After Crediting ‘Nobody’ Workouts for Saving His Life, Bob Odenkirk “Never Stopped Training” for Sequel
Bob Odenkirk, Sharon Stone, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd and RZA walked the red carpet at the TCL Chinese Theater on Monday night to celebrate the return of Hutch Mansell in the action thriller sequel Nobody 2.
Odenkirk stars as Hutch, a suburban dad and master assassin who’s like John Wick with a 401K and sensible shoes. The Better Call Saul star developed the character with screenwriter Derek Kolstad, based partially on his own experiences with an armed intruder breaking into his house. He told The Hollywood Reporter the secret to the success of his unlikely action hero.
“What matters to me is that you see the family and you relate to them; that you go, ‘That’s what I know, that experience, I know that feeling,’” Odenkirk explained. “So whether it’s taking the garbage out and missing the garbage truck or showing up at the hotel and realizing you booked the wrong size room for your kids, those are the things that matter to me, is that we connect with the audience and they go, ‘Yeah, I know what that feels like.’”
Odenkirk credited surviving a 2021 heart attack with the extensive physical training he did to prepare for his role in the first film, and he said the experience inspired him to never stop working out even during the four-year period between films.
“So look, I never stopped training. In fact, I trained yesterday. Yeah, because it’s fun,” he said. “Look, we have to work out at our age. You really should and this is a fun workout. It’s more fun than just running on a treadmill and doing some pushups. I actually like it, so I keep it up.”
The film’s plot follows Hutch and his family as they travel to a small-town Midwest water park for a relaxing family vacation and stumble upon a massive criminal conspiracy that Hutch is drawn into, despite promising his wife (Nielsen) that he wouldn’t get involved.
Stone joins the franchise as the unhinged criminal mastermind Lendina, and told reporters her favorite part of playing a sadistic villain.
“Michael Douglas taught me this — when you play the villain, there isn’t any rule at all about your character. Normally, you play a character and your character has a certain structure, and you discuss that structure with the director, right?” she mused. “When you play a villain, and this is what something people really need to understand about villainous behavior in general in the world, particularly when it is no longer masked, OK? When a villain is being a villain, there is no predicting the next thing at all.”
Stone — who attended the screening with her three sons, Roane, Quinn and Laird — continued, “That is what I wanted people to understand and what I want people to see, as it touches the zeitgeist of the moment. And so that’s what I wanted when I did Basic Instinct; that’s what I hope with this movie.”
RZA, who plays Hutch’s adopted brother Harry, also shared why he thinks the 62-year-old Odenkirk is the perfect action hero for our times.
“There’s something natural and real about him, and there’s something also faulty about him. So in the ’80s our action heroes had big muscles and we had Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and you knew they was going to kick ass,” he said. “But now you’ve got the regular guy who can be just as dangerous, and I think that inspires everybody. It inspires the guy who’s having his road rage. If he gets caught by three guys or somebody tried to carjack, maybe he’s like, ‘I’m going to fuck him up like Bob did.’”
Nobody 2 hits theaters on Friday.
