Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn Starred In A Failed Sitcom Pilot

For many viewers, the full extent of Rhea Seehorn’s talent wasn’t evident until “Better Call Saul” first aired in 2015. Sure, she had been working steadily for a long time before that, but conflicted lawyer Kim Wexler was her first truly high-profile role — an opportunity that she took to the tune of two Primetime Emmy nominations and TVLine’s Performer of the Year nod in 2022. 

As Seehorn’s effortless comedic timing in her more lighthearted scenes with Jimmy “Saul Goodman” McGill (Bob Odenkirk) suggests, she comes from a sitcom background. Her most notable role on that front is on Whitney Cummings’ NBC sitcom “Whitney,” where she played major character Roxanne Harris for two seasons. In fact, had things played out differently, she might have had her breakthrough role on a comedy show years before “Better Call Saul,” too. 

In 2007, Seehorn starred in a TV movie called “The Thick of It.” It was intended to be the pilot episode for a U.S. remake of Armando Iannucci’s British sitcom of the same name, which featured future “Doctor Who” star Peter Capaldi as potty-mouthed political enforcer Malcolm Tucker. The experiment turned out to be a failure, and the series was never picked up, but it led to a far more successful take on political comedy; Iannucci went on to create HBO’s celebrated “Veep,” which features Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, its foul-mouthed main character, and also (initially) focuses on the sidelines of top politics. 

Armando Iannucci hasn’t minced his words about the reason the ABC version of “The Thick of It” went nowhere. “There was a lousy political sitcom version made for ABC,” he told Broadcast in 2009. “It was terrible because they took the idea and chucked out all the style. It was all conventionally shot and there was no improvisation or swearing. It didn’t get picked up, thank god.” 

In the same interview, Iannucci also hinted at the conversations with HBO that would lead to “Veep,” and revealed that he’d have wanted to offer “The Thick of It” to the network, as well. “I wanted to send it to HBO and they were very keen, but the BBC sold it to ABC for more money, but ultimately for less money because it never got made,” he said. “So, I’m now talking to HBO about doing a political thing.”

For speculation’s sake, let’s imagine how things might have played out in a version of history in which Iannucci worked with HBO on “The Thick of It” remake, featuring the same cast as the ABC pilot and becoming successful enough to grow into the sort of seven-season phenomenon “Veep” was. Not only would this have robbed the world of what just might be Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ greatest role, but it might have even affected “Better Call Saul” way down the line. Because the ABC pilot’s cast included not only Rhea Seehorn, but fellow future “Better Call Saul” star Michael McKean, a successful version of “The Thick of It” might very well have affected both actors’ career paths and diverted them both from the “Breaking Bad” spin-off.