Better Call Saul - How Rhea Seehorn Perfected Kim Wexler

[Music] winning over an audience is never easy but it's hard to imagine a much harder task than entering a series that already has a built-in audience who are all hungry to spend more time with their beloved characters and somehow still convincing them to make additional space for you in their hearts and minds reya seahorn had a pretty prolific career as a supporting actress primarily in television series such as franklin and bash whitney and veep but it was in 2015 at the age of 43 that she earned a leading role in better call saul a prequel slash sequel to what many people consider the greatest series ever made breaking bad for creators vince gilligan and peter gould it was vitally important they cast the new characters correctly as breaking bad audiences already know who survives up until that point but surprisingly kim wexler would in many ways become the heartbeat of the series playing the partner of a criminal is hard to get right just look at skyler in breaking bad who received an unfair amount of criticism from some viewers audiences began to view her as a frustrating obstacle to the main character and therefore she doesn't really get credit for how much she actually let him away with so there was a challenge in front of rheya seahorn's kim wexler to somehow both enable and ground jimmy mcgill in a unique way a balance that she and the writers managed to get perfectly right kim needed to be someone audiences understood someone they cared about someone they respected and someone they feared for as like all new characters in the series these were the only characters that were at high risk of being killed for me there are three keys that make this performance work so well reacting physical idiosyncrasies and how she captures the character's rare moments of emotional vulnerability stella adler famously said that acting is reacting and perhaps through her years of playing supporting roles rhea is a masterful reactor most actors want to steal a scene by having the best lines but somehow she can steal a scene that she barely speaks in by just watching the other person's performance unfold when we first meet kim she's sitting in a meeting at hhm that jimmy crashes the dialogue in the scene is all between jimmy and howard there are four witnesses but these other three are just empty bodies in the room our eyes naturally glide over to rhea because she's reacting to what we're seeing unfold she seems unimpressed by jimmy's antics but worried at the same time subconsciously she's teaching the audience how to emotionally read the scene we've just witnessed i am observant like him the part of kim that is constantly looking for what's not said the subtext that's going on in the room this is actually what kim does in lots of scenes she listens observes and reads between the lines rhea shows us kim constantly calculating she's not someone that emotes she's someone that thinks before she speaks this makes us value the few words that kim says more than the rambling paragraphs that jimmy says because we know that she's actually considered the weight of what she's saying so reya is a generous scene partner she's not trying to detract from what you're doing but she still manages to make what she's doing no matter how little or subtle mean just as much let's take this lunch scene as an example the scene lasts for 4 minutes and 57 seconds and in that space of time these are all of kim's lines that's very vintage but i'm good just an iced tea uh yeah last august i did i was six years there how did you know that i was very fortunate hhm put me through law school while i worked yeah happily it's a pretty standard arrangement yeah can i ask why we're here i have no complaints about hhm well i'm flattered but there is clearly an ethical issue here that's i owe a lot to hhm that's very generous the rest of the five minutes is rich talking mostly in monologues so on the face of it this is rich's scene and on paper all of kim's lines come across as someone that's emotionally closed professional but not very interested but is that how the scene feels no despite rich doing all the talking for five minutes kim is doing all the reacting certain parts of his monologue about not feeling valued emotionally resonates with her reya shows us kim calculating and thinking and when certain things resonate too much she releases a subtle reaction like how her eyes squint here or she takes a big drink of water as the feeling washes over her without saying anything of any meaning or value kim is the star of this scene we're reading the meaning of the scene straight from her face even though it's buried under layers of professionalism being able to just sit and listen yet steal an entire five-minute scene is a unique skill this is what helps her balance out a character like jimmy who's all bluster lies and razzle dazzle she's communicating what we should really think and feel about what's being said as another example where she's far more emotive let's look at the scene where jimmy reads his brother chuck's final letter to him on paper the scene is all about jimmy as he's the one speaking but bob plays it nonchalantly as if this means nothing to him racist to the end even spoon some cereal into his mouth as he does it now rhea could play this differently she could be nodding along and smirking at his attitude and that would communicate to us that yes screw chuck and his stupid letter but instead her reaction is what highlights the tragedy of the scene she starts off looking at the letter reacting to certain lines nodding in agreement she starts to get uncomfortable triggered by chuck's line that he hopes he takes his words in the spirit they're intended so she sits forward anxiously bracing for impact full focus talking about the day their mother brought jimmy home from the hospital rhea emotionally reacts and now switches to just looking at jimmy's reaction rather than the letter because it's no longer about what's said it's about how little jimmy cares then as time passes we can see the emotions stirring inside of her manifesting in her eyes as they glisten with tears it's too much now she tries to contain it but she's going to cry wipes her eyes even looks away and then we cut into a close-up showing that kim's reaction is all that matters here because jimmy isn't giving us any real emotion to read into anymore he's closed off whereas kim is opening up this is the balance that bob and rhea find together that make complex scenes like this work so well next is the character's physical idiosyncrasies that again allow us to read what's going on for kim in each scene without her necessarily needing to say anything generally kim has very professional body language mimicking the mostly male dominated world around her she's very closed off but let's look at how much rhea can communicate externally by just switching how the character feels internally after chuck tries to warn kim to stay away from jimmy explaining that he used to rob money from his father's store kim is now unsure about him and it's written all over her body language she's sitting on her hands looking at the floor then grabs her items to leave stiff as a board but she's drawn back to the answering machine and hears jimmy leave a lighthearted message of him singing so she just sits and listens as the tension washes away she visibly finds some inner peace as if she's answering a question inside of herself