To lead his next show, Vince Gilligan thought: Better call Rhea Seehorn

“Who are you really? What is real happiness? What bash you really need for happiness?” Rhea Seehorn murmurs.

It’s an different mean Wednesday afternoon, steps distant from bookshelves stuffed with works similar “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck and the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” bid by Sarah J. Maas, erstwhile she casually lists these large beingness questions aloud portion leaning implicit a vegan brownie and cupful of beverage astatine a tiny array wrong Village Well Books & Coffee successful Culver City. I’m inactive questioning whether I work the thoroughfare parking signs correctly. But these are queries Seehorn has fixed hard thought to successful caller months.

That’s what happens erstwhile you’re headlining a Vince Gilligan show. Existential reckonings are portion of the gig.

Seehorn is astatine slightest acquainted with the heavy interior struggles that swirl wrong Gilligan’s protagonists. For six seasons connected “Better Call Saul,” AMC’s deed prequel spinoff to “Breaking Bad” that told the backstory of Walter White’s smarmy lawyer Saul Goodman a.k.a. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), Seehorn played Kim Wexler. The fan-favorite benignant A lawyer with a perfectly-positioned ponytail was McGill/Goodman’s principled but progressively conflicted woman who got caught up successful his elaborate schemes and paid a terms for his crimes.

In his archetypal follow-up to the “Breaking Bad” universe, Gilligan opted to forgo revolving different bid astir a tormented antheral successful favour of 1 that fto the shades of Seehorn’s endowment capable the screen.

Gilligan says that successful “Better Call Saul,” which helium co-created with Peter Gould, helium saw successful Seehorn what helium had observed successful Aaron Paul years earlier connected “Breaking Bad” — an histrion whose show propelled a broadside character, wayward junkie Jesse Pinkman, into a fig that commanded viewers’ attraction and became integral to the story.

“Aaron made that quality indispensable,” Gilligan says implicit video call. “It was similar déjà vu with Rhea Seehorn. I hatred saying I wasn’t alert of her anterior to america auditioning and casting her. But she was conscionable fantastic from Day 1. What Peter and I saw successful her was a imaginable to instrumentality a amusement that, astatine the beginning, was astir 1 quality and marque it a two-hander. And I conscionable knew very, precise rapidly successful the aboriginal beingness of ‘Better Call Saul’ that I wanted to enactment with her again aft it was over.”

So helium acceptable retired to make a communicative wherever she was No. 1 connected the telephone sheet.

How did Seehorn process that news?

“I conscionable cried,” she says.

It’s not, arsenic immoderate whitethorn person hoped, a Kim Wexler spinoff — though, she’s inactive unfastened to that: “I’ll bash it. I’ll bash it. Anything. A series. A film. A Staples commercial,” she says.

Rhea Seehorn arsenic Carol successful Apple TV’s “Pluribus.”

(Apple TV)

“Pluribus” has been a tightly-guarded task for Apple TV with a strict embargo connected details that makes it hard to supply a batch of discourse to its premise. Here’s what can beryllium said: Seehorn plays Carol, a phantasy romance writer who, contempt a palmy vocation and seemingly loving narration with her partner, is described arsenic “the astir miserable idiosyncratic connected Earth.” After a awesome from abstraction changes the satellite successful a important way, she indispensable prevention humankind from happiness. The nine-episode play premieres with 2 episodes connected Nov. 7; caller episodes volition beryllium released play aft that.

For a while, Seehorn lone had the archetypal publication to marque her assessments astir the satellite Gilligan was building. She yet got her hands connected 2 much earlier 2023’s dual Hollywood strikes kicked in. When she finished speechmaking done them, 1 thought came to mind: “‘Wow, this is a lot of me,’” she says, launching into laughter. “He had warned maine — ‘You’re going to beryllium successful astir each scene’ — but past you work it and you’re like, ‘Oh ... oh.’”

Careful to beryllium arsenic vague arsenic possible, she continues: “I can’t spoil it. There’s a batch of clip I walk wholly connected my own. I’m not giving distant thing americium I? Make definite I’m not!” Aside from the mode she has to beryllium coy astir the series, she’s appealingly unguarded successful her enthusiasm for the travel it sent her connected arsenic an actor.

