Fresh Air - Remembering Tim Curry

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Actor Tim Curry, best-known for playing mad scientist Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, died this week at age 80. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2005 about finding the character’s look and voice. Also, actor Rhea Seehorn has been nominated for an Emmy for her leading role in the sci-fi series Pluribus. She spoke with Terry about that series and Better Call Saul. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bean Coley. Tim Curry, the British actor who starred in the original stage and movie versions of the Rocky Horror show in the 1970s, died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. In Rocky Horror, Curry played flamboyant extraterrestrial mad scientist Frank N. Furter, who believed in sexual freedom and fluid sexual identities. Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab. I see you shiver. with anticipation. The film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, based on the hit London Stage Musical, became a cult hit,

and in midnight movie showings, Tim Curry's aggressively outrageous starring role found a loyal new audience. Fifty years later, the Rocky Horror Picture Show still figures in some local midnight screenings around the country, and a revival of the original stage musical continues its Broadway run through February. And though it was Tim Curry's most famous role, it was by no means his only one. He also played Pennywise in the original ABC miniseries version of Stephen King's It, an uptight professor in the TV series Kinsey, co-starred in the movies Annie, Clue, and The Shout, joined the Muppets as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island,

and played King Arthur in the original Broadway production of Monty Python's Spam-A-Lot. And he recorded several rock albums in the 1970s and scored one hit in England with I Do the Rock, a song that was very much of its time, and its time was 1979. John and Yoko farming beef, raising prating quarter, sometimes they make love and art inside the Dakota. Rodney's feeling sexy, make is really frightfully built. Me, I do the only thing that stops me going all I do there are. In addition to singing, Tim Curry also went into the recording studio as an actor, providing voices for such animated features as the Rugrats movie and the Wild Thornberries.

After he suffered a serious stroke in 2012, which confined him to a wheelchair, Curry relied on voice acting for the bulk of his roles, the remainder of his career. Terry Gross spoke to Tim Curry in 2005, when he was about to star in the Broadway musical Monty Python Spam-A-Lot playing King Arthur. The show was directed by Mike Nichols. Here's a song from the cast recording. This is a self-help spoof called Find Your Grail.

When your life seems to drift, when we all need a lift, trim your sail, you won't fail. Find your grave. Find your grave. Life is really up to you. You must choose what you must use.

Set your mind on what you find. How did you get the part of King Arthur in Spamelot? Sort of sideways, really, I guess. I've known Eric Idle a long time, one of the original. and he now lives in Los Angeles as do I and so we see each other quite a bit and in fact the summer before last we were hoping to do a film together which he had written and was going to direct which was a kind of demolition of every Miramax movie ever made called the remains of the piano and that never

quite happened because the money. It's a good title, isn't it? Very good. Very good. I was going to play the Reverend whoopsie. And Robin Williams was going to play Vanessa Reggrave in Howard's End. I loved his lines, which were stuff like, you, you, I haven't met you before. You shall have the teacup when I go. No, no, no, you shall have the grand piano.

Oh, no, no, you shall have the house. So that never happened, but he said, I think it looks like we are finally going to get to do the musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And we're going to call it spam a lot. First of all, I thought that was just terribly funny. But I also thought, oh, well, you know, I'll believe it when it happens. And then suddenly Mike Nichols was directing it, and they put David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria and I and a couple of other people on a plane from California and we came into New York and we sat down and read it

with a bunch of other people from New York, some of whom are in the play. And it just went like gangbusters and I guess the next day I was going to be King Arthur. So Spamalot incorporates some classic Monty Python bits in it that I assume a lot of people in the audience probably know by heart. What kind of response do you get

when you get to the classic parts? It's quite interesting because the audience always sort of contains some core of Monty Python fans who see stuff coming, you know, and react with great whoops of joy

and then settle down to see it unfold. I mean, they're, They're hugely welcoming and then they really want to see it happen. I mean, happily, they're not talking along with it because that would, you know, that would need a spanking. But they love it and they see it coming and they are thrilled to see characters and sketches that they recognize. You knew the Mighty Python material and the audience knows a lot of the Mighty Pythor. Python material. But do you know a lot of the early Nichols-in-May sketches?

