Nick Offerman the Humorist

26:47Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, I, I agree. I mean, especially the pace that we shoot at these days, now that we no longer shoot on film and these new cameras, the RE camera and the RED camera require basically no lights. The turnaround is a thing of the past where they're like, you used to have a break. You used to be able to pace your day where you're like, okay, then I know when they turn the world around, I'm going to have an hour off so I can brush up my monologue or whatever. But now we work at this incredible pace. And so I defy the most talented actor is can't be perfectly right every time.

27:31And so on every project, I'm so grateful when a director is like, all right, I think we've done three your way. And I think we got that. But what if this other idea and invariably every time you're like god damn it you just made me twice the actor thank you so much because any and then you have a choice that you got there that way or their way and it's it's uh you know very important just to clarify dana for p for people at home for people turn it around let's say you're doing a western and you know i do a lot and then they're shooting my scene, they shoot a wide shot, but when they shoot, like, let's say Nick talking and there's a lot of stuff behind them, then they say, let's take a break and get the other actors close up.

28:18They have to turn the cameras around and then they have to take all the covered wagons and move them behind that side and move the crew on that side, all the lighting on this side. And that stuff takes an hour. So throughout your day, you do have these breaks where you get to think for a second and go over your lines and cram and go, I don't think I know these perfectly. let's run them again and when you don't get that like you're saying it starts to go oh shit when i get that morning makeup chair i better be ready for almost anything today because they can flip it and say actually we're going to start with the last scene today and you're like what guaranteed and i'm the king of uh i'm the king of on the drive home i all always better way i'm like that's how i should have said that joke or that's the perfect comeback um i'd love something uh tripped me up dana that i just want it's a tiny thing but uh if i can bring the conversation around to comedy i don't know if you guys are comfortable discussing that project

29:17Dana Carvey:we love everything we love when people ask us anything or say anything about whenever i'm accused of of being a stand-up i you i kind of bristle because i am such a fan of obviously your guys jugger the juggernaut careers in comedy you've both had and i do tour and perform but i say that i'm a humorist because the thing that all of my comedy friends have that i don't is a joke machine like you among other things you guys are incredibly you have a facility to get to say things at the drop of a hat that the audience is like how the fuck did they come up with that. The person I've spent probably the most time with that watching him do it is Zach Galifianakis.

30:05But you guys are both geniuses in your own right. I've enjoyed you for decades. And so when I get up in front of an audience, I do songs, but I don't speak in joke. I speak in essay and so it's it's and i have a great time i love touring uh but i i just always when people say stand up i'm like don't please don't mistake me for the great like i i feel like i belong more with uh spalding gray or garrison keeler or yeah i know you're saying like that's why yeah your

30:42Dana Carvey:couch does a stand-up but your your use of language is so different and quirky if george If George Carlin was half as funny, I'd be in his league. Well, you have your own lane and it's almost harder to find an interesting lane other than just Dana and I are like. But you're up there taking your time. You're owning the stage. Yeah, I could say you're humorous. You're not needy for the next laugh. You're also using quirky word packages, quirky ways of saying stuff. And they find it with you. part of your charm is that you're unexpected and zach is another example of just genius mind that uh in his own weird world that just completely can drop me with stuff he says he's so good he really yeah he really is uh yeah zach is he's a very special talent i hope he gets discovered uh yeah that's so great do you i was just thinking when you're going back to acting and directing have you had a director that's giving you too many notes between takes and you start to feel yourself getting annoyed and how do you deal with here how do you deal with necessary even benign confrontation in in the in a movie set well i've been really spoiled i gotta say like Maybe because of the weird organic career path I've had, the good writing usually is surrounded with good directors and good producers.

32:20So by and large, but I definitely do, that happens frequently where, and I love collaborating with a director. And sometimes the writer, sometimes a writer will get in there too. And I appreciate it. Like I said, like we pointed out, rather than – I don't think I'm Laurence Olivier where I'm like, please let me create my masterpiece. Step the fuck away. I'm like, no, great, great, great. You're helping me achieve the maximum medicine with what we're making here. But even an enthusiastic smart director even can just get to – they're like, okay. They come over after a scene and they can get to a second note and then a third note.

