Kim Wexler
The intelligent and proficient lawyer who is the confidante and love interest of Jimmy McGill / Saul Goodman.
Kimberly Wexler is a fictional character in the television series Better Call Saul, a spin-off of Breaking Bad. Kim is primarily portrayed by Rhea Seehorn, and was created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. An intelligent and proficient lawyer, she is the confidante and love interest of Jimmy McGill / Saul Goodman, whom she later marries. Kim's characterization and Seehorn's performance have received critical acclaim, earning her two nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Better Call Saul
- First minor
- Uno
- First date
- February 8, 2015
- Last minor
- Saul Gone
- Last date
- August 15, 2022
- Creator
- Vince Gilligan; Peter Gould
- Portrayed by
- Rhea Seehorn; Katie Beth Hall (young)
- Voice
- Rhea Seehorn (Ethics Training with Kim Wexler)
Lore & Background
Kim Wexler was born in 1968, according to her driver's license in "JMM". She was raised in several Nebraska towns, including Red Cloud, but is intentionally vague about her past. In a flashback in "Wexler v. Goodman", Kim is shown to have become self-reliant as a teenager due to her mother's alcoholism. In "The Guy for This", she claims that as a child, her mother frequently moved them from place to place to keep one step ahead of landlords to whom they owed back rent, and never had a place to call home herself.
Kim further claims she moved to Albuquerque because of the limited opportunities available in her hometown. Kim's mother used her in shoplifting and petty theft schemes, such as stealing a necklace and earrings which Kim has kept through adulthood, as shown in "Axe and Grind". Kim worked in the mailroom at Hamlin, Hamlin and McGill (HHM), where Howard Hamlin and Chuck McGill were lead partners. With HHM lending her the money to pay for law school, she completed her education and then joined the firm as an associate.
After attaining admission to the bar, Kim quickly became one of HHM's top lawyers, and her success inspired Jimmy to secretly attend a distance learning law school and become an attorney. With Kim's encouragement, Jimmy started a solo practice after HHM decided against hiring him as an associate. During the period leading up to the events of Better Call Saul, Kim and Jimmy are shown to have developed a close personal relationship, which eventually turns romantic.
Reader's Guide
Kim Wexler's arc through the fifth season is called by Gilligan an "impending tragedy", as her nearly illegal actions are towards "self-destructive behavior". Katie Beth Hall portrays a young Kim in flashbacks in "Wexler v. Goodman" and "Axe and Grind". During the first two seasons, Kim was rarely seen without a business suit or a tight ponytail, a choice made between Seehorn, Gilligan, Gould and stylist Trish Almeida to show that Kim was "all business".
In the third season, Kim gets into a car accident, breaking her arm which in actuality would make it difficult for Kim to put up her hair in a ponytail without significant effort. At this point, as Kim's character was starting to become unravelled, Almeida and Seehorn used how tight the ponytail was set as an implicit sign of Kim's internal turmoil: when it was set tight, Kim was focused on her job, but if it was loose, it meant she was struggling with sadness and worry.
The writers saw Kim no longer being as moral as planned and gave her a darker side that arose from her childhood, something that gave her a chip on her shoulder that would make her give in to more unethical approaches if it got the job done, and thus one that readily fell into work alongside Jimmy in his cons after fighting her reluctant nature to join in. Gould called this "The emotional connection between these two characters had a gravitational pull that started twisting the whole story around."
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Kim Wexler?
She is a highly skilled attorney who begins as Jimmy McGill's friend and moral anchor before becoming his business partner in Goodman & Wexler. Her journey explores the conflict between her professional ethics and her growing attraction to manipulation.
What is Kim Wexler's role in the series?
Kim serves as a co-protagonist who often devises complex schemes to help Jimmy while maintaining her own reputation at firms like HHM and Davis & Main. She acts as both a stabilizing force and an enabler during his transformation into Saul Goodman.
More in Lore & History
Elsewhere in Better Call Saul
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