I do. I do. I was always a fan. And so it was sort of very interesting for me to work with him. And he has a, he has a, first of all, every note that you ever get from Mike is preceded by, that was wonderful. That was wonderful. One small thing.

so you're given this enormous sort of sense of entitlement and then and then something tiny and completely accurate is lodged like a little sort of Navajo arrow in your brain and and what he's great note I think because I was playing it pretty broadly at the beginning because so much of it is, like something that we in England called pantomim and sort of is part of Vorderville, really.

And his first note and recurring note to me is, yes, that's great, it's, you know, it's very funny. Now let's make it true. And I think that's his great gift to this material is that he's given it a great good. big sort of beating our theory and heart. And that's an extra dimension that you just sort of don't

expect. And of course also makes it so much more interesting to play. Let's get back to Terry's 2005 interview with Tim Curry. The star of the Rocky Horror Picture Show died Tuesday at age 80.

In Rocky Horror, he played Franken Furter, a mad scientist from another planet. self-described as a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania. In this scene, he welcomes to his remote castle a stranded couple seeking help. They're played in this 1975 film by future stars Barry Bostwick as Brad and Susan Sarandon as Janet. Brad and Janet have entered the castle soaking wet, and Frank Inferter's assistants have stripped them down to their underclothes,

as Frank looks them over, wickedly. Magenta. Columbia. Go and assist Riff Raph. I will entertain... Oh. Brad Majors?

This is my fiancé, Janet Weiss. Weiss? Enchante. Well, nice. And what charming underclothes you both have.

But here, put these on. They'll make you feel less vulnerable. It's not often we receive visitors here. Let alone offer them hospitality. Hospitality?

All we wanted to do was to use your telephone, damn it, a reasonable request which you've chosen to ignore. That don't be ungrateful. Ungrateful! How forceful you are, Brad. Such a perfect specimen of manhood. So dominant.

You know, like so many other of your fans, I first saw you in the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the 70s. And when you see somebody in a movie for the first time, it's sometimes hard to tell how good they are. You don't know, is this all they can do? Do they do other things too? Is this what they're really like? Or, you know, how much are they acting?

And so I saw you, I guess it was probably like the late 80s, in Wise Guy, the TV series. Yes. And you played a kind of Phil Spector-ish, brilliant but crazy record producer. That's right. And a great, really terrific performance. And I think it's when I really got the picture.

Wow, he's really good at doing all kinds of things. That's so nice. I mean, it's sort of important for me because, you know, that first performance that sort of introduced me to everybody was so out there and so... I'll say, yeah. So kind of outrageous that, you know,

I was a very quiet boy for a while, you know, just to make sure that people got it, that, you know, that wasn't necessarily who I was. Was that because of... It was my first movie, you know? That was your first movie? Yeah. How did you get the part?

I got the part because I used to work a great deal at a theatre in London called the Royal Court. And I guess they have a little theatre upstairs which seats about 60 people and I did Brecht there and I did a sort of Rudyard Kipling show there

and I guess the next show I did a dreadful musical a Marxist musical called Give the Gaffer's Time to Love You with the director who kept saying Barry, the second act just simply isn't Marxist. insist enough.

And that, of course, never even open to the critics, but the next show coming in was this other musical called The Rocky Horror Show. And originally I played Frankenfeiter as though he was German. It was Dr. Frankenfeuter, and everything was very interesting and stupid. And then one day I heard a woman on a bus saying,

do you have a heist in time or a heist in the country? And I thought, yes, she should sound like the queen. So he should sound like the queen. So, but that's how it happened. And it just started in this tiny theater, you know, and it just took off like a sort of rocket. Did you like the kind of cheap horror films that it in part parodied? Oh, absolutely.

And I mean, I mean, Richard's brilliance, really, was, just, you know, it was really like reaching up a hand into the zeitgeist and just grabbing, you know, 50s horror movies, Sandra D, comic books and 50s rock and roll and just hurling them all together with some fishnet tights thrown in. And the fishnet tights really, you know, came from a brilliant costume designer called Sue Blaine, who I'd worked with before, actually, in a wonderful theatre in Scotland called the Glasgow Citizen Theatre

where we did a production of the maids where I wore exactly that corset. The Jean-Genet play? Yeah, the Jean-Genet play. I played Solange, and we bought the corset for three pounds off a barrow in the market and Glasgow and wore it back to front.

That's funny you'd be wearing it for like this transgressive playwright Jeanette and then a parody of everything, Rocky Horror. Absolutely. Well, there's probably nothing that can get you into character quickly, like black bikini briefs, fishnet stockings, the garter belt, the corset, the whole thing. Well, absolutely.