33:05And then I don't know if you saw, but there's a comma or whatever. And I'm like, okay. But the thing is, I'm usually friendly where I'll either say, okay, I'm going to do the first two. And then if you still need the comma or whatever, or I'll just, you know, one of the great things I learned writing books, I have a wonderful editor named Jill Schwartzman, who's done all my books. And with my first book, I'm a total perfectionist and I'm a workaholic. So I write this book. And like so many things that we work on, you learn, you can edit it for the rest of your life. Like at some point you have to say, okay, put it in the goddamn bookstore.

33:53Like, because we keep going back and forth with editing and it was such a huge lesson to let go of an artwork or a project and say, all right, I've done my goddamn best on this. Could I keep tweaking it for years? Sure. Sure. And I'm doing that right now. And it's so true for TV and film that the editor and the director have to say, okay, show it, just show it to the people. because you're no one ever thinks okay this is perfect someone has to stop you almost it's like just stop this is your deadline you need the end of a semester you got to turn in your paper and so when a director is being like that with me i just think okay i'm going to do my best to give you what you're asking for and it might only be half of what you're asking for but ultimately we will present that collaboration with confidence well they don't realize it's too hard to absorb some of these notes it's like to remember the scene already all your lines and you go oh and go a little dark on that and you're making a sandwich and the mustard is like squirting water and then script comes up and goes you were shaking the mustard on the third line and you go

35:08Dana Carvey:it's an indianapolis it's a pit stop like a race car because you get the hair people are doing the hair you're getting notes and everyone's looking at you it's your close up it's the money shot and you're trying just to be loose and totally in the moment it's a little it's a hat trick it's so funny this yeah there's someone like pinning down your prosthetic and the director's like now listen emotionally i need you to get to a place yeah yeah yeah some great actor or actress i can't remember what's saying it retired from acting and basically happily but just said no one's gonna ever pick at my shirt or come at my hair again and it was like what they were so overjoyed what i was gonna i it i watched uh vertigo recently non sequitur but you know hitchcock was a minimalist and there was a lot of moving masters that just means the camera moves it doesn't just it doesn't you know unless he needs it and now in the modern era for a long time with digital and being able to go in there you feel like the director's watching gets bored and the editor and then we'll cut some more and cut some more and you saw it maybe when it was in simple shots and go this is a great scene and then it gets strangled i megan and i talk about this a lot because we are our our uh popular culture and our our um our attention deficit disorder has gotten to the point it kind of started with oliver stone I loved sword fighting on stage.

36:41I was a choreographer. And if anybody's listening, I'm still desperately wanting to play a swashbuckler. And Oliver Stone, we make a generalization. Yeah. I believe the number of musketeers required is three. Ah! Yeah.

37:04Oliver, to make a generalization that's unfair to Oliver Stone, but he brought in the sense of fast cutting where at first it was fresh and exciting, like the violent cutting of combat scenes of every sort. But for those of us that love the artistry of Jackie Chan or Gene Kelly, where you see the ballet and the use. And I feel like popular culture has gotten so cut up to the point that we are now having this renaissance where shows like the studio and other great filmmakers are masturbating with the one or the long one. moving master. And they do it incredibly. I don't consider masturbating to be a disparaging verb.

37:58I think it's a triumph of mother nature. But I mean, Megan and I really appreciate that as theater actors where don't just depend on flash. Flash is fun and has its place, But you've got these actors and this writing and the scenery. What you immediately made me think of is in the movie Sovereign, this wonderful actor, Thomas Mann, plays Dennis Quaid's son. And I did a movie with Thomas, I guess about 10 years ago, called Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. and it won Sundance. It won both things at Sundance, the trophy and the audience award. And rightly so. It's a beautiful movie. Thomas is the lead.

