On Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Rhea Seehorn talks about the years before Better Call Saul: the move from LA to New York, auditions she crashed, representation she could not get, and the habit of saving the sides from every part she did not book. A short clip is embedded above.
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
This article covers only that segment. It is her first-person account and does not add career history from outside the clip.
The move from LA to New York
Shepard asks what her "north star" was through all of that. Seehorn describes the move from LA to New York and having to almost totally start over, with casting directors getting to know her. She says she was crashing auditions and could not get representation, because she had never even had an agent and now she needed one. Those, she says, were "some tough years."
No backup plan
Shepard asks whether she started thinking about a backup plan. Seehorn's answer is immediate: "No. Never."
The only thing she thought, she says, was that it was possible she would have to get a day job again — and she has thought that at multiple times in the years after. She says she lost her insurance one time while in LA, because a show didn't go. That was back when they had a pilot season: if you didn't get cast in something, you most likely were not going to have a job for another 10 months. She lived "very very very frugally," she says, in hopes that she would not have to take a day job. The only compromise she describes is wondering whether acting would have to be something she did in her off time, like plays that are only on weekends. Giving it up was not on the table: "give it up. No."
The sides she kept
Seehorn says she also used to really beat herself up, for years and years. She does not think that habit ended until Better Call Saul, because a friend of hers told her, "You have to stop this or I'm gonna stop it for you." She had been saving the sides — the audition pages — from every part she didn't get. Every now and then, if she was getting really down on herself, she would tell herself to go over all those sides that weekend and try to figure out what she had done wrong.
"Somebody hot"
She also describes being walked out of an audition once with a casting director. What made it worse, she says, was the tone: it sounded as though the casting director was being an ally.
They're walking out, Seehorn says, and the casting director tells her: "You're obviously the best person for the job, but you and I both know they're going to have to get somebody hot."
Seehorn's reaction was confusion more than a comeback. "Am I supposed to nod? What am I supposed to argue that I'm hot?" She says she didn't even know. "I just shut up."
What the clip does and doesn't say
The clip is a recollection of a difficult stretch in her career, told in her own words. It does not name the show that didn't go, the friend who made her stop saving the sides, or the casting director, and it does not describe how she later landed Better Call Saul. This article does not fill those gaps. Anyone who wants more should listen to the full episode, linked below.
What she does emphasize is that leaving the work was never an option. The fear she names is a day job, and the story she ends on is a rejection delivered as if it were a kindness.
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FAQ
What does Rhea Seehorn say she did with roles she didn't get?
She says she saved the sides from every part she didn't get, and that she would sometimes go back over them to try to figure out what she had done wrong, until a friend made her stop.
Did she have a backup plan?
No. When Dax Shepard asks, she says, "No. Never." The only thing she thought, she says, was that she might have to get a day job again.
What did the casting director tell her?
Seehorn says a casting director walked her out of an audition and told her, "You're obviously the best person for the job, but you and I both know they're going to have to get somebody hot."