“‘Better Call Saul’ was its ain animal, but it had the mothership,” she says. “With this, successful our conversations, it felt similar Vince wanted to propulsion things to the bounds — it’s genre-defying, tone-defying. It’s hilarious and past gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It’s scary successful a assortment of ways. It truly makes you think: What would you bash successful this situation?”

Seeking to playfully thin into the show’s involvement successful exploring happiness and the quality condition, successful scheduling our meet-up I asked that Seehorn prime a determination that makes her happy, which led america to this bookstore adjacent her home. “I bargain books constantly,” she says. Her astir caller acquisition was Rachel Kushner’s spy thriller “Creation Lake.” But lately, she’s been prioritizing William T. Harper’s book, “Eleven Days successful Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege astatine Huntsville, Texas,” which chronicles the existent communicative of the standoff betwixt inmates and instrumentality enforcement. At the clip of this sit-down, Seehorn is days distant from opening accumulation successful Texas connected a movie adaptation of the publication that volition besides prima Taylor Kitsch and Diego Luna.

She lights up arsenic the speech veers into the worldly she watched to unwind portion shooting “Pluribus”: “I’m obsessed with ‘Chicken Shop Date,’” she says. “Do you watch? Can we delight usage this nonfiction to get maine connected that show? This is my campaign.”

Rhea Seehorn, who stars successful the caller Apple TV bid “Pluribus,” says the amusement is genre-defying: “It’s hilarious and past gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It’s scary successful a assortment of ways. It truly makes you think: What would you bash successful this situation?”

(Anthony Avellano / For The Times)

She wrapped accumulation connected “Pluribus” past December. Since then, she‘s changeable an indie film, “Sender,” with “Severance’s” Britt Lower, had a little household abrogation and helped the eldest of her 2 stepsons get settled successful for his archetypal twelvemonth of college. They’re the benignant of beingness moments, she says, that provender into those large questions discussed earlier and what the amusement confronts.

“It’s astir this reckoning — a large exploration of who you are. It got maine reasoning astir however we grip truly hard emotions,” Seehorn says. “There was a changeless done enactment for maine astir this feeling of anxiousness that we each know. When we person those nightmares wherever you’re moving astir telling everyone that the barn is connected occurrence and they each support saying, ‘It’s fine.’ And you’re screaming that it’s not.

“You find yourself thinking, however bash I measurement success?” she continues. “About everything — relationships, career, talent, ambition. There’s reasons we marque armor, sometimes long-term, sometimes short-term. There are choices that are endurance skills, that are bully for you astatine 1 time, that aboriginal are nary longer the crutches and tools they utilized to be. The show Carol is giving astatine the opening — wherever she hates the beingness she’s surviving and questions the radical who similar her enactment due to the fact that it’s not awesome capable — Vince and I had immoderate deep-dive talks astir that arsenic radical successful the arts.”

Of course, the doctrine of aforesaid and intent and happiness was not thing Seehorn considered overmuch portion increasing up. Deborah Rhea Seehorn — she went by Debbie until her aboriginal teens — was calved successful Norfolk, Va., but spent her puerility successful places similar Arizona and Japan due to the fact that of her father’s occupation arsenic an cause for the Naval Investigative Service, aboriginal known arsenic NCIS erstwhile it added “Criminal” to its name. “My dada was not Mark Harmon,” she jokes. After her parents divorced erstwhile she was 12, the household stayed successful the Virginia Beach area.

On paper, Seehorn wasn’t primed for a beingness of acting. But she felt a originative pull: Her parent did philharmonic theatre successful precocious school; her begetter and paternal grandma painted. And Seehorn and her sister began sketching from a young age. Seehorn initially had ambitions of pursuing a vocation successful plan oregon creation — she majored successful coating portion a pupil astatine George Mason University. She thought possibly she’d onshore a occupation doing accumulation plan oregon creation restoration astatine the Smithsonian oregon 1 of the different museums astir town. But erstwhile she was required to instrumentality an elective people her freshman year, she saw an accidental to effort thing that different felt retired of scope to her.

“At the time, astatine slightest to me, American tv and movie had radical who looked similar models,” she says. “I didn’t. I thought I would get made amusive of mercilessly if I said I wanted to beryllium an actor. It felt the aforesaid arsenic saying I wanted to beryllium a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the archetypal people I took, that acting was it for me.”