38:50And we got this incredible cinematographer from Korea who had done this movie called Old Boy. And I'm not going to try and remember and butcher the guy's name, but he's the guy who shot Old Boy. and Alfonso Gomez-Rajon was the director. And on the very first day, he says to his Korean DP, who can't speak a word of English, there's a translator, and it's a shot with me on a couch and we're in a living room in Pittsburgh. And he's like, okay, we're going to see these two boys walking up the front sidewalk through the window. They're going to say something to this cat sitting on the windowsill. Then we're going to come around on Nick and he's watching a Klaus Kinski movie.

39:36Then we're going to come around and the boys are arriving at the door and we're going to start the scene. This is the first shot of the movie. And I just was like, and I love everybody there. I have no misgivings to this point. Connie Britton and I play his mom and dad. And he says this and I'm like, oh, we're fucked. This is a 23-day Sundance shoot. and we got it in like two takes and and it was one of the rare times that i've worked with a director who aggressively used the camera in a hitchcockian sense it was so beautiful um and i i've my my role is small supporting but i highly write this movie is so gorgeous it's really funny and ultimately makes you cry at the end um what's the name again it's called me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

40:28Okay. Yeah, when you get those shots. It's so incredible. In this day and age, when somebody slows down, and that's actually what my woodworking book is about, is slowing down your life off of your smartphones and your screens to a human pace. No. You don't have to.

40:49Dana Carvey:No, I'm going to share that thought on X right now if you don't mind. That's right. No, go for it. Make a TikTok of me. Let me say it again. Beep, bop, boop. Was Birdman with steel? Going back to Michael Keaton, was it Birdman, the one with the five-minute shots? Yeah. That was the other extreme, you know. Dude, I just saw The Player. Remember The Player, Nick, from about 20 years ago? That's, it's Cullen Brothers, right? Who directed it? It was about showbiz. Yeah. Tim Robbins is a studio head. Was it early Cullen Brothers? Opens with a maybe 10-minute shot. Oh yeah. God. That's. On the studio.

41:31I mean, yeah, those guys, the, I, I just, I love to make things. Here's the thing. The world of capitalism tells us make things as fast as you can. That's how you make the most money. And that's like the, the global mantra. We're marching to that goddamn Elon anthem. And so what I desperately, you know, in my tiny woodshop, I'm like, hang on. your life is way more enjoyable if you slow down and build your own dining table or if you do shots like the opening of the player like that that movie experience is going to be so much more delicious for everybody involved and you're somebody's going to make 17 000 less dollars but every but it's a much better meal i'm talking about it 20 years ago 20 years later where you say and every actor in it it's so fun to go like you with your the couch when you feel the camera that's the scariest there's no cue when you feel it it's coming yeah it's here that's the fun is everybody gets it right you know those shots i was i was watching the whole thing going i wonder how many how long it took to shoot a day and then i was watching more i'm like two days where they have to choreograph everything and just keep trying it going all right we're gonna try one everyone's like you fall here there's a car crash there's this very hard to do but fun to see it's astonishing i mean it's it's an astonishing thing to just finish a feature film like if you see your film or your friend's film in a theater even if it sucks eggs yeah you go hug them and be like jesus christ it's a it's impossible to make a feature film it shouldn't be allowed yeah the thing is the bad ones are as hard to make as a good ones i've had both and it's like holy shit people go what the fuck i go i can't believe if i knew it was gonna i would have put less effort but you're trying to make every day every line good and when it doesn't work out you're like god all that work it's so hard you can't believe it even gets finished you're right as i suspected i sorry it's niggling me and uh it's i just i just looked it up and it's robert altman made the player.

43:44Yeah. It was niggling all of us.

