Nick Offerman plays a pro wrestler dad in ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ : NPR

Nick Offerman plays Jinx, a former professional wrestler in Margo’s Got Money Troubles.

Apple TV

hide caption

toggle caption

Apple TV

Actor Nick Offerman admits that he’s had a really lucky career. He spent seven years playing the beloved character Ron Swanson in the comedy series Parks and Recreation, starred in the recent Netflix historical drama Death by Lightning and won an Emmy Award for his guest appearance on The Last of Us.

But throughout it all, there was something missing: “With the good fortune of getting to work consistently, I also fell into a certain category of dependable supporting actor — journeyman, bus driver, plumber, guy manning the grill,” Offerman says. “One thing I haven’t been called on to do a lot of is have a complicated emotional relationship, or have an inner emotional arc that we want the audience to care about.”

The new Apple TV series Margo’s Got Money Troubles gave Offerman a chance to stretch himself. The series stars Elle Fanning as Margo, a college freshman who has an affair with her English professor, gets pregnant and decides to raise the baby on her own.

Offerman plays Margo’s dad Jinx, a former professional wrestler who has been largely absent from his daughter’s life. Jinx’s career is in the past, but his injuries have caused him chronic pain — which led to addiction and then rehab.

“I love transforming,” Offerman says of the role. “One thing I love about my job is sinking into the material deeply enough that sometimes the audience will say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that’s the guy from the other thing.’ And that’s sort of my favorite compliment to get if I get one.”

In addition to starring with Fanning, Offerman also shares the screen with Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman — and with two babies who played the role of Margo’s son, Bodhi.

“It’s an old adage, even on the stage, ‘Children and animals — don’t ever write them into your show because you just can’t trust them,'” he says. “But they were just astonishing. We would finish these dramatic scenes with Elle and Michelle and everyone would say, ‘Good Lord, did you see what that baby did?’ They really were scene stealers. And so I just loved working with them.”

“One thing I love about my job is sinking into the material deeply enough that sometimes the audience will say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that’s the guy from the other thing,'” Offerman says.

Apple TV

hide caption

toggle caption

Apple TV

Interview highlights

On transforming into a wrestler who is past his prime for Margo’s Got Money Troubles

I worked with a great trainer named Grant Roberts to make my body look more like a former pro wrestler, and then had the incredible opportunity to train with Chavo Guerrero [Jr.], who’s a real pro wrestler from the Guerrero family. And he’s just this incredible teacher. He did the show GLOW, he did The Iron Claw. And so he’s become kind of the Hollywood go-to guy, and he was just a wonderful teacher. The fact that I was able to do all my own wrestling in the show and never once go to the hospital is a great credit to him and our stunt coordinator, Jon Epstein.

On playing U.S. President Chester Arthur in Death by Lightning

Thankfully, I love history and I absolutely love the idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes of our historical figures. … Of course people in the White House 250 years ago were doing noble things, absolutely, but [they were] also screaming, fighting, farting human beings. And so again, Mike Makowsky did such an incredible job of adapting the book, Destiny of the Republic, by the great Candice Millard. …

Getting to work with actors of this caliber and writing of that caliber with the Game of Thrones producers was just so incredibly lush. It allowed me to feel completely safe and comfortable just turning this 21st president into a living, breathing man who would get drunk and scream about sausages.

On how he got the part of Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation

I was getting pretty bummed. I was in my late 30s and I had had a few instances where writers took a shine to me, TV writers, and they would write me a part in their pilot and it never worked out. And then finally, we were watching Rainn Wilson on The Office, who’s a dear old friend, and I said, “You know, if I’m ever gonna get a shot, I think it’s gonna be something like Dwight on The Office.” And sure enough … Dwight’s cousin, Mose Schrute, played by Mike Schur, who created Parks and Rec with Greg Daniels of The Office… They took a shine to me, thankfully, and wanted to put me in as Amy [Poehler’s] boss, this guy, Ron Swanson. … NBC, of course, in their corporate wisdom, said, “I don’t think so. He’s weird, we’ve never been able to wrap our heads around Nick Offerman. Let’s keep looking.” …

They sort of opened the net super wide and then it closed back down to where there were just a couple of us. Amy came to town … and they brought me and another guy in to improvise with Amy as the final audition. … And Ron and Leslie were really born in that room that day, because I had never worked with Amy before. … She was like a comedy butterfly hopped up on uppers, a comedy dynamo-ing around the room. And I had no choice but to sit there and withstand her, and then say one pithy thing at the end, and as though I had a choice, as though that was my comedic brilliance instead of just the only physical possibility. And they said, “Amazing! What collaboration!”

On how the Parks and Rec cast keeps in touch

The cast does have a text thread that has never stopped. We have stayed in touch the whole time. As you can imagine, it’s mostly congratulations and happy birthdays and so forth, with a lot of sincerity and affection and also a good amount of smartassery and insulting the actor Jim O’Heir [who played Jerry]. … He’s the Eeyore and he couldn’t be a sweeter, more wonderful guy and it’s a joke we’ll never drop. It was a cast full of wonderful, talented actors, and also Jim O’Heir is the running bit.

On woodworking — he started Offerman Woodshop in 2001 — and his advice for people just getting started

A huge lesson in the woodshop is go in knowing you’re going to screw it up. Even those of us that are experts at it, we buy extra wood. We buy scrap wood to start on, because we know we’re going to make bad cuts. It takes a while to dial in the measurements, the angles, and what have you. … Anything that is worth doing, you’re gonna mess up your first few tries because if we could all just play beautiful songs on the cello, then we would all be Yo-Yo Ma and he would not be the exceptional musical superhero that he is. Go in knowing you’re gonna mess things up, and be, as in anything, be patient with each other. … Only by engaging in the world and getting our hands dirty, do we find out what our calling is. When I was growing up, and my dad would lose patience, he did a great job of sticking with me and just allow each other to mess up because more often than not, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re human beings.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.