Nick Offerman - 'Death by Lightning' & 'Margo's Got Money Troubles'

27:21Nick Offerman:I mean, it's pretty coincidental. Well, that was the thing, which just to cap off your last question, is that by sticking with theater, that was the way I sort of finally got my foot in the door with TV and film. People would see me in plays and they translate well to indie movies. So I started doing like Sundance movies pretty early on. NBC at the time was kind of the greatest, at least for my taste. they had those those great dramas so to get on er was such a huge deal and to get on a live episode was pretty exciting and west wing of course it was quite thrilling oh i'm blanking i'm now i'm sad i'm blanking on the name of the casting director uh i can see him who did er and and west wing yeah levy levy yeah john john yeah thank you tommy schlamme was instrumental in both of those producing and or directing in casting me.

28:25Nick Offerman:He took a shine to me. They said that they looked, they sort of looked at the pipeline of people coming from the Chicago theater scene because we had a great work ethic. Like we were dependably dramatic. We were realistic. Right. We weren't flashy or, you know, none of us ever got to audition for Baywatch, which I can work into a compliment. And so I benefited from that. The last show I did at Steppenwolf was Gary Sinise directed Buried Child. And so, you know, as a sort of younger brother of that group, I really benefited from those eyeballs. And so at the time, you know, Will & Grace and Friends and Seinfeld and the must-see TV tradition was a pretty crazy high bar that I had never fathomed.

29:20Nick Offerman:I wasn't being considered. I didn't know yet that I was a solid comedy performer. I mean, I had been in comedies, and I liked being funny on stage, but when I saw what Megan did when I'd go to every week to the taping of Will & Grace, I was like, oh, these people are like Buster Keaton. But it's also not totally removed from theater, right, when you're doing a multi-cam? It's not. I mean, I definitely, I think a little part of me said maybe someday I could do that. But it was so refined. It was like the Olympians of vaudeville. What they did, especially with Jim Burroughs, was just a 25-minute, you know, one act.

30:02Nick Offerman:And they fell down and they slapped each other. I recognized a lot of the ingredients in their recipe, but it was so fast and nimble and refined that I found it terrifying. And Will and Grace was the first sitcom I appeared on, and I was really scared just because it was so fast and clean. Like you can't miss. You have to play your notes. You only have seven notes. And if you miss one, you get fired. Well, I'll just also note in that early period just before and maybe going into just after, you know, you met Megan and I think your first David E. Kelly show decades before Margo's Got Money Trouble was The Practice.

30:47She did one episode, I believe, of that. Three episodes of 24, two episodes of NYPD Blue, and also Gilmore Girls, where I – speaking of pace, that's a fast one. An episode each of Deadwood and Monk. And then, as you say, films also beginning to enter the picture with, I guess, ones people would remember or have a high profile, City of Angels, Sin City. So those were small parts in big films. And then the first big part in a small film, I guess, was Treasure Island in 1999, which went to Sundance. So this is all a busy but not necessarily high-profile time for you. And I guess I'm very curious because you and Megan have both said, and it tracks, that you've had very similar trajectories.

31:38Like your big break was on an NBC show at approximately 38, 39 and other things along the way. But she's a few years ahead of you in age, and so it happened for her first. And I wonder, because I've lived in this town long enough to know that you can't go to the supermarket without passing something that reminds you that some people are very – their careers are thriving or whatever. and at a time perhaps when yours is not yet thriving, was it a gift or a tough thing that the person you're going home to every day was doing wonderfully in her career but yours was not yet there? Is that a tough thing to navigate?

32:21Nick Offerman:Well, I think I really benefited. She proudly is 67 and I'm 56, so she's about 11 years older. And so that really helped. We've always had a pretty open teacher-student dynamic. Even if we were the same age, she's sophisticated. It's beauty and the beast. And I'm happy about that. I don't care what I wear or what my haircut looks like. But I do care, you know, about the structural integrity of your porch that I built. And so it goes back to me always understanding for some reason I just don't have ambition. So I don't have goals of like I wish I could play a Jedi someday or I wish I could win a trophy or anything other than just participate with others in storytelling that's medicinal.