43:46Dana Carvey:I was, I'm just curious for this conversation. I conflated it with Barton Fink. That's a great word. Do you actively increase your, do you read the dictionary or whatever? Because you seem to have a pretty big vocabulary. I don't, I do love vocabulary because it's a place. I started in the Catholic church as an

44:14readings as the lector. And so at age like 14, I'm up there reading to the church full of people, reading the gospel readings. And that was where I think it all began for me, where I was like, oh, depending on how I tone this reading, I can make my cousin laugh. If I'm a little too serious with my delivery, the congregation has moved and my cousin is like, that was fucking hilarious. very inspired by leslie nielsen's line readings and naked gun and so true i was talking about

44:51Dana Carvey:that yesterday you know all respect to liam neeson and the the latest one before neslie he just there's something magic about his timing and his tone in that those movies naked gun yeah there's someone decided take a serious guy and get don't again don't call me shirley and you're like, wait, that's funny. Like someone goes, if you did this the whole movie, it's such a gamble. Oh yeah. And Airplane 2, their earlier one, Peter Graves, you know. Do you like gladiator movies? I mean, it's just, I was going to ask you, because we have you here. It's like, just quickly, what are the movies that you and your wife would watch more than once or performances that really stand out?

45:36Dana Carvey:You know, my wife and I have different movies that you revisit because they're so brilliant. I'm going to, may I excuse myself for a tinkle and think about that and I'll be right back? Absolutely. We have editing capability. Heat up your 4th of July at the Home Depot with our wide variety of grills under$300 and make every gathering one to remember. Give your outdoor space a glow up. Whatever your budget is, with savings on seasonal plants starting at$5. With the grill fired up and your backyard set to perfection, you'll be able to invite friends and family over to kick off the party. Start celebrating with low prices guaranteed at The Home Depot.

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47:20Dana Carvey:Followed through 825-46. Participating stores only while supplies last. Visit store for full terms. So the thing about Nick, why he's a great person to interview, is that Nick is real. uh oh he's back you're back yeah oh dana was giving you a compliment when you were gone uh please continue don't let me interrupt you uh you know the last of us you won the emmy i didn't know if i mentioned that you said he's very great i gave a very quirky acceptance speech very very you very interesting so you're eccentric do you go to someone for speeches do you go to someone and say anything you would say if there's anything funny you just have i know believe me i might go to someone and go give me something for this oh for sure i i uh i i love um anything that i do when i tour as a humorist i write my material but i you know i'm friends with uh the genius writers and who who love like their bread and butter is they love for me to send them my stuff And they're like, here's two jokes about Brett Kavanaugh or whatever.

48:34And I'm like, fantastic. And it's funny, they refuse payment. I'm like, let me pay you. And they're like, no, if you get a laugh with my joke, that's my pay. It's so flattering. So then I send them a nice bottle of something they like to drink. um that's so i while i was urinating for 17 minutes uh yeah that's a long break i would that's a very there are a couple interesting things about your question one is i feel like megan and i the answer to your question is historical it's like singing in the rain it's it's great performances from our youth that are that are monumental and foundational and innocent and nice

49:27Dana Carvey:Donald O 'Connor make him laugh I mean yeah and I mean the films of Mel Brooks like Marx Brothers Laurel and Hardy we watch a ton of Laurel and Hardy and there's this scene at the end of their movie the music box where they're trying to get a piano up a set of stairs in Echo Park famous scene and they finally get it up and get it into the house. And they do this little dance with each other. And they hook arms and do a little dance. And we consider that scene to be this, that's our marriage. That represents our household. Oh, interesting. Nice. That's the two of us. Yeah. But in the modern age, because you get questions like this sometimes.

50:17And what we've realized is we would watch Will & Grace and Parks and Rec when they aired, and we've never seen them again. And there are some things we've done that we've never seen. But with all of the preponderance of things available to us to watch or listen to or read these days,

50:47it's very rare that it would ever occur to us to watch something a second time. And which brings me to something I find very interesting. And I've been the great beneficiary of just lucky timing that Parks and Rec happened when it first began to hit around 2010. Social media was also just beginning to hit like memes and GIFs or GIFs were just. And so they were just arriving on the scene and the world was like, does anybody make funny faces? Like, who can we plug in here? So we benefited from that timing. And then when we were all done, people don't realize now that we were never a hit show. We were on the bubble every year.

