Vince Gilligan on Why Rhea Seehorn Could Lead ‘Any Show on Television’

IndieWire Honors: Vince Gilligan pays tribute to the collaboration and trust that makes Rhea Seehorn the emotional center of "Pluribus."

On June 4, the IndieWire Honors Spring 2026 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best television series. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the creators, artisans, and performers behind shows well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers.

Ahead, Vince Gilligan tells IndieWire about the creative shorthand, emotional trust, and singular screen presence that made Performance Award recipient Rhea Seehorn the foundation of his new Apple TV series “Pluribus.”

I’ve been really blessed to work with a lot of great actors over the course of many shows now — going all the way back to “The X-Files” and forward through “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” So I don’t say what I’m about to say lightly: There is something about Rhea Seehorn that puts her in a category all her own.

She can do it all. She can be as dramatic as all get out, but she’s also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. The full range is there, everything you’d ever want in a performer. But it’s more than skill. It’s her outlook.

She has a work ethic like you can’t believe. She really wants to be the best artist she can be. She probably wouldn’t identify herself that way, but she is an artist through and through. And she takes the craft of acting seriously in the most positive possible way. It’s never annoying, never precious.

She’s also one of the most generous actors I’ve ever encountered. A day player will show up on set with one scene to film, someone who’s been on the call sheet for maybe 10 minutes, and Rhea will walk right up to them, introduce herself, and say, “You want to run our lines together?” She does it because she wants the work to be good — not just her work, the whole show’s work. You feel that distinction. It matters.

When Peter Gould and I first hired Rhea for “Better Call Saul,” I’ll be honest with you — we didn’t know exactly what we had. We thought, “It’d probably be good for Jimmy McGill to have some kind of love interest, we really like this actress, let’s see if she works out. And if she doesn’t work out, we’ll write her off. A car accident, a firing, something.” That’s how cavalier we were about it. It’s almost embarrassing to admit now.

It was the same thing with Aaron Paul on “Breaking Bad.” The show was about Walter White and I thought Jesse Pinkman would maybe get Walt into the world of criminality and then we’d kill him off — great dramatic grist. And then I fell in love with the guy. Rhea was the same evolution. We thought Kim Wexler might turn into something, maybe she won’t. And boy, did she ever. Both times, lightning struck. The show became a two-hander. And it was all due to her.

Here’s what I think makes Rhea extraordinary beyond the craft, beyond the work ethic, beyond the generosity: You can see everything she’s thinking from a mile away. Every thought, every feeling, projected clearly and completely. The zenith of this art form, whether it’s television or film, is when you can write a scene with no dialogue and hire actors who can carry it completely. Because that’s how people actually live. Eight times out of 10, we’re not saying what we mean. Certainly not directly. The best drama lives in that gap. And when you find an actor who can communicate a character’s interior life without words, you hold on to them tight.

We did an episode last season called “The Gap” — the seventh episode of “Pluribus” — and it was Rhea and Carlos Manuel Vesca, one in New Mexico, one making his way across South America, and they’re alone, barely speaking for long stretches of time. Both completely riveting. Minutes go by. Not a word. And you can’t take your eyes off either of them.

Something else I want to say, because it matters and it gets overlooked: It is harder for women in this business to do what Rhea does instinctively. It’s easier for a male actor to say, “Mess me up, make me look bad, I don’t care how I come across.” The world is not fair and the industry reflects that. Rhea doesn’t worry about any of it. She just wants to get the job done well. She wants the show to be good — not just her performance, the show. That distinction is rarer than it should be.

I’m not going to claim I discovered her. Anyone with a set of eyes could see how good she is, and very quickly. There were theater directors and sitcom directors and writers who were aware of her long before I met her. I’m just another link in the chain. What I’m proud of is that I got to put her name at the top of the call sheet, where she deserves to be, and where she should remain from here on out.

She is who she seems to be. She treats the van drivers the same way she treats me. The same way she treats the young women setting out food at the catering table. That shouldn’t be remarkable, but we all live in the real world, and we know it’s not. It’s refreshing in a way it shouldn’t have to be.

The crew on “Pluribus” would crawl over broken glass for Rhea Seehorn. We all would. And every bit of recognition she receives, she has earned.

Season 1 of “Pluribus” is now streaming on Apple TV.