33:15Nick Offerman:If I had a life of theater, I'd be very happy. If I had a life of woodworking, I'd be very happy. And so I followed my nose. I still do. I just follow my nose organically. I don't seek things out. I've never called my agent and said, you get me this goddamn – why did I not audition to play Superman's dad or some – anything like that. Instead, I've learned – long since learned, decades ago, that I'm so much happier if I just – if I focus on the people who see me and want to collaborate with me, which is a very small pool of people. but they're very special and it they see something in me so when I when I started dating Megan and coming to see Will and Grace much like my theater school they took a shine to me and they actually had me come to this audition right away Tracy Lillian Field was the casting director in a bungalow at CBS Radford where we ended up shooting Parks and Rec they had me come to this audition on on Monday and I'm there with 30 guys that I've seen at all these other auditions.

34:32Nick Offerman:Then they have me come back on Tuesday and there are maybe three or five of us. And it's reading to do these scenes with Grace, with the Grace character. I think the character's name was Nathan. I'm surprised I remember. And then the next day I come back and there's two of us. Then the Thursday I come back and it's just me and they've written new stuff. and I'm reading with the producers and with Jim Burroughs and with the Grace actor. And I'm like, this is what's going on here. This is crazy. And they're being I don't know. Nobody's telling me anything, but they they obviously like me. And it's and I've been winnowed down to just me.

35:12Nick Offerman:And I said to Megan and also it's also weird because it's her show. And so like when I was up for Parks and Rec, I didn't call Amy, who I knew, because, you know, it's not cool. You don't call him and be like, hey, what's up? So if you want to tell someone that I'm the greatest, that wouldn't hurt my feelings. So there's this sort of cloak of silence. And so finally Friday, I was walking our dog, and I get a call from one of the two creators of Will & Grace. And they say, so here's the deal. we love your thing, what you do, you would have gotten this part. But Woody Harrelson just called and took the offer.

35:56Nick Offerman:Today was the deadline and he's taking the job. And it ended up being a whole season as Grace's boyfriend. And instead of like the feelings I had about it were simply, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so, it's so far beyond my comprehension that I might have gotten that job. That would have – I don't know if I could have handled that job. Just the fact that you put me in that contention was such a big feather in my cap. And so I never – I was so happy to have a wood shop and be getting these – I mean, hearing the list of shows, I'm very pleased and proud of them. And the thing is, though, when you hear them now, it sounds great, but that's like one or two a year.

36:47Nick Offerman:So there's a lot of carpentry work. I hung lights for Disney Imagineering for a few years. But I was Mr. Megan Mullally. I couldn't believe the heights at which my life had peaked. I thought I was set for life, but I was wrong. Well, apparently you and Megan, I guess, just before Parks and Rec entered the picture, I don't know if this was from Chicago or whatever, but you knew Rainn Wilson and you kind of recognized that if there was to be a kind of breakthrough opportunity for you, it was likely going to be – it was less likely to be the boyfriend of Grace than an eccentric kind of character.

37:30Nick Offerman:Yeah. Yeah, that was the thing. I mean, I still can't believe I got that close with Will and Grace for that reason. Because, you know, they like, you know, later participants were like Bobby Cannavale and Andy Garcia, you know, like guys who get cast as people who get kissed. But I knew Rain from auditioning and we auditioned against each other. And we're weirdos. We're bookish nerds who love like sci-fi and like eldritch, you know, Freemason conspiracy theories or not. Now I have to kill you. Right. And so when Rain – he got a big arc on Six Feet Under, possibly the greatest show of our lifetimes.

