Nick Offerman

So things like being told you should watch one episode of every show so that you can mimic what they do or sort of ape their taste, that pretty quickly became clear to me as people

a fallacious idea where it was like uh if i succeed i want it to be because people see something in me that they're like oh this is good and fresh and like we want this ingredient in our recipe i don't want them to hire me because they're like oh he's kind of similar to david schwimmer or whoever else you know he's kind of similar to a proven commodity that's safe

He could be a third Belushi or whatever, you know, let's put him on our show.

To me, that's not my bag.

That would be really depressing.

So I worked a lot less than maybe I would have if I just was like, hey, guys, I love beer and tips.

Let's let's have fun.

Several years in, you were living in a basement in Silver Lake and hadn't had a TV for 10 years when you went on an audition for the play The Berlin Circle and heard that Megan Mullally, one of the stars of the most popular television shows on the planet, was starring.

Yet you weren't impressed.

Well, no.

I mean, that was the last bastion of my Chicago snobbery, my dumb, defensive Chicago snobbery.

Because even when I got cast in the show, they dangled Megan as an incentive.

And our lead is on the new hit show, Will & Grace.

They had just finished their second season.

This was the spring of 2000.

And I said, listen, I know that that's supposed to be an incentive, but I'm from Chicago theater.

I've played John Proctor in The Crucible.

So, you know, I'm foolishly half my head up my ass.

So I'm not going to be impressed by your Megan Mullally's.

And then the first day, you know, we did like a table read.