Lalo Salamanca
Tony Dalton
.
Vince Gilligan: I love the fact that one of the most fascinating, colorful and, dare I say, charming characters in this world of Better Call Saul is a guy who exists because of a throwaway line in the first episode that Saul Goodman ever appeared in Breaking Bad, which was Episode 208 entitled “Better Call Saul,” which Peter wrote. Saul Goodman’s out kneeling in the desert, with these two masked men standing over him with guns and he says, “Oh my God, did Lalo send you?” and he starts speaking in broken Spanish.
It was such a throwaway line Peter put in there. And all it meant at the time was this guy’s got a lot of balls in the air and he’s got a lot of people out to get him. When he finds out it’s not Lalo, even though these guys have got guns to his head, he’s like, “Whew, that was close.” He’s so relieved it’s not Lalo. But it was such a throwaway and I never, in my wildest dreams, thought we’d ever even meet Lalo. I mean, we never really thought about it after that, did we, in Breaking Bad?Peter Gould: I don’t think we really did. Well, we had our hands full with Walter White and Gus Fring. I don’t think Saul Goodman’s problems amounted to a hill of beans at that point. Tony Dalton is so much fun and so brilliant in the way he plays [Lalo]. This guy, in some ways he’s the cartel’s Errol Flynn. He’s elegant. He’s graceful. He’s charming. Unfortunately, he’s also a Salamanca.
