Bob Odenkirk Recounts Writing Chris Farley’s Iconic Matt Foley Sketch (Exclusive)

Bob Odenkirk is reflecting on his friendship with Chris Farley — and the role he played in bringing one of the late comedian’s characters to life.

Speaking to PEOPLE for My Life in Pictures, Odenkirk recounted how he wrote Farley’s most iconic sketch while the two worked together at the Chicago improv troupe Second City.

“I wrote the motivational speaker for him, the ‘Van Down by the River’ sketch. At Second City, he had done an improvisation with me and everyone in the cast, and we had done an anti-drug rally, and he played a coach who is essentially Matt Foley,” Odenkirk said. “The night after I saw him do that improvisation, I wrote that sketch just exactly as it’s done.”

He continued: “I’ve written many sketches in my life, and almost none didn’t need to be rewritten. This one did not need to be rewritten.”

“Doing this sketch…at Second City, every single time I did it, I played the father, it was the most fun I ever had in showbiz,” he added. “And the other thing that was amazing about that was this was Second City days, right? This was before any of us were on TV. Nobody knew who Chris was. But by the end of the sketch — four and a half minutes later — everybody knew who Chris was.”

Both Odenkirk and Farley worked at both Second City and at Saturday Night Live — Farley as a cast member and Odenkirk as a writer for three-and-a-half years. The “Matt Foley: Van Down by the River” sketch came with them to television and became one of Farley’s most iconic characters from the show.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Odenkirk said of Farley, “The idea of saying, ‘Well, I saw Chris and I thought he was talented,’ well, so did everybody who saw Chris. And he was very lovable too. He was very warm. He treated me like I was some sort of genius, which I am not.”

Farley was 33 when he died in 1997 of a drug overdose. Odenkirk wrote about Farley’s downfall in his 2022 memoir, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama.

“It drove me nuts,” Odenkirk wrote. “His rise to fame, blazing moments, assured destruction — it played out just as everyone said it would. Said it to his face.”

He wrote: “Even back at Second City, I’d watch Chris stumble off into the night after killing it onstage and my mind would write ‘taken from us too soon!’ and all that. Someone would say, ‘Chris, you’re gonna kill yourself if you keep this up!’ and it was the billionth time he’d heard it. It didn’t help that, usually, the person predicting his terrible doom was someone Chris knew was envious of his talent and skyrocketing career.”

“Chris tried. He did fight back. But he also, not so secretly, embraced and even maybe found purpose in fulfilling the hackneyed arc of it all,” he added.