38:21Nick Offerman:and so I was like holy cow one of us got cast and he had that crazy there was like a romance between him and Francis Conroy or at least a at least a flirtation it's like oh my god I might have a chance in this world and a couple Will and Grace writers because there's a room of whatever 16 writers a couple of them took a shine to me wrote parts for me in pilots And so I understood I wasn't bubble gum. I wasn't high school musical material or what have you. But there's a certain percentage of people that see something in me. And so that will keep me sticking around. Well, it was pretty perceptive though because we're talking about Dwight in The Office and it's the guys from The Office, obviously, Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, who now – they're the ones who brought it from the UK to the US, right?

39:22Now they're asked – initially apparently the ask was to do a direct spinoff of The Office, right? And then Parks and Rec evolved from that. But this idea of a role in a show like that is exactly where this shook out. It couldn't have been more on the nose.

39:41Nick Offerman:And it was watching Rain. It's funny because I auditioned because of Alison Jones. I auditioned for Michael Scott with dozens of us. Yes. And then I auditioned a bunch for Roy who was Pam's ex who kept showing up. David – great actor. David Denman played it. But it's funny, in hindsight, and maybe the timing was maybe they already had rain, but eventually I was like, why couldn't, like, I would like to speak about bears and beets and Battlestar Galactica. And so, but watching The Office, I simply said, I feel like, and it's because I learned to recognize what writers I would get along with, like who could write in my voice.

40:30Nick Offerman:and so that's I called it and then in a later audition for Mike Schur for an episode he had written of The Office he called like that's where it clicked where he said you have something I can exploit you said he literally like wrote a post-it note or something? Yeah so in short I read for this part it was one of the there was Todd Packer who was played by Kechner, who's so great. In fact, when I went to read for Michael Scott, Kechner, I followed Kechner to audition for Michael Scott, which is pretty funny. But there were these other regional managers. I forget the storyline exactly, but it was one of these guys that Mike wanted me to play.

41:16Nick Offerman:And he offered it to me. And I had told Gary Sinise that I would do an episode of CSI New York. Now, I had already made a promise to myself that I would not do a CSI. CSI, and there was another one, because the thing was, you had to drive 45 minutes north to Valencia to audition for the original one. And they literally had me like 12 times. In fact, that's where I was when 9-11 happened, was in the waiting room of CSI audition. and eventually I said you know I was trying to just get noticed but I said to my agent like they have me on tape reading for the previous 11 rapists surely like now it's it seems insulting that they make me keep driving up there right so I just made a deal with myself you know what no more CSI but then Gary was doing CSI New York and asked me to come do an episode and of course I love Gary and I had a great I had a great I look at up to him as a big brother from Chicago theater.

42:21Nick Offerman:And I would jump at the chance to work with Gary. He's a legend in my life. And so I had promised that I'd broken my promise to myself to not do CSI. Mike sure wants me on The Office. I'm finally getting cast on The Office and I have to not do it. It was so hard. I couldn't believe it. Like I was shooting myself in my foot with my integrity. This was to be a regional, one of these regional managers. Yeah. And you couldn't do it. But I had given my word. I wasn't going to break my word to Gary, to the Chicago Theater Brotherhood. And so all of these things, I mean, as Megan pointed out later, if I had gotten any of these other pilots or shows, because I think it was very important that I was completely unknown when I got Parks and Rec.

43:10Nick Offerman:So Mike, so I couldn't do it. So Mike wrote my name on a post-it and put it on his computer monitor. And like three years later, I mean, they were making the show. Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. And he said, I want this guy on the show. And they originally read me for a total other part that kind of became Mark Brandanowicz. It was a romantic interest for Rashida. And of course, NBC then said, they literally said, you said in quotes, Aaron Eckhart, and you bring us Nick Offerman. You said Porsche, and you show up with a 1972 Ford F-250. You're too hard on yourself. I mean, I'll take the Ford F-250.

44:01Nick Offerman:I'd take that as a compliment. But in any case, NBC said no way. And so they said, thank God. They obstinately said we really want this guy in the show. There's this part of Amy's boss who's 20 years older than Nick. But let's give him that part. And they fought for months. NBC said no for months. The corporate fear. You had read on tape or what did they? They had a visual. and they weren't sure. Yeah, like Mike and Greg Daniels and Mike Schur turned me in and they said, no. We think we can do better. Because of whatever is unconventional about me, of course, the corporation has always feared that.