And that was a fairly late development. I mean, I had no idea it was going to be like that. You didn't when you were set to the part? No, no, no. I thought I'd be in a white lab coat, you know. So how did the whole thing, it was a bit of a shock, actually. It had it all evolved then. Well, it evolved because it was much funny.

that way. And I mean, the great, I thought, the great gag about, you know, the way that we all looked was, and I've always said this to anybody who's ever asked me about playing Franken Fertre if they were playing it, you know, to just never think about it as drag, because it's not. It's just what people wear in Transylvania. You know, it's just what everybody wears in Transylvania. It's just get over it, you know. It's truck driver drag.

It's not about going boop, boop, boob. It's just what they happen to wear. I think the thing I found most amazing about the whole phenomenon of Rocky Horror was watching, like, the 12-year-olds outside the theater parading around in their transvestite clothes. Because they were all, it was just like all these 12-year-olds outside the theater imitating you in your get-up. And you had to just kind of ask yourself, what is going on here? What did the 12-year-olds make of it? I mean, are they going through some kind of gender thing, or do they just love the movie? Like, what is this about?

I think it's all of the above, actually. I mean, I think, first of all, they love the movie because it's daring. To pretty much everybody, it was daring at the time, less daring now. To them, it's daring, and it's also, I think, you know, there are several reasons why it's endured the way that it has. It's a kind of rite of passage now, I think. And actually, first of all, it's a guaranteed weekend party to which you can go with or without a date

and probably find one if you don't have one. And it's also, I think, a chance for people to try on a few roles for size, you know, help them maybe figure out their own sexuality. I mean, I think that's probably taking it a little deeper than it needs to go, but I think it has had a useful purpose in that way. And I've certainly had some very interesting and moving male. from people who have said, you know, thanks for helping me figure out who I was, you know, and that's very nice.

Did you ever go to one of, like, the midnight screenings back in the 70s and watched the movie with the people who were reciting along and when they would make a toast on screen, people would, like, throw toast, you know, at the screen. And, you know, the whole bit, it became an incredibly participatory experience for the people who came to see it time and time again. I did go. I went a couple of times. Oddly enough, it started happening at the Waverly Theater.

In Manhattan, on 6th Avenue in the village. And ironically, I was living a block behind it on Joan Street. Oh, you're kidding. So I would see on my way home all these people, and I got to know about it rather quickly because I was a neighbor. Wow. And finally, I went to see it. And, in fact, I had to sort of call the theater

because, you know, you could never get in. And I said, you know, I'm in it, and I'd really love to come and see it and get an eyeful. And the operator said, you're the third Tim Curry to call this week. So finally, I showed up, and they sort of believed me and took me in.

And the words spread rather swiftly, and people were sort of coming up and touching me and running away and giggling. It was a very, very peculiar experience. And then finally, the usheret, well, I know what you call them, really. That's what they call them in England,

came and sort of drag me out of my seat and announced that I was an imposter and threw me out of the theatre, which is quite funny, really. Did you protest? I actually had my passport on me, and I pulled it out, and I said, still think I'm an imposter,

and she said, oh, Mr. Curry, I'm so sorry, please come back in, and I said, I wouldn't. dream of coming back in. And I saw it once, I saw it once on the strip in L.A. Because I was doing a gig there with my band when I was making records. And I took them up to the balcony to see it. And I remember my drummer coming out and saying,

we don't have to dress up like that, do we? I said, no, you really don't. and I shun't be either. But it was odd. I mean, it's a very peculiar experience. I mean, the first person to actually shout back in the theater was David Bowie's first wife, Angie. Really? I remember when Bowie came and he brought this huge entourage.

And she was with him. And when Richard O'Brien was about to kill me, she shouted, no, no, don't do it. And so I guess she was one of the first people to sort of do that. and Mark Shaman, who's the sort of famous composer now, was one of the first who actually talked back in the Waverly. I think he began it here in New York. And now, of course, it's everywhere. Tim Curry, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005.

The actor died Tuesday at age 80. More of their conversation after a break, and will also revisit an interview with actress Ray Seahorn, who's nominated for an Emmy for her starring role in the TV series Pluribus. I'm David B. Incouli, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David B. and Cooley. Tim Curry, star of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. We're remembering him by listening back to a conversation Terry had with him in 2005.

