The Scary Reason A Crew Member Once Had A Heat Stroke On Better Call Saul
Throughout its six-season run, "Better Call Saul" faced its fair share of obstacles. Famously, star Bob Odenkirk suffered a heart attack while filming the final season. The incident sidelined Odenkirk from filming for five weeks, and the actor revealed he has no memory of that day. While watching the scene afterward, he stated, "I'm really watching something that I don't have any memory of acting in, which is a rare thing" (via The Hollywood Reporter).
Another issue, albeit more controllable, that the crew of the "Breaking Bad" spin-off had to deal with was long days spent in the New Mexico desert. The Albuquerque-based show has plenty of scenes where cartel members escape to the desert to do their illegal deeds, and some scenes took multiple days to perfect. One scene, in particular, finds Saul and Mike Ehrmantraut hiking through the desert after surviving a deadly shootout to deliver Lalo's bail money. Series creator Vince Gilligan revealed that the episode was the hardest moment of his career, and the shootout sequence took about five days to perfect. Gilligan admitted that the scene would have been difficult to shoot under a typical soundstage setting, so five days in the grueling heat of the desert was quite the challenge (via Slashfilm).
The challenge rose to new heights on one particular day of filming.
Some accidents are unavoidable
After shooting the scene mentioned above, found in Season 5, Episode 8, "Bagman," Mike Ehrmantraut actor Jonathan Banks reflected on the experience, giving Awards Focus a peak behind the curtain of filming in the extreme conditions. Gilligan returned to direct the episode, and while talking about the on-set fun that came with the creator's return, Banks revealed just how intense some days were in the desert.
"As long as I can yell at Vince Gilligan from twenty to thirty yards away, then I'm having a good time," Banks said. "But those were long days, the temperature hit 100 to 110 degrees every day we were filming." Still, accidents can quickly happen no matter the number of safety precautions put in place, and one day, that unfortunately happened. Banks recalled one specific day when the heat was particularly harmful, "Well, they tried to be as safe as possible. We had a couple people that would get dizzy in the heat, one of the crew had a sudden heat stroke but she was fine thankfully. We really had to replenish the electrolytes, it gets a little scary out there after a while."
The accident, thankfully, wasn't severe, and no repeat of the event occurred. Banks didn't reveal what scene they were shooting for "Bagman" at the time of the accident.
The majority of the episode focuses on Saul and Mike trying to survive in the desert, and since one sequence took five days to shoot, it's safe to say that the cast and crew spent over a week shooting in those intense conditions.