It was taught by Lynnie Raybuck, a teacher and histrion who remains a mentor to Seehorn. This is wherever — successful beingness and successful this speech — it becomes wide Seehorn revels successful the method of acting. She grows animated referencing Practical Aesthetics, the acting method developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy for the Atlantic Theater Company, and detailing her fondness for in-depth publication analysis.

“To me, it blew my caput the archetypal clip I realized that it isn’t magic fairy particulate connected immoderate radical — that they’re conscionable talented and you’re not,” she says. “That determination is a mode to enactment toward that. As soon arsenic idiosyncratic said determination was a mode to survey that and determination was a mode to get person and person to inviting that assemblage successful to spell with you connected a travel and marque it believable, I conscionable was like, ‘Well, this is what I’m doing for a living.’”

She knew it wouldn’t wage the bills close away. She ushered, worked the container office, work signifier directions for caller plays — she had days jobs, too, similar moving astatine TGI Fridays — “By the way, they conscionable offered maine suspenders since I ne'er got them.” (She was underage and incapable to service intoxicant astatine the time, truthful she was a hostess who did expo for the waiters.)

She yet landed successful New York, moving astatine Playwright Horizons, an off-Broadway theater. After a fewer years, the propulsion of L.A. led her west. She was formed successful the ABC sitcom “I’m With Her,” starring Teri Polo and loosely based connected writer Chris Henchy’s matrimony to Brooke Shields. It didn’t past long, but different roles would travel on with varying degrees of steadiness. She had a recurring relation arsenic an adjunct DA successful the ineligible dramedy “Franklin & Bash” and played the champion person of Whitney Cummings’ fictionalized mentation of herself successful NBC’s “Whitney,” which ran for 2 seasons from 2011 to 2013.

Then, arsenic “Better Call Saul” was coming together, the casting directors moving connected the task were acquainted with Seehorn, who had auditioned for them galore times implicit the years, and what she could deliver.

“The archetypal clip I met her was for the shaper sessions and determination were 3 actresses who were speechmaking for Kim with me,” Odenkirk says by phone. “The different 2 actresses were perfectly fantastic. But Rhea and I had chemistry, and we each knew it. We each felt it. It was undeniable and it was easy.”

She was formed arsenic Kim, earlier a past sanction was adjacent assigned to the character, and with nary inkling for however indispensable she would go to the story. And it rapidly becomes wide however she dissects her characters. (Both Odenkirk and Gilligan, without prompting, accidental that her scripts were often heavy marked up with scribbled notes, highlights and tabs.)

“I lone person 1 enactment of dialog successful that archetypal episode, different than the intercom,” Seehorn says, inactive capable to recite it by memory. “They told maine aboriginal it wasn’t connected intent that I person astir nary contractions successful the archetypal mates of episodes and different radical do. And I was like, should I inquire them if it’s OK to elide ‘want to’ to ‘wanna’ oregon ‘do not’ to ‘don’t.’ But past I was like, ‘No! What if I conscionable effort to fig retired who talks similar this?’ It started to beryllium this happening of ‘Who is this controlled person? And wherefore would she beryllium this controlled?’ She became truthful important to maine due to the fact that I had mostly built her retired of subtext and this backstage portion of her that mostly the assemblage was my biggest confidant.”

Rhea Seehorn connected starting her acting career: “I thought I would get made amusive of mercilessly if I said I wanted to beryllium an actor. It felt the aforesaid arsenic saying I wanted to beryllium a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the archetypal people I took, that acting was it for me.” (Anthony Avellano/For The Times)

Odenkirk admiringly references Seehorn’s level of attraction and their shared attack successful defending the affectional quality of their characters. He notes the predicament the “Better Call Saul” writers sometimes faced successful placing Jimmy/Saul and Kim, who knew each different truthful well, successful melodramatic situations that ordinarily would necessitate much obliviousness oregon consenting unawareness.

“When Kim and Jimmy were together, determination were times — not many, but a fewer — wherever 1 of them was lying to the different one,” helium says. “And it was ever a challenge. We’d beryllium like, ‘Saul knows he’s being lied to’ oregon ‘Kim knows Saul is lying.’ And we’d person to find a mode astir it. Or we’d person to fto spell — she’s [Rhea] bully astatine that excessively ... I conscionable emotion her seriousness of purpose. And her emotion for losing herself successful the dream.”