44:48Nick Offerman:But then they get Kramer and they're like, we've created the greatest thing. That's right. And so finally, after auditioning everybody and their brother in the country, they finally got down to me and another guy and they put us on tape uh improvising with amy and they only turned in my tape so they widened the net to everybody and then narrowed it back down it literally took five months from my first audition to getting the job do you remember how and how you heard you got the job and what your reaction was i sure do i was sitting in a breakfast uh stool at the breakfast counter in our the house we got married in and Mike Schur called me.

45:30Nick Offerman:So your agent will call you and say, Mike Schur wants to call you. And you're shitting little green apples in the parlance of my aunt Dee. And Mike calls and says, you got the job. And I said, all right, Mike, I'm going to just kind of sob openly. I want to stay on the phone, but I'm just going to do some crying now. And I just, I mean, I, you know, I was 38. I had been in town for 10 years, 11 years, but I'd been a pro for sneaking up on, you know, I don't know, 15, 18 years. I'd had so many near misses, you know, and I could just tell that this was very special. I could tell my life was about to change.

46:14Nick Offerman:I'm so grateful. I mean, to work with writers that brilliant who, you know, used my personal attributes to such great comedic extent, but also to learn from him and our producer Morgan Sackett and Amy and Greg Daniels to learn how to run a set and how to, you know, that you could have a job in Hollywood that was fun for everyone, where everybody is respected, where people are not exploited for money or greed or power. We had a no assholes rule and We had one asshole one time. They cast a sort of venerated older actor. Right. And he showed up. And you could tell he was from a different time. And he was supposed to do a pretty big arc.

47:01Nick Offerman:And that was nipped in the bud. And he was sent home. Wow. We were like, that shit don't fly here, buddy. Good. Quick follow-up. You mentioned personal attributes that were incorporated. Did your personal attributes at that time already include a mustache? I always loved, in the theater, having some sort of facial hair. Because I wasn't good at acting, but I could do super good like mutton chops. And that got me cast sometimes as like Forest Lord number two. And we're coming to Chester Arthur. That's right. So when Mike and I got on the phone and started creating Ron Swanson, we agreed early on he would have a substantial mustache.

47:43Got it. Just to note that seven-year, seven-season period for you started in 2009, beginning of the Great Recession. I think people appreciated having a laugh. But it did – the audience situation I know was – and the scheduling and all of it combined for kind of a lot of ups and downs. But the way the creators talked about it, they felt – and I think you have said you agree that it was the second season where it really kind of found its mojo, the show. and that they attribute that largely to you, and particularly the second episode of the second season when Ron gets a hernia, that that was a turning point, and from then on, it was kind of a different ballgame.

48:23I would just wonder, as a capper to the questions about Park specifically, when you think back at it on that run, and just the kind of, like what I'm talking about here, the instability of the show, of the show's prospects, not the quality of the show or anything like that, just what comes to mind, and part B to that, What is the secret to making a humorless guy funny, you know?

48:48Nick Offerman:Yeah. I mean, so the first answer is like it taps back into my gift of not caring about the business. Like when I got here and I had these meetings and I also had a commercial agent and I got I did a couple of commercials. And that was a great way to make a few months of rent. But I pretty quickly quit doing commercial auditions because I realized there's a room full of 40 guys and all that mattered was who made the funniest face today. And I could be earning, you know, and it would take a half a day or you'd spend a whole day doing two commercial auditions. And I was like, I could be earning a few hundred bucks as a carpenter right now.

49:34Nick Offerman:So I quit doing that and I just – all my friends that had come from Chicago would go to coffee shops or go to the bar and just commiserate about how hard it was and like their lives depended on did you get a call back? How's it going? Are you booking jobs? And I just didn't want my life to hinge on that. And so when Parks and Rec had this instability across its seven seasons, I didn't have to worry about it. That was not my problem. They would let me know if we were going to get to do 22 more next year. And I just always, I don't know, I always blithely, I'm always an optimist. I think things are going to go well because we're good people.

