Nick Offerman

So I had something inexplicable that I just wanted to entertain people.

And eventually when I found out you could go to theater school and

and that you could get paid to be in plays in Chicago.

That just was, I said, that's obviously what I have to do.

And I did.

Everybody in my town, including the guidance counselor, they all said, no, I said, I want to be an actor.

And they said, I don't believe that's one of your options.

I don't think you can get there from here.

And I said, well, I'm going to try.

In my classical training, I was terrible.

I hadn't figured out acting yet, so I couldn't get cast in college.

I had a really hard time, which is why I became really good at building scenery and stage combat and things like that, because I really wanted to be part of making theater, but apparently performing dialogue on stage was not my avenue, at least yet.

And so my dream was to just get in the shows.

I loved Shakespeare.

I loved the Chekhov pieces they were doing, the comedies of Joe Orton, the plays of Sam Shepard.

I still to this day aspire to just do any piece of great writing.

I had already worked as a carpenter framing houses as a teenager.

And so here I was, you know, a clumsy, not good at acting, acting student.

And this great guy named Ken Egan was running the scene shop.

And it was my first beautiful, big carpentry shop.