Bob Odenkirk narrates the audiobook version of superagent Ari Emanuel‘s upcoming memoir — but friends of the “Better Call Saul” star and longtime Emanuel client are aghast that he’s not mentioned in the tome that drops more names than a West Side mohel.
asserted
that → narrate → mohel
An insider explains that Emanuel put a great deal of thought into the decision for Odenkirk to be his voice.
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Odenkirk → explain → decision
Why pick Odenkirk, arguably the most beloved man toiling in television, to voice Hollywood’s most ruthless shark?
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Odenkirk → pick → shark
For one, Odenkirk is one of Emanuel’s original clients, whose successes on “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” are entwined with Emanuel’s arc from mere agent to mogul.
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successes → entwine → mogul
And, as a fellow Chicagoan, Odenkirk has the right accent (Mark Wahlberg is way too Boston, while Larry David screams Brooklyn.)
“Ari is a voracious audiobook listener, so the choice of narrator was a highly considered process,” the insider says.
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insider → have → narrator
“The most important thing was finding someone who could capture his voice and personality.
uncertain
who → find → voice
Bob did so perfectly.”
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Bob → do → ?
But an Odenkirk friend was “surprised” that the actor doesn’t appear in the Knopf book, while Quentin Tarantino, Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese and Oprah Winfrey all made the cut.
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Tarantino → surprise → cut
Billie Eilish, who has been a WME client since just 2023, isn’t merely name-checked.
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who → check → 2023
She made the jacket copy.
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She → make → copy
“Bob wasn’t mentioned?!” says the friend, who felt it was a glaring omission.
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it → mention → ?
“He’s a foundational client.”
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He → ’ → ?
Another source close to the actor says Odenkirk didn’t feel slighted at all.
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Odenkirk → say → actor
“Bob loved the book and learning more about Ari and how he focused his way through the business,” the source tells Page Six Hollywood.
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source → love → Page
“He is certainly not upset about not being included.
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He → include → ?
If anything, he feels that Ari got to save something about Bob for book No. 2.”
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Ari → feel → .
Odenkirk certainly appeared to be plenty enthused by the time he recorded the audio.
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he → appear → audio
Emanuel sat nearby in the studio to watch the actor narrate the final pages.
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actor → sit → pages
“We both got choked up, because we’ve known each other forever, and because: Life!
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we → choke → Life
Ari’s been my agent, my friend, since the days of ‘Mr. Show,’ and he’s always been a character, but I didn’t realize how much until I read his whole crazy story
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I → realize → story
,” Odenkirk wrote in an Instagram post.
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Odenkirk → write → post
“It’s really the perfect book for this moment in which we find ourselves, because it shows how you have to be a little crazy to survive this crazy world.
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you → ’ → world
But you know what?
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you → know → what
You can say Ari was out of his mind to make 300 calls a day, fighting for his clients and building his empire, or you can say that was his genius.
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that → say → empire
Odenkirk then suggested “Better Call Ari” as his preferred title to “Roll the Calls.”
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Odenkirk → suggest → Calls
Perhaps if the book ever becomes a film, TV series or documentary, Emanuel can pivot.
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Emanuel → become → ?
We hear that WME is representing screen adaptation rights for the book.
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WME → hear → book
Another actor might have seemed like a more obvious choice for the narrator role: Onscreen, Jeremy Piven is the thespian most closely associated with Emanuel.
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Piven → seem → Emanuel
Piven played Emanuel stand-in Ari Gold over eight seasons on the HBO comedy “Entourage.”
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Piven → play → comedy
(And he even three-peated as an Emmy winner from 2006 to 2008 as the utterly relentless superagent.)
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he → peate → superagent
But when it came time for Emanuel to find the perfect performer to narrate “Roll the Calls,” Piven was no longer a go-to avatar.
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Piven → come → Calls
The actor had faced a string of sexual misconduct allegations in 2017 and 2018 that put a damper on his red-hot career.
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that → face → career
(He denied the allegations and, in dramatic fashion, took a polygraph test and passed.)
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He → deny → test
Baggage is baggage, and Emanuel instead tapped a different Emmy winner to narrate his life story.
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Emanuel → tap → story
The Aporia
