In heart-warming, family-drama Watercolor Postcards, actor Jonathan Banks shows his softer side as homely, small-town barkeep Ledball. The Breaking Bad star talks childhood, values and his joy at reprising the role of Mike for Better Call Saul 

“I’ll give you an example the way I was raised,” begins Jonathan Banks in his trademark, measured drawl, “I was raised by a single mother who, if there was a flower was trying to raise its head up through the sidewalk she always pointed it out to me. And I learnt from her to take joy from the simple things and appreciate how lucky we are.” As you would expect from a man who has been working in Hollywood for 48 years, Banks is unmoved by fame and hype. Unfortunately he has been able to avoid the former since his turn as Mike in the modern day phenomenon that is Breaking Bad.

His new film Watercolor Postcards tells the story of a precocious, young girl named Cotton who following the death of her mother comes to rely on her estranged sister and the local townsfolk for comfort and a sense of family. Among them is Banks’ character Ledball, the local bartender and general purveyor of wisdom. The film was written, produced and starring ex-NFL player turned actor Conrad Goode, who Banks refers to as one of his ‘dearest friends in the world’.

In a lot of his recent roles this sense of paternal wisdom has come through; For Cotton, Ledball becomes a grandfather figure, and when asked if he applies his own experience as a father to his roles Banks says: “I’m a father of four and I would imagine at this stage there is a lot of instinct involved just from life lived that transfers itself. You know, you try to be kind. You try to be kind to a child.”

Breaking Bad has recently been inaugurated in Washington DC’s Smithsonian Museums, something Banks considers to be a great honour, saying: “We have the hazmat suits, some crystal meth and a whole display about Breaking Bad. The slang term, or the nickname, for the Smithsonian, which is magnificent, is ‘the nation’s attic’, so we’re in there with I Love Lucy. I’m just thrilled because I grew up in Washington.”

Next year will see Better Call Saul return for season two on Netflix. The show has been a huge hit and was up for for seven awards at this years Emmys, including Best Supporting Actor for Banks. It also gave Banks and co-star Bob Odenkirk (Saul) a chance to tell the backstory of their respective Breaking Bad characters, an opportunity Bank’s says he jumped at: “I wanted to go back and do Better call Saul because Mike’s story had not been completely told. You get to back and reveal how Mike lost his soul and the terrible things that have happened to him so I was thrilled CMYK to reprise that character.”

For Jonathon Banks Breaking Bad has been an unexpected revival in a long and fascinating career, so how does he feel at still being offered roles that he loves? “I’m lucky. Wildly lucky.”

 Watercolor Postcards is out now on DVD courtesy of Simply Media