Your father was a chaplain in the British Navy. Yes. What did your parents think of your role in Rocky Horror? Well, he, alas, was dead because he died when I was 12. So he wasn't even aware that I was an actor even. I think my mother, my mother who, you know, is really like one of those sort of Monty Python ladies, you know. I can't imagine what's going on.

You know, who always had a hat. Since my first job in the theatre was hair and, you know. And you were probably naked in that, right? And I did appear naked in it. I think, you know, it was a relationship. to her that I actually was wearing clothes of any kind in... At least you recovered by a corset and garters. She was happily unaware that part of the character,

particularly Frank and Fertre, at his most gracious, was based on her. In what way? Well, it was sort of her telephone voice, you know. Do you have any tattoos, Brad? My sister, when she saw it, fell on the floor. floor and said, you know, does she know? And I said, no, she has absolutely no idea. And please don't tell her. She thought it was very, very amusing and brought all her friends. So,

she was pretty hip lady, my mother, and she got it. I mean, you know, astonishingly, she loved it. She didn't like it as much as the Pirates of Penzance, which I did in Drury Lane, because the Queen Mother came to that. And that, you know, was the total seal of approval of my career. And I would bet that the Queen Mother did not go to hair or Rocky Horror. I don't think she went to either. Although Princess Margaret did come to Rocky Horror and had a

wonderful time. Really? And so did Princess Diana actually requested to meet me because she was such a Rocky Horror fan. So did you ever meet Princess Diana? I did actually meet Princess Diana. I was doing a production of Love

for Love and it was taken to Vienna for British week and we played at the Berg Theatre and Prince Charles and Princess Diana were the guests of honour which was when she said that she very much wanted to meet me and said they sort of put me at the end of the receiving line and Prince Charles said, I think I've seen you on television, haven't I seen you on television?

I said, yes sir, I'm sure you've seen me on television. Yes, I think I thought, I'd seen you on television. But Diana said, you were in the Rocky Horror show. And I said, yes, ma'am, I was. I was, but I'm sure that you haven't seen it. She said, oh, yes.

It quite completed my education. She was a very funny girl and a very beautiful one. and sort of a very wicked smile came with that sentence. She was great fun and the world is poorer

without her. You've done a lot of animated films and television series. How did that become such a central part of your work? Well, the animation thing happened kind of by accident. A very nice man called Gordon Hunt

who's the father of Helen Hunt, the actress, and a wonderful director it was directing animated cartoons at Hannah Barbera and they were doing a series of Bible stories and he wanted me to play The Snake so I played the Snake

and had a lot of fun and I said look you know when the tour's over I'm actually going to move to L.A. And I'd love to do some more of this and will you at least audition me for things when you have them? And he did. He was very faithful and he would just say you know come in and read

and I'd come in and read, and I started doing a lot of animation and loving it. And the great thing about it, I mean, apart from just the fun of it, is that, you know, if you're in Los Angeles waiting for movies, it can get very dull. And you can just, you know, show up to an animation studio, you don't have to look good, you don't have a shave or anything. And, you know, and you get to play all these people

that you never ever get to play in real life. What are some of the voices you've done for these animations? All sorts of things. I did Captain Hook for Peter Pan and the Pirates. I did Nigel Thornberry for the Wild Thornberries. Nigel Thornberry is a sort of a rather eccentric English explorer. I do Professor Calamitus in a show called Jimmy Neutron, who's a terrible rip-off of Truman Capote, basically.

He talks like that. He's very tiny. You grew up in England. Your father was a chaplain in the Navy. Were you religious when you were growing up? Rather not. As preachers' kids tend not to be, you know. I mean, my father was pretty chill about all of that.

I mean, he wasn't... Methodist. in England is a lot more relaxed than it is in the States. It's not as forbidding or as Chile. And he was a very liberal and very funny man. But, you know, I did, I did willy-nilly show up, you know, to Sunday school morning and afternoon and went to hear him preach when he was on shore because he was. was quite often at sea.