50:20Nick Offerman:We mean well. We're not trying to get away with anything. We do good work and our hearts are in the right place. And so, you know, if they said, well, that's it. They canceled us. I'm like, well, I guess I'm going to go build some cool canoes. Right, right. I love you guys. And for the making a humorless guy funny, I just want to know. I don't know. Did we ever even see? Forgive me if I'm like forgetting something I should remember. But did he ever? I don't know if we ever even saw him smile or laugh. He did. And Ron notoriously would giggle. Giggle. Okay. Right, right, right, right, right. When he was delighted by strange things, you know, like government shutdown.

50:59Nick Offerman:Right. It can cause him to giggle like a schoolgirl. Your question reminds me of, oh, hell, I can't think. You probably know his name. He's no longer with us, but the great actor who played the principal in Breakfast Club. I only know you'd said it in a different area. I can't remember. He was so great, but that's what it makes me think of. Or a little bit of Jeffrey, I'm also blanking his last name, from Ferris Bueller. Jeffrey Jones. Jeffrey Jones. And you also talked about Christopher Lloyd, right, in Taxi was another. Yeah, although he and Jeffrey Jones both are a little more overtly clowning.

51:41Nick Offerman:Right, right. But the guy, maybe his name is Paul Gleason? That sounds right. Something like that, where he's just dead serious, like don't mess with the bull. young man, you'll get the horns. So he was serious. He was over serious to a point that I just thought it was so goddamn funny. And there was a great, there was a dad in the movie 16 Candles. It was the one who was housing the character, the transfer student, Long Duck Dong. And he's just said, like, we, we love this kid. He does the dishes. He helps with the laundry. You betcha. Just banal statements like that. There's something about it that made my cousin and I just crack up.

52:22Nick Offerman:So we would always say things to each other that were deadpanned to make each other laugh. And I guess that was the seed of it. That's great. I'll just note that during the run of Parks and Rec, among the other credits there are, in terms of films, Men Who Stare at Goats, 2009, All Good Things, 2010, Smash, 2012, the 21 and 22 Jump Street movies, 2012 in 2014 Lego Movie Voice, and then one that you've said one of your personal favorites of yours, I think, is Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. That's all in there. But coming off of Parks and looking at what offers were coming your way and how people were seeing you, what sorts of things were you getting versus what sorts of things were you hoping to be getting?

53:07Nick Offerman:Well, I mean, that job, it's wild. I was over the moon before I ever got that job. And so the place that Parks and Rec elevated my sort of clout to was just wild. And humorously, when we were wrapping it up, I got calls from people like Ron Howard or Phil Rosenthal or two who had ideas of a show they wanted to do with me. And they both just sounded a little too similar. They were like, I was like, listen, all I want to do is something besides Ron Swanson. Yes, sure. And they were like, this is nothing like Ron Swanson. It's a former Marine who's super good at grilling. And you're like, let me stop you right there.

53:59Nick Offerman:And I was like, I can't believe I'm in this position to say no thank you to even. I just never, I wasn't into it. Like I could have done that and just ridden out this persona. And then what? Have a yacht and be a jerk, you know, who smokes too many cigars. So I got a lot of that. I got some nice indie film work that's always been kind of my bread and butter. But for me, two things happened. One was Noah Hawley put me in a season of Fargo, which was such a big deal to me that he was, you know, one of those guys. It was like, I have a good weird thing for you to do and gave me a wonderful set of episodes.

54:41Nick Offerman:But I said to my agents, like, this Ron Swanson thing is not going to go away. So let me just work in my woodshop for a while. Like, let's create some daylight and see if nature really abhors a vacuum kind of thing. And sure enough, they called and Alex Garland wanted to meet me. This is a few years later, but I couldn't believe that it worked that way. And he has never seen Parks and Rec, which is crazy to me. Because he wanted to meet me to be the lead of this series that he did called Devs, one of the two leads. And so I met with him and I just really besotted with his work. I think he's a beautiful genius of a filmmaker and writer and a human thinker.

