'Better Call Saul' Actor Russell Andrews Reveals ALS Diagnosis

Russell Andrews went public with his ALS diagnosis on Saturday, May 16, sitting beside his fiancée actress Erica Tazel during a CNN interview. He was diagnosed in the fall of 2025. He's 64.

"I am a person living with ALS," Andrews said.

Tazel, who will take on the role of caregiver, was sitting next to him when he said it. She had been there when he got the diagnosis too — and she described the moment with a clarity that stopped the interview cold.

"I looked at him across the room and I said, 'At least now we know what it is, and I still want to be your wife.'"

How It Started

Andrews first thought he'd had a stroke during the pandemic. The early signs were easy to dismiss — occasional twitches, what felt like pinched nerves in his neck, the sense that things weren't quite right but nothing obviously alarming. Then the symptoms started getting harder to ignore.

He was dropping cups and glasses at night. He felt sensations running up and down his arm. He couldn't do things he normally did without difficulty.

Tazel noticed it too from the outside — the way it took him longer to clean the pool, subtle changes in how he walked. "I had questions," she said. "I was like, 'Something is definitely wrong.'"

The timing made getting answers harder. Andrews lost his health insurance during the actors' strike — the historic 2023 walkout that shut down Hollywood for months. As soon as he had coverage again he saw a doctor. Within 15 minutes of that appointment, his primary care physician was already referring him to a neurologist. One thing led to another until the diagnosis came back in late 2025.

What ALS Is

ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease — destroys the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. As those cells die, muscles weaken, speech slurs, and eventually the body loses the ability to move or breathe on its own. There is no cure. Most people live three to five years after diagnosis, though some patients live significantly longer.

There's no predicting which path it takes.

Who He Is

Andrews has been working steadily in Hollywood for decades. Most people will recognize him from Better Call Saul or Straight Outta Compton, though his credits span television and film going back years — including a role on Insecure. He's the kind of actor whose face is more recognizable than his name, the kind of working professional the industry depends on.

Since his diagnosis he and Tazel have connected with ALS Network, a nonprofit he described as finding a "family of very caring people I did not know a year ago" — people who have helped them navigate every step of what comes next.

As for what this has taught Tazel about love, she didn't hesitate.

"That there are cases where it is truly unconditional."

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