And I spent my childhood in various sort of naval bases until he died when I was quite young when I was 12. And we moved to South London and I went to boarding school. Did you have to go to church and did you sing a lot in church? Well, that was the great bonus because the Methodist church has a remarkable body of hymns, largely a great number of them by Charles Wesley and so I sang in church

from about I don't know six or seven and I was I was you know I was a real boy soprano for you know until until my voice changed it changed a lot didn't it? It did change quite a whole lot I was very lucky because I had a great music teacher

who sent away to West to choral school for exercises when my voice started breakings because, you know, so often people with wonderful boy soprano voices end up with no mature singing voices at all. And I managed to make that transition happily. And it's funny, when I was doing, I don't know whether this is interesting, when we were doing Pirates of Penzance, I had my first singing lessons, really. The lady who was doing them said, you know, we must work on your false. and get your range up and I said, I don't have a falsetto.

And she said, of nonsense, everyone has a falsetto. And I said, no, I really don't. And she made me find one. And she suddenly had this revelation one day. And she said, were you a boy soprano? And I said, yes, I was. And she said, hmm, you're in mourning for that sound, aren't you? And I realized that I was.

I mean, it is of great sadness not to be able to make that extraordinary pure, that you do make as a boy soprano. That's actually really interesting, yeah. It is. It's fascinating, isn't it? I think I just, you know, cut off that alley. But you kept singing, didn't you? I kept singing, yes, absolutely. So did you go to, like, the loud gruff rock band kind of singing afterwards?

Well, no, actually. I mean, you know, at 17 or 18, I was singing Leder, and, you know, I was singing sort of classical music, really. But then, I guess, you know, the Beatles. happened and it was all over. So what could... That and Marlborough. You know?

Marlborough cigarettes. It's funny because I actually, yes. I actually quit smoking a year ago and it was fascinating because within three weeks my voice went back up a 10 and a half and I remembered and I heard the voice that I remembered myself singing in when I was 19 or 20. It's very odd and it's a great warning to anyone to stay away from the demon to back a stupid drug that it is. Did you always know that you had that ability to mimic?

Yes, I think, you know you have it or you don't. Hank, who is in this show, is an absolutely dazzling mimic and do anybody. You sort of have an ear or you don't, I think. And I think, you know, a lot of it has to do with, amusing other children when you're young and, you know, getting out of being hit. Right. Was that effective for you? I think it's effective for all childhood comedians.

I think it's, you know, the root of a great deal of comedy. Tim Curry, speaking to Terry Gross in 2005. The star of the Rocky Horror Picture Show died Tuesday. He was 80 years old. After a break, the Emmy Awards are coming up next month. We'll revisit an interview with Ray Seahorn, who's nominated for her starring role in the new Vince Gilligan series, Pluribus. This is Fresh Air.

This is Fresh Air. The Emmy Awards are next month, and among the nominees is Ray Seahorn. The former co-star of Better Call Saul is nominated for her starring role in Pluribus, the new Apple TV series created by Vince Gilligan. Gilligan also co-created Better Call Saul and wrote Pluribus with Seahorn in mind. It's a wonderful series and she's wonderful in the central role. In the powerful premiere episode, she was on screen almost the entire time, carrying much of the drama without dialogue.

Pluribus is a thrill ride that's the most fun if you don't know where it's going. But if you've seen it and want to know more, Terry Gross spoke with Ray Seahorn last year about the series. She plays Carol, a writer of fantasy romance novels, who's returning from a book-reading event. She's accompanied by her manager and life partner, Helen, and they stop at a local bar. Everything seems normal, but suddenly, everyone at and outside the bar, including Helen, has a sudden seizure. Only Carol is unaffected, as some people drop and die, while others become calm and happy and speak to Carol in unison. Panicked, Carol finds her way home and turns on the TV for an explanation.

The only channel that still works is C-SPAN, where a man standing behind the White House podium, not the president because he's dead, explains that a medical advance of extraterrestrial origin has connected most people on Earth through a sort of psychic glue. That's creepy enough, but what's even creepier is that the man on TV is addressing Carol directly and telling her that her immunity may be only a temporary condition. Rest assured, Carol, we will figure out what makes you different. Figure it out, why? So we can fix it.

So you can join us. Carol, you're still there? You said my life was my own. It is 100%. So what happens when I say now? Carol, once you understand how wonderful this is, Carol? Ray Sehorn, welcome to Fresh Air. I love this series.