55:28Nick Offerman:And there's another guy named Brett Haley who made these beautiful movies called I'll See You in My Dreams, The Hero. And then the third one is called Hearts Beat Loud. And they're kind of a beautiful trilogy. The first one stars Blythe Danner and Martin Starr and Sam Elliott plays her boyfriend. Then the second one is Sam's movie. And I play his weed dealer and friend. I remember it, yeah. And then Brett liked me. And so he, with his partner Mark Bash, they wrote the third one for me and Kiersey Clemens. And they're really lovely movies. I highly recommend those. I just want to also quickly shout out, I thought you were great.

56:10And this is an underappreciated movie, The Founder, as the sort of backstory of McDonald's. And you were one of the McDonald's brothers. Unfortunately, I think it was one of the last Weinstein Company movies. So it was not a kind of a casualty of that.

56:24Nick Offerman:Thank you. I love that movie. And I loved working with John Carroll Lynch. Yes. And Michael Keaton, of course. And Michael should have really been up for awards for that movie. But specifically, Harvey wanted a different ending. And he spent the money to cut his own version and rerecord his own score. score, but the director had final cut, and so it got buried. The thing that obviously, I'm not telling this to you, but just to remind listeners, it feels like it had to have been the huge game changer. I don't think that people thought this, but if anyone did feel that Ron Swanson was the lane that you were always going to be in, or that was the one that you could excel in, The Last of Us obviously blew that away with, Just to remind folks, Bill, this survivalist who traps and then falls in love with a man in this one episode, a long, long time, the third episode of this season.

57:29It's 16 years of their lives in about 40 minutes, I believe. People liken it to the opening of Up, which is a pretty high praise. And obviously you end up with somehow had never even gotten an Emmy nomination for Parks and Rec but get nominated for and win very deservedly the guest actor in a drama Emmy for The Last of Us. And it seems like that really was a big eye-opener for people, rightly so. And so I just have to ask, when you read it, was that part of the appeal that this is going to allow you to show a different side of what you can do?

58:04Nick Offerman:It's interesting. Again, I don't get offered enough stuff that I'm like, well, which of these eight things should I do? I mean, to begin with, there's a lot of stuff being made in this business, but there's not a lot of good stuff being made. And so – and my agents at UTA are very good at filtering out probably, I don't know, a lot of things that maybe people ask about me for and they're like, I don't think he would like this CBS program or whatever. With all due respect to the fine people. The Tiffany Network. At that station. So it's interesting. And I also already knew Craig Mazin. And I sponsored a Little League team for years for my godson.

58:49Nick Offerman:And Craig was one of my Little League dads. And so I already had this cool friend, Craig, who had written a hangover movie. And he called me and said, I'm sending you something. You have to do it. And this was post-Chernobyl. And I was like, oh, no. Because I've got a pretty full schedule. And Megan and I just had a talk about how I overload my schedule. I'm afraid of this. So it came in and I read it and sure enough, I was like, holy cow. But I don't think about things in terms of like, oh, I just played so many pirates. Now I should play a lawyer or something like that. Just things come to me.

59:28Nick Offerman:My agent sent me this movie Sovereign, for example, and it was just the writing speaks to me or it doesn't. And when it speaks to me, then I have to do it. And it's very rare. So I'm so grateful that enough things have come to me that continue to speak to me. So the last of I recognized that it was a no brainer, that it was very special. But I also had to I said, Megan, please read this and tell me what to do, because the month they wanted me to shoot it was already booked to other things. And so she read it and said, buddy, you're going to Canada. guess what yeah yeah so i mean i don't know it's funny i my favorite writer wendell berry the kentucky agrarian when when i see him he says well well i just i've been writing the same book for for decades and uh and you know it's treated like uh as though i've achieved some sort of mastery, but all I'm trying to do is get the same things across.

