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.