I loved you on Better Call Saul. It's really such a pleasure to have you on the show. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. It is such a pleasure to be here. Thank you. The premise of this series is sci-fi. But the show itself is asking so many questions about human nature.

like, what is happiness? Is it happiness if there's no longer a larger meaning to your life? And is being an individual with your own temperament and thoughts, is that more valuable than this happiness? And is anger lethal or is it good to let out your anger and resist what you think is wrong? And, you know, maybe we'll find out some answers to those questions and many other questions later. But I just want people to know there's some really interesting thoughts in this. Thank you. And did you find yourself asking what is happiness as you made the series? Yeah, I definitely was asking myself a lot of those questions throughout the series.

And we had amazing conversations among the crew and the cast, you know, some of these late-night shoots and even on weekends, stuff of like, well, would you choose what's best for the individual versus what's best for the community as a whole? I personally think I would absolutely be Team Carroll as far as arguing, you know, the necessity and the positives of individual thinking and independent thinking. For one thing, a big thing that came up for me was the fact that this group think no matter how intelligent and how peaceful, one of the ideas of happiness and joy, which maybe is slightly different, is being surprised by things, whether it's wonder growing up as a kid and hopefully still as an adult or a giant belly laugh. And if you cannot be surprised,

there's never going to be any new art. There's never going to be a joke that you haven't heard. There's never going to be surprised behavior that makes you laugh. And that's just such a source of joy for me that I just can't imagine that contentment is the same as happiness. So the character in Plyrobus was originally written for a man by Vince Gilligan, and then he decided to rewrite it for you. How did that happen? I don't believe there were scripts, you know, with a male character and then he went back and rewrote. I think he said he was ideas will pop in his head, sometimes questions without answers. And one of them was what would happen if you woke up and the whole world was obsequious?

The whole world was willing to do whatever you wanted to and give you anything you want. And it was a male character. and he has said that it's just because that's second nature to him, that he is a man and he has written male protagonists. And then I don't know the exact like shift that happened or where, but I didn't know about it until after we had wrapped all of Better Call Saul, but he said it was during, I think towards the end of Season 1 of Better Call Saul, that he was just watching me work and had talked to me a lot about the way I work

as well as watching me perform and decided that I'm stuttering because it's hard to say this because I'm I'm floored by the compliment and the flattery, to put it mildly, and struggle saying it about myself. But he said that he realized, like, I have to write something for her. I have to, I need to make sure that I do a project with her. and actually wouldn't these concepts that I'm noodling with, wouldn't they work even better if they were her? And he knew that he also wanted to play with tone

and take wild swings as far as like it could be darkly comedic or it could be darkly psychological. Sometimes it's going to, you know, go between back and forth. And he was impressed at my ability to do those things so hard for me to say about myself. That can be the title of this episode. Ray Sehorn brags about herself. Yeah, I don't know.

Listen, I've had to sit next to him in interviews when he's saying it. And I'm just, my face is one giant tomato red ball when he's saying it. But I'm certainly very thankful for it. Ray Seahorn speaking to Terry Gross in 2025. More after a break. This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Let's get back to Terry's 2020.

interview with Ray Seahorn, star of the Vince Gilligan TV series Pluribus. At this point, they were discussing Better Call Saul, the series co-written by Gilligan, and co-starring Ray Seahorn. Here's Terry introducing a clip from Better Call Saul. In Better Call Saul, Seahorn played Kim Wexler, a lawyer who marries Jimmy McGill, an unethical lawyer who gets involved with a Mexican cartel, played by Bob Odenkirk. The series lasted six seasons, and while shooting an episode in that final season, Bob Odenkirk suffered a heart attack and collapsed on set. He had just completed shooting an intense scene with Seahorn that were about to hear an excerpt of. It's the scene in which Lalo, a cartel member, had just killed a colleague of

Jimmy and Kim's, Howard Hamlin, played by Patrick Fabian, and the murder was in Jimmy and Kim's apartment right in front of their eyes. They're frozen in fear, as they're frozen in fear, as they're in the as Lalo then instructs Jimmy to go to the home of drug czar Gus Fring and kill him while Kim waits behind with Lalo. Jimmy insists that Kim be the one to go because he thinks it might be even more dangerous for Kim to stay with Lalo. Here's the scene. Tony Dalton as Lalo speaks first.

I know, I know. You're a lawyer and not a killer, but look, you can do this, okay? This guy, he's a house cat. black, medium height, short hair, glasses. He kind of looks like a librarian. But don't be fooled, even a house cat can scratch. So that's it.