and now when she walks out her body language is far more upbeat she's visibly content part of kim's professional body language is carrying tension in her shoulders and jimmy's wasp physically provides relief from that not just by rubbing her shoulders but even here notice how the tension releases the moment she sees him as the elevator door opens another idiosyncrasy is how kim uses her mouth even when she's not speaking whenever she's stressed or uncertain she mashes and clenches her lips together she also does something similar when she has something on her mind that she wants to say but holds it back so we can visibly see her lips wrestling the words this happens consistently when chuck asks kim to confirm to the doctor that he has no issues with his mental health have you ever seen me exhibit any sign any sign whatsoever of mental illness see she lies looks down and then lip wrestle we see her bite her tongue again right after she discovers jimmy changed the address on the papers to help her win back mesa verde what [Music] just drive she has so many competing emotions and conflicts of interest that she doesn't feel she can confirm that she knows anything but it's still bursting out of her in every other way it can or when jimmy decides to change his name to saul goodman kim physically doesn't think it's a good idea but doesn't say anything if this is how you're really feeling it is i say sure great five minutes max these little creative choices subconsciously give us huge insight into the character and how she feels about each person and each event as it unfolds as a trait it's so definitively kim wexler that even when they flash back to her as a teenager they still direct the young actress to mimic the same lip movements when she's unsure what to say or do next another way reya embodies kim wexler is that when she's stressed her hands get very fidgety kim is known for her contained body language and as we discussed holding back her words listening calculating but her true feelings still find their way to the surface and sometimes it's through her hands she'll either fidget with an item or her fingers will wriggle with stress themselves [Music] and the final key is capturing emotional vulnerability and although we've gone over all the physical quirks and manifestations that reya portrays without needing to say anything this is more about the nuances of her speech for the most part kim is a balanced still calculating force of nature sure sometimes she blows up at people and speaks her mind in an unfiltered manner but usually she's restrained so let's look at how vulnerability still works its way into her voice as if there's this layer of emotion coating each word let's take a look at some examples sometimes she says virtually two identical lines but communicates them in two very different ways when jimmy is contemplating quitting the law kim asserts her position stating that she thinks it's a mistake twice you are making a mistake i know you make a mistake but notice the change in her inflection the second time around there's pent up frustration she feels she can't stop him her anxiety for him as a person and everything she wanted for him is seasoning the sentence with a new flavor you are making a mistake i know you make a mistake or when she disciplines chuck for accusing jimmy of fraud her pitch goes high when she says she feels sorry for jimmy i feel sorry for him and then goes low with pity and disgust in her tone when she says she feels sorry for chuck and i feel sorry for you two very different types of feeling sorry and reya captures it all in her inflections or when she's petrified for jimmy acting as a bag man for the cartel she holds eye contact with him in fear i don't like this i don't want you to do it but notice how she punctuates each word to put it in the simplest language almost to ensure that it's officially on the record i don't want you to do it and on the final word her voice cracks a little showing us her vulnerability sometimes just the way reyes says align tells us there's more to the story than she's willing to say take the deal the way that her pitch lowers you can hear a quivering in her tone she's fearful for jimmy but we can also tell there's something she's not telling us other times she puts vocal emphasis on the final word to punctuate the moment when jimmy rogue pulls her at the meeting with mesa verde notice her emphasis on the word goodman we need to end this meeting now so rich and i can have a conversation with mr goodman from professional to boiling with rage there are layers of subtext to that line mr goodman she never liked him taking on the name saul goodman to begin with and now she sees this alter ego as another person she's dealing with he's broken their agreement so her voice breaks on the word goodman the name that's a thorn in her side and finally in her emotional discussion with jimmy after their actions lead to someone they know being killed rhea is completely raw because i was having too much fun she's practically hyperventilating with tears even though she's still trying to hold them back the final word fun is said with such venom bitterness and regret too much fun the word essentially slaps her in the face and once it escapes her lips she breaks down again as she knows she can't forgive her own selfishness and has to escape whenever you think of a breakout performance it's usually something big and flashy something that grabs you because it's so memorable you may have a line you like to quote or a physical mannerism you like to do an impression of but what makes reyes seahorn's performance all the more impressive is that she managed to make herself stand out in a show filled with scene-stealers by simply stepping back observing and reacting she managed to say much more about the character by keeping her mouth shut and showing us what she's too scared to say and she made us value her vulnerability by burying it deep under layers of self-protection so that when it does occasionally surface we appreciate it all the more essentially as kim wexler she managed to prove that sometimes this is more [Music] if you enjoy content like this and want to see more of it please do consider supporting me on patreon as it really does make a difference to how much content i can pump out or if you can't afford that then simply like the video subscribe and leave a comment down below to help the algorithm do its thing

Channel: Just an Observation

Views: 119,559

Keywords: better call saul kim wexler rhea seehorn, better call saul rhea seehorn, better call saul kim wexler, better call saul, kim wexler, rhea seehorn, just an observation, kim wexler analysis, kim wexler video essay, better call saul analysis, better call saul video essay, rhea seehorn video essay, rhea seehorn acting, rhea seehorn acting analysis, rhea seehorn acting better call saul, better call saul acting, better call saul acting analysis, kim wexler character study, subtleties

Id: U459NZfMYWY

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I watched this last night and loved it (aside from the narrator mispronouncing Rhea's name). I had somehow never noticed the way she presses her lips together all the time. It's all these little idiosyncrasies that makes Kim feel like a unique and real person.

[u/RiC_David]

Watched this yesterday, it's a really insightful video and really taught me something about the reacting side of acting and why she's captivating in every scene.