crooked fellow officers, after following the advice of his beloved ******.
Banks, whose second Emmy nod was also for playing Mike (on Season 5 of Bad), tells Yahoo TV about what inspired the most memorable moment of Mike’s “Five-O” speech, when he tells his widowed ********-in-law the crushing story about her husband’s death, shares details of his least favorite aspect of Saul, and gives the tiniest hint of what may be ahead for Season 2.
Gordon Smith, who just earned his first Emmy nomination for writing “Five-O,” said the line “I broke my boy!” was originally “I broke my ***,” and that you made the very dramatic change to “my boy.” Was that something you had thought about, or did it happen organically when you were filming?
It did, [organically]. Fathers, ******* who have ever lost a ***** would immediately, I think, relate to it. It’s just what it is, and every time I look at my own ***… he’ll always be my baby, always be my boy, even though now he is bigger than I am.
That change, “my boy,” also feels especially appropriate for Mike. When he talked about his cohorts in Breaking Bad, the ones Walt had ****ed, he referred to them as “my guys.” It’s a Mike trademark that he feels responsible for those close to him.
That is exactly what it is; it’s a responsibility. It’s one of the things I love about Mike, is that Mike… he’s never shirking anything, and that transfers to Mike [and his ***]. If you suffer great loss, it’s never going to be okay. It just will never, ever, ever, be okay. It is part of the grain of who you are, and it’s then embedded in you for the rest of your life.
It’s an unusual situation that you now have Emmy nominations for playing Mike on two different series. Did you ever have to think about a choice you were making in Saul, weigh it against something that you know happens to Mike in the future from Breaking Bad?
Not often. The hardest thing was when they put me in the [parking attendant] booth for the first few episodes. [Saul co-creator] Peter Gould, especially, and the writers of the scripts would say, “Don’t worry, Mike is coming,” and that would be written in the scripts: “Don’t worry, Mike is coming.” It was kind of a… “foil” isn’t the right word, but whatever the comic element was of him being in that booth, I thought it was a fun idea, then I thought, “Get me out of this f–king booth.”
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