It’s wherefore he’s not amazed Gilligan wanted her to pb his adjacent series.

“She is formidable successful nature,” Odenkirk says. “Her spot connected surface is great, her dynamic scope is incredible. She has the spot of quality of a starring antheral — I’m conscionable going to accidental it. She has the backbone and the steely determination of a starring man.”

In fact, erstwhile the thought for “Pluribus” began tugging astatine Gilligan years ago, successful the midst of “Better Call Saul,” helium initially envisioned it having a antheral protagonist.

“But I would instrumentality these agelong walks during our luncheon breaks successful the writers country and, I can’t retrieve erstwhile exactly, but it dawned connected maine connected 1 of those walks that I truly similar this young lady, Rhea Seehorn,” helium says. “She’s a truly bully actor. And I started thinking, ‘Why does the main quality of my adjacent amusement person to beryllium a guy? ‘ I was astir to accidental I benignant of tailored the relation to Rhea, but the information is, I don’t cognize if that’s true. Rhea has truthful galore strengths arsenic an actor, I cognize she tin bash thing I threw astatine her — conscionable similar I knew galore years earlier that Bryan Cranston could bash anything. She makes it look easy.”

When Seehorn and I talk again a fewer weeks aft our archetypal meeting, she is video-calling from a nondescript country during a interruption from accumulation connected “Eleven Days.” She has already fiddled done a fig of jigsaw puzzles and “Paint by Numbers” — her activities of prime erstwhile she needs to crook down her histrion encephalon — successful the clip since we past spoke; she reaches for the coating of plants she precocious completed arsenic proof. We yet instrumentality to the thought of happiness. What makes her blessed close now?

“It is my household and my friends, but it’s besides my work,” she says. “Carol, connected paper, has galore of the things that I want, that galore of america want. Success astatine work, particularly successful a vocation successful the arts. But she won’t judge the hype. Her mocking of her enactment and her fans is conscionable a mocking of herself. It’s self-loathing — similar she’s trying to bushed radical to the punch.

“For me, I realized I afloat ain and volition not beryllium embarrassed astir the information that a 3rd limb connected that stool for my happiness is my work,” she continues. “It is intrinsically a portion of who I americium and I americium a amended ma to my stepsons and a amended spouse to my fiance due to the fact that I get to bash what I love.”

And she’s uncovering caller ways to bash much of it. She has go an enforcement shaper connected Katja Meier’s Swiss TV amusement “$hare” and made her episodic directorial debut with “Better Call Saul” — “I would similar to effort to nonstop again. There’s a mates of projects and radical I’m talking to astir directing connected their show. People are like, ‘Why didn’t you nonstop the archetypal play [of ‘Pluribus’]?’ I’m like,’I was trying to retrieve to brushwood my teeth with each I had going on.’”

She references the children’s publication “Archibald’s Next Big Thing,” written by histrion Tony Hale, whom she shared surface clip with connected “Veep.” It’s astir embracing the travel you’re on.

“You’re perpetually moving your extremity station and each it is doing is conscionable s— connected yourself and wherever you are now,” she says. “Carol missed things until they were taken away. She could person stopped judging everything and judging herself.”

It was a reminder to clasp the state to deliberation extracurricular the container with her performance. The archetypal occurrence is simply a high-wire balancing act; astatine 1 point, there’s a 12-minute agelong that has her quality twisting done confusion, fear, grief, choler and vexation similar pretzel dough being looped into a knot — connected her own, yet not alone.

“Everything made maine tense astir Carol,” she says. “As soon arsenic Vince sent maine the script, I was like, ‘This is bananas.’ You’re connected your mode to enactment and you conscionable think, ‘What if I conscionable took this off-ramp and I fled the country and it would beryllium each over?’ But past you’re like, ‘You cognize what, I’m gonna amusement up and bash my best. Believe me, I did immoderate takes that I’m definite were embarrassing, but I was conscionable like, ‘When other are you going to try? The clip is now.”

In different words, she says, “Don’t beryllium a Carol.”