1:00:36And I, you know, since I'm on the

1:00:40Nick Offerman:same trajectory of another Sato sensei idiom is the teacher and the student walk the same path. And I just still feel like I'm on the path of like, you know, trying to work with the best writing and perform it as effectively as I can. It's just that simple. And so to get handed that script, and I'm just so grateful with Murray Bartlett and Peter Hoare, our director, and Craig Mazin, that we pulled it off. You know, we knew the whole time, if we don't screw this up, this is going to knock people on their duffs. And so I'm just glad I didn't mess it up. It was unbelievable. And to connect it finally to this incredible year or so that we're coming off of with you, I'll just note connecting the dots from after Last of Us.

1:01:34You have origin for Ava DuVernay, dumb money, Craig Gillespie back with Alex Garland with Civil War. Life of Chuck wins the audience award at Toronto Film Festival Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise, the last of them, the final reckoning. Or is it? Or is it? Right. Exactly. And then this just incredible year where I mentioned all those years when you were overlooked unjustly, I think, at the Emmys. Here you've got two in one year, first for Death by Lightning, which, as I alluded to earlier, Chester Arthur, just the most unlikely vice president and then the most unlikely good president. And then also, of course, Margo's Got Money Troubles back with David E.

1:02:18Kelly at a very different point in your career now. I guess just with Death by Lightning first, adapted from a book that weirdly I'd actually read in this case. I'd really thought it was an excellent Destiny of the Republic 2011.

1:02:31Nick Offerman:I love Candace Millard. I love her books. I had not read this one, but I had read River of Doubt and the Winston Churchill one. I can't think of the name of it. But she's fantastic. Totally. But I imagine like, you know, when you first hear about this, you think, you know, Chester, Arthur, that doesn't necessarily scream until you've read it, I guess, you know, that there's a lot that you can do with this. But I mean, I just think in this case, one of the most impressive things is just the physicality of the performance where he's often a pretty drunken guy, but he's also reeling from loss. And maybe that's driving some of this.

1:03:11the comedic stuff about just he can't figure out why Garfield is still being decent towards him after all the crap that he pulls. Just what did you kind of relish the most about that character?

1:03:24Nick Offerman:Well, I mean, I'm so grateful to Mike Murkowski who adapted it and created it and wrote it. He said, it's funny, he said he could never think of anyone but me the whole time he was writing it. and when you see it, it's a pretty left-handed compliment. Like the fat piece of shit in the story. I mean, I just couldn't get you out of my head. When I read it, initially I was just immediately gripped by the story of how Garfield got nominated and then elected and the story of Guiteau. And I think I knew going into it, I knew it was Mike Shannon and Matthew McFadden. I think they had been cast. And so to have those two, you know, Mount Rushmore actors in my mind's eye.

1:04:15Nick Offerman:And then Chester ends up having the greatest arc. You know, there's so much comedy and pathos into his journey. I just was once again, I was just so grateful that this piece of writing and I ran into each other. You know, somebody said, who could be achingly effectual as an ursine, beer-guzzling, you know, naked guy? Well, and then you go right from that one for which you had to, I think, put on or chose to put on about 20 pounds in Budapest. You're shooting it. You go from that to playing Jinx in pretty directly, right, in Margo's Got Money Trouble. Well, just to remind or for anyone who's still catching up, former wrestler whose chronic pain has led to addiction and rehab.

1:05:06Now he's coming out and back into the world and trying to reintegrate into the life of his daughter who's played by Al Fanning, who I believe you'd been already a big fan of, right?

1:05:17Nick Offerman:Yeah. I put on 20 pounds in Budapest. Chester Arthur was corpulent. And I wasn't going to get there, but we had a great fat suit that I was very proud of because it was pretty gigantic. But with those paper collars, if you go a little tight on the lower neck, it pushes up like a donut, a spare tire of cleavage. It gives you a few extra chins. So I was really proud with how heavy I came off in that. And the timing was kind of just perfect because I think I had a solid four months maybe to work out with this great trainer named Grant Roberts and turn my body into a former pro wrestler's body. And yeah, when I was in Budapest shooting Death by Lightning, when the offer came in for Margo's Got Money Troubles, I mean, in that email, you got David E.