Hard part's over. Now you pull out the camera, same principle as the gun. Point and shoot. Take a picture, one where I can see the face clearly. And then you bring it back here where me and Mrs. Goodman will be waiting for you. And then you're done. I'd say it's about a 20 minute drive over there, 20 minutes back, maybe 10 minutes to do the job. Let's call it an hour altogether.

So, you're back here in an hour, or... Sent her. What? She should do it. Jimmy. Why her? This guy, the house cat. He looks through his people in the middle of the night and he sees me.

Who's this asshole? What's he doing? Maybe he gets his gun. Maybe he calls the cops. Either way, that door stays shut. But he sees a woman. She looks like she's in distress. Maybe her car broke down.

I mean, you'd open the door for her, wouldn't you? Stop. Stop. Yeah, but she's really clever. I don't know she's going to stick to the plan. She will. No, no, no. No, cops.

You know she will. No. Look, this doesn't even make any sense. I've, uh, I've, I've, uh, I've, I've never shot a gun before. I've never even held one. Like I have. Jimmy, what are you doing? You know she's the best choice.

No, I'm not. I can't. I can't. I can't do it. She can do it. You know she can do it. You know I'm right. Just stop. Let's just stop it. Oh my God.

Okay. Shut up. Shut up. That was a scene from Better Call Saul right before the star Bob Odenkirk had his heart attack. Were you on set with him when this happened? Yes. So Jimmy and I, Bob and I are now being held captive on the couch. And we had been shooting the scene for maybe about 10 hours.

And they tell actors when it's a big turnaround, meaning there's enough time to go to your trailer because this is a lot of equipment that's got to be moved. It's not a quick thing. But we didn't go to our trailers, which is another like, thank God he didn't. If Bob had gone to his trailer and just passed out, which is what happened. and when this heart attack happened, he would have been dead by the time they knocked on the door. And that would be that. No one would have even known. He would have just passed out. So we went down to that end. And Bob was watching a Cubs game and chatting with us, also on his exercise bike, which he would do to stay just kind of alert instead of getting sleepy after hours and hours of shooting,

which did not cause the heart attack. I have to say that his rebound from his heart attack was because he was in the best shape of his life from training for his film. Nobody. But he and Patrick and I are just laughing and goofing off. And then Bob got off the bike and looked like he was going to faint. So we ran to catch him so his head wouldn't hit the concrete floor. And then we realized, oh, this is, this looks like either a seizure, a stroke, or a cardiac arrest, all of which we need medical attention. And so we started screaming for help. And it took a bee. a horrifying, terrifying beat. And eventually a set medic was there, a different setmatic that had just started.

Then Rosa Estrada came over, and it turned out that they couldn't get his heart to start. And they needed a defibrillator. And Rosa ran to her car and got it. And they brought it back and they were able to revive him. And then the ambulance came. But yeah, Patrick and I were, we wouldn't let go of him either. They just kept having to tell us like, yeah, you can't be holding on to him while he's being electric unit. But that was, that was, it was very hard to let go of your friend for a second in that moment.

I'm glad you have such vivid memories of this because like when I interviewed Bob Odenkirk, he had no memory of it. He has none. He has none. And so, when we went back to shoot that scene, we had to finish that, she, uh, uh, uh, uh, shoot months later. And Bob has no memory of the entire day, not just the event, but the entire day. And they showed him footage so that he would know where he was sitting. And I go, I said, remember, now do you remember that day? Because we were shooting this whole day. And he's, he looks at me and laughing. And he said, it is like I am watching an imposter in my body do a scene that I have never done in my entire life. I was like, wow. What a strange feeling that must have been. Isn't that crazy? It's just like, yeah, he has no memory of it at all. We had to tell him multiple times after he woke up in the hospital.

Ray Seahorn, star of Pluribus, speaking to Terry Gross in 2025. Pluribus is nominated for 18 Emmys, including one for Seahorn as outstanding lead actress in a drama series. The Emmys are scheduled for September 14th. On Monday show, why? Why do Americans spend so much time waiting? On hold? In waiting rooms? Filling out paperwork? Journalist Annie Lowry calls her the time tax, and she says the difficulty is often the point. She talks about who designed the system, who profits when you give up, and what it would take to get our time back. Her new book is The Time Tax. Hope you can join us.

Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Julian Hertzfeld and Adam Stanishefsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldinato, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Our social media video producer is Hilary

Kisinger. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Being Kooley.