Better Call Saul Star Julie Ann Emery on Breaking Bad World Return – The Hollywood

[This interview contains spoilers for Better Call Saul season six, episode “Carrot and Stick.”]

After seven years, Better Call Saul is still keeping up with the Kettlemans.

Julie Ann Emery and Jeremy Shamos’ Betsy and Craig Kettleman have finally returned to the Breaking Bad universe on AMC in episode two of Better Call Saul’s sixth-and-final season, “Carrot and Stick.” 

Originally, the white-collar criminals were only supposed to appear in a couple of season one episodes, but their roles quickly expanded once the cast and crew fell in love with the husband-and-wife crooks. When the first season eventually premiered in 2015, the audience followed suit as the suburban outlaws became fan favorites in no time.

While Emery and Shamos have reprised their roles four times through various mediums over the years, the big question was whether the writers’ room could find a proper way to bring them back into the mothership.

“The writers have been talking about bringing us back for a long time, and [co-creator] Peter [Gould] has reached out several times, saying, ‘We’re looking for a good way to bring you guys back, but it has to make sense for the story,’” Emery tells The Hollywood Reporter.

The Kettlemans last appeared in season one’s “Bingo,” as Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) forced Craig to face the music regarding his $1.6 million embezzlement rap. Season six’s second episode now catches up with the crime duo a couple years later as Betsy and Craig own and operate Sweet Liberty Tax Services. Even though Craig just served as many as sixteen months in prison, the Kettlemans are still up to their old tricks as they routinely pocket bits and bobs of their older clientele’s tax refunds.

“I always thought that they were still doing some sort of grift and that they felt entitled. So it did not surprise me at all that they were still doing something … illegal,” Emery says.

In a recent conversation with THR, Emery also discusses Betsy being a harbinger of the “Karen” wave, as she also delves into the surprising ways in which the Kettlemans inspired Saul Goodman’s famous law office from Breaking Bad.

When you wrapped Jenn Carroll and Ariel Levine’s season three-adjacent short film, No Picnic, did you assume that would be your one-and-only return as Betsy Kettleman?

So I’ve assumed that I was done with Betsy three or four times. When Jeremy Shamos and I finished season one’s “Bingo,” we, as the Kettlemans, gave kettle corn to the crew, and I thought that was our goodbye. And then the lovely No Picnic happened. Ariel and Jenn are wildly talented, and Jenn, who’s producing now, was the on-set producer for episode two of season six. She’s fantastic. So we shot [season six, episode two] a year ago, and I assumed that would be it as well. Jeremy and I have thought this over and over again. And then we came back again for the American Greed episode. We shot that in March of this year, so that turnaround was very fast. So we thought we had said goodbye to the Kettlemans once season six wrapped, but suddenly, Vince had an idea for a Better Call Saul–Breaking Bad crossover on American Greed.

And who delivered the good news that you’d return for the final season’s “Carrot and Stick”?

Well, the official good news was delivered through my agent, but when we did the Inside the Gilliverse podcast [in August 2020], we did the podcast in character, as the Kettlemans. And [Better Call Saul executive producer] Tom Schnauz was the co-host of that show. And because it was all going to be improvised, we had a little sit-down with Tom before the show to make sure we didn’t wade into territory that might get us in trouble. Season six had not started shooting yet, so that was when we found out that our return was on the horizon. We were thrilled.

Did you and Jeremy slide right back into these roles? It seemed that way as a viewer.

So I find Betsy terrifying to play as an actor because the pocket for her is about six inches wide. If you go outside that pocket, it’s just bad acting, and nobody wants to be bad in the Breaking Bad–Better Call Saul universe because everyone is brilliant in it. I never feel I have her until I’m with Jeremy, and I think Jeremy has a similar experience. We created them very collaboratively, more so than any other thing I’ve ever done on screen. Until we’re behaving together as the Kettlemans, we don’t have them. So when we arrived in Albuquerque, the first thing we did was get together and run lines and talk until we slid back into things. So I don’t think she’s the easiest role to slide back into, but she is the most exciting. 

Betsy and Craig…