1:06:14Nick Offerman:Kelly, Apple, A24, Shoots in L.A., which is a unicorn, Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman. Right. And Megan happened to be visiting me that weekend, and we were going to drive to Vienna for a romantic weekend. I highly recommend it. And so we had the audio book read by Elle Fanning of Margo's Got Money Troubles. So, I mean, the pitch could not have been more of a spa weekend of luxury of like, what else? Maybe if it came with a box of like grass fed tomahawk steaks, it could have been top. But I mean, so we listened to Elle read this thing, just fall in love with her as the part and with the story and everything about it.

1:07:00Nick Offerman:I still can't believe I got that part. Specifically, Megan and I were so crazy about Elle's show The Great. I mean, we would watch it and just marvel at her talent and say, this kid, holy cow, I mean, how amazing would it be to work with her someday? Yeah. And I think the other thing people should note about this and your involvement with it, it's hard to believe. It took me a second to really think about what you were saying here, But you had said in another interview that this role comes along, you're 54, right? And you had never in a TV series previously been asked to play a person who's central enough that you're tracking their emotional – they have an emotional journey across the whole series.

1:07:51It's not to denigrate Ron Swanson, who's a great character, but it wasn't. It was a very different kind of a part. This really represented, I think the way you described it, the most flavorful role I've ever had emotionally.

1:08:05Nick Offerman:Yeah, for sure. I mean Ron is the emperor role of my life. But it's just that genre of show. So, you know, I mean, and Ron did have an emotional journey and did have storylines that even made people cry sometimes. But they didn't require me to play things. It's what this writing demands of me that made it terrifying and exciting. And I'm very grateful for all the guys I got to play that we didn't care about. How's Carl Weathers in Fargo? How's he feeling today? We don't care. We just love the effect he's having on Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst or Kristen Milioti. So to be in these relationships with Elle and with Michelle, my ex-baby mama, is really thrilling.

1:09:01Nick Offerman:It keeps me firmly rooted in the kimono of the student that my sensei suggested I wear. I love feeling like a freshman. And one of the great things was at the table read for Margo's Got Money Troubles, that was where I met Michelle Pfeiffer. And I was really terrified. Like I just – I don't get starstruck much anymore, but it's Michelle Pfeiffer. And she – and it's her. And I sit next to her and she immediately disarmed me by saying that she was really nervous and that she said some very nice things to me about stuff she's seen me in. and just immediately was so human. And I was like, oh, thank God.

1:09:47Nick Offerman:And so she also is showing new colors and new signs of herself. So it's a big part of this show for the two of us that we get to feel like kids. We get to feel like freshmen trying on, like taking a new elective, basically. And it's so, who knew with the decades of legendary work we've had from her that she had a new trick, you know, that she's hilarious in this great way. You guys are all a terrific ensemble, and we should know it also as a series. Well, it's cool to be nominated twice personally, but it's also pretty cool, I would think, to be part of shows that are recognized more broadly. And with Margot, it's Best Comedy Series as well, which was another thing that I don't remember exactly, but Parks and Rec never got the love it deserved there either.

1:10:38Nick Offerman:We didn't. I mean, Amy got a few nominations, but really the show was left alone by awards. Every year, Modern Family would get like five guys nominated in my category. I was like, man, like the kid? I couldn't get on there in front of the kid? It was ridiculous. I mean, that's a great—nothing against that show, but there's some problems with the— The thing is, from the get-go, and I just feel so lucky, is I recognized, look, I would so much rather be snubbed as Ron Swanson than win a bunch of trophies for being the kid on Modern Family. With all due respect to his great talent. Right. Well, thank you so much for all the great entertainment and for doing this, and I'm excited to see what's next.

1:11:29Thank you.

1:11:29Nick Offerman:My pleasure. I appreciate your optimism.

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