51:35And it was because we were - No one realizes that. We were in the transition from the Nielsen ratings to DVR to streaming. And so the kids were all going crazy for Parks and Rec, but it wasn't showing up on the rating system, which was a real bummer because we didn't get award nominations and we didn't get a raise. We were kind of one of the biggest hit shows critically, but business-wise, it never clicked for us. And so then, especially once the pandemic hit, there's this new thing, especially among young people, where they pick a show like Friends or The Office or Parks and Rec, and it's their comfort show.

52:23And they just always have it playing. So I meet a lot of kids these days that say, oh, God, I've seen Parks and Rec seven or eight times through. To which I say, let me recommend some books to you. Like there are things you could be doing. Like I would love for you to see it once. Let me teach out a whittle. But it's a crazy phenomenon in the modern day that the kids – because you also – if you loved a show when we were young, you couldn't watch it again.

52:56Dana Carvey:yeah well you wait six months for one rerun pieces well then they made great films great films are hard to make when my wife we're looking in for old films we've seen the godfather you know we we revisit those two uh but there's just not a plethora i mean quentin tarantino whoops named i was interviewing him substituting for jimmy kimmel he said there's no great movies between near 2000 and it was 2023 when i interviewed no really great movies besides mine basically i'm paraphrasing but i thought one that really stood out was the descendants with george cluny sure as something that we will visit once in a while we also go back to sound of music which i became possessed by and was not a fan of musicals as a kid and i'll watch it and then i became possessed by it as the greatest arc of a couple of a relationship i've ever seen i must have done something right the song in the gazebo yeah just gets me every time somewhere in my youth and childhood i must have done something good yeah when i was a kid living out in the little in the middle of a cornfield growing up in the 70s we and when we finally got a vcr in like 1982 or something never had cable my whole life we had five video cassettes and two of them were singing in the rain and the sound of music it's interesting how ubiquitous how Abbey Road certain movies are where it's like everyone knows the White Album the Wizard of Oz was another that was good Nick before we let you go I want to say that I had a when I did this old show, just shoot me.

54:42Oh my God. A few people remember back there that, uh, Megan was right next to me with Will and grace. And she was always so hilarious, so wonderful and always so great on her show. Tell her hi. And, uh, and, uh, we had a great time that during that run of both of those shows, so much fun over there, watching them in their new cars anyway, sources, uh, but, uh, great to talk to you, Nick. Really, really appreciate it. And, uh, we, we, Oh, we can't have you hang up right away. You have to wait a hair. Oh, don't worry. Of our technology, whatever.

55:15Dana Carvey:I met you and your lovely wife. I like that expression. Backstage at the Largo and got to chat with you guys for five minutes. Lovely people. Well, we're not Hollywood phonies. I'm just going to say it. No, no. We're super boring. And I recommend that to everyone who thinks a Hollywood. I don't think anyone's having a good time going to clubs and like chasing whatever the diddy party idea is. We stay home. We literally do jigsaw puzzles and listen to like stodgy murder mysteries read as audio books. That's our line of coke. It can be fun. Listen, that's a different form of fun that people are maybe picking up on again.

56:04Dana Carvey:Scrabble. That was during the pandemic. I'm done with diddy parties. My wife doesn't throw it in. Unless he gets out. You do a ton of blow and then dump out a jigsaw puzzle. And you go 72 hours. Sit down on a big butt plug. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Nick. Good to see you, bud. And we'll talk soon.

56:28Hey, guys. If you're loving this podcast, which you are, be sure to click follow on your favorite podcast app. Give us a review, five-star rating, or maybe even share an episode that you've loved with a friend. If you're watching this episode on YouTube, please subscribe. We're on video now! Fly on the Wall is presented by Odyssey, an executive produced by Danny Carvey and David Spade, Heather Santoro and Greg Holtzman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, and Leah Reese Dennis of Odyssey.

56:56Dana Carvey:Our senior producer is Greg Holtzman, and the show is produced and edited by Phil Sweetech. Booking by Cultivated Entertainment. him. Special thanks to Patrick Fogarty, Evan Cox, Maura Curran, Melissa Wester, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney, and Lauren Vieira. Reach out with us. Any questions to be asked and answered on the show, you can email us at flyonthewall at odyssey.com. That's A-U-D-A-C-Y dot com.