Nick Offerman

They said, you make really funny faces.

You should move to Los Angeles.

They pay well for funny face makers there.

And I said, well, that sounds good.

And it never occurred to me that Los Angeles would not be as... I just assumed it would be an even better theater town than Chicago because it's where Hollywood is.

It's the greatest collection of writers and actors and directors in the country.

I got there, you know, I was like, well, so I'll get to keep doing theater, obviously, but then also I can work maybe in TV and film.

And I got there only to discover that it's not at all, it's not remotely as good of a theater town because everyone's trying to work in TV and film.

So there's theater happening, but nobody cares.

So it led to two or three years of absolute confusion and even depression where I was like, oh, I've made a terrible mistake.

My adulthood is founded, is built upon theater.

And now I've moved to the world of sitcoms.

What have I done?

I read that you were told to watch at least one episode of every show on television so that when you audition, you'd know what kind of bullshit they were selling.

But you didn't want to watch any television.

How come?

There are certain defense mechanisms in Chicago theater that allow one to remain in Chicago theater and not feel like you have to move to New York or L.A.

And so you have to sort of remind yourself why Chicago is better than Broadway or Hollywood.

Broadway, that's selling out.

It's too expensive.