The actor and comedian, 54, who made his name in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, on the joy of being older, why he’s way too responsible and what he owes Monty Python

My dad drank booze for a living and didn’t come home. My mum made powdered milk and hustled her ass off to keep us alive. I grew up in a small town [Naperville, Illinois] that was growing fast. When we moved there, there were farms or forests on all sides then, after 10 years, it was all houses.

Working on Saturday Night Live was a major struggle, professionally and personally, even though I learned a lot. I didn’t really fit in very well. I got a lot out of it, but the show got very little out of it.

During SNL, I spent many years as a cult presence and I’m very comfortable with it. I still perceive myself that way. But occasionally I’m reminded that I’m on these other shows [Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul] that are much bigger than anything I did before. I went to Canada for a festival and the customs guard talked to me about what a fan he was of Breaking Bad, and what a fan his sister in Romania was – it blew my mind. That sense of it playing around the world, of people talking to their family members about it.

I have too much guilt over small things. I’ve always been super responsible

I’m the second oldest of seven. I don’t know how my parents had time to do the things you had to do in order to have the children, seeing as how seldom my father was home, but somehow they managed it. So there was a bit of chaos around us. It was wonderful, in some ways. I was basically one of the dads of the family because I was one of the oldest. That was neat, to be in charge of my own little world.

I have too much guilt over small things. I’ve always been super responsible. To this day, there are things in my house that I need to return to people that they would be like: “What? No, I didn’t need the umbrella back. No, you can keep a plastic bag.”

All people are sad clowns. That’s the key to comedy – and it’s a buffer against reality. I’m hypersensitive to negativity and duplicity and I want to push it away by writing comedy. Maybe that hypersensitivity comes across, and allows me to play dastardly, multi-layered people.

There are plenty of fuck-ups in showbiz. It would never happen to me, because I’m too old to buy into that shit. I’m very aware that when I’m being celebrated it’s as a commodity, not as a human being. For younger people who have a touch of fame, they can’t tell the difference. They think their actual self is being celebrated, and that’s not the case.

Monty Python became my religion when I was 10. It led me out of the depths of darkness. I loved The Goodies, too, and The Two Ronnies. I watched those shows on the public television station in Chicago. Python really spoke to me, as they say. I knew I wanted to tell whatever my vision of the world was through that lens as well, and do sketch comedy and make fun of people.

Humans are ridiculous. We’re all pathetic strivers who will fall short. If you can accept that, it’s optimistic, because you can shoot for the moon and know you’re never going to get there, and that’s OK.

Better Call Saul series 3 is available on Netflix now