Better Call Saul has never strayed away from giving fans tense moments, and Season 5 was filled with them. One of the most notable among them was, of course, Lalo’s confrontation with Jimmy and Kim at their apartment in the season’s penultimate episode. While Jimmy nearly received a bullet from the drug lord, Kim was able to step in and take Lalo’s focus away from her new husband. Now, Rhea Seehorn is breaking down the process that went into crafting the amazing scene.
Rhea Seehorn explained that the scene featured a lot of moving parts, and just getting everyone together to rehearse, including the actors, writer/director and DP, proved to be a challenge:
We all rehearse, but the scene that you're talking about had technical [details] and we were running out of time. Tom Schnauz, who wrote and directed [the episode], knew he needed to find a way to carve out an hour when Tony Dalton's not shooting, I'm not shooting, or Bob's not shooting. It's a lot. And then asking the DP, Marshall Adams, to also be there. Part of that was because you have the logistics of the monster coming into the house. This little condo has been this safe place where Kim and Jimmy don't let the negative outside world really come in, and now the monster is visiting them. He's in the house. That, on top of the fact that it has to be lined up with the sniper rifle of Mike, coming through a window.
As viewers will remember, Kim, Jimmy and Lalo are standing in a triangle-like formation in the apartment, while Mike has his sniper rifle aimed at Lalo from a nearby building. Rhea Seehorn further explained to TV Insider that the characters’ change in positions throughout the scene was one of the most exciting elements for her:
They were going to shoot us separately and Mike on the balcony in some other locations. So, figuring out exactly when I go through his crosshairs and when Lalo goes through his crosshairs, where we're standing, and how this triangle moves around the room. We rehearsed it beforehand, and we were thrilled to do so, to figure out what the dynamic is and when the shift happens.
In addition to her usual prep for doing a scene, there was one small thing that Seehorn made sure to do before her Kim squared off with Tony Dalton’s Lalo Salamanca at the apartment. And for her, it really made a difference:
I wanted to make sure that prior to Lalo getting there, I had kicked off my shoes, because in my head, the more physically small I look once I approached him, the better. The more vulnerable Kim looked, the more I find it believable and exciting that she had to go at it with just her rhetoric and her legal wit. There were no other options, and Tony's so charismatic and wonderful. So, it was fun to be able to react to that. It was very clear how high the tension was going to be when we played the scene, so it was good that we got to work out all the camera stuff and the blocking before we did it on the day, because then you could just let it fly.
With all of this, it should go without saying that Rhea Seehorn is very cerebral when it comes to preparing for her scenes on Better Call Saul. That pivotal scene from “Bad Choice Road” had to go off without a hitch, and Thomas Schnauz’s writing and direction, along with the nuanced performances of the actors, made it a highlight of the entire series. Seehorn’s performance in the episode received considerable praise, and fans are undoubtedly hoping it helps her gain some momentum for an Emmy nomination and eventual win.
At this point, it’s unclear as to when we’ll see Seehorn and her co-stars back in front of the camera. As the actress later explained, the producers are hoping to start shooting Better Call Saul’s sixth and final season this fall, but it depends on the conditions due to the global health crisis. We’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out but, hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long before seeing Kim Wexler and Jimmy McGill on our screens again.
