Nick Offerman

And just before we got to Chicago, he had just, I think moved out and gotten started on friends.

And so when I was in Chicago, if you threatened to move to LA, people would accuse you of pulling the Schwimmer.

Um,

Which was looked down upon because we're artists.

We're trying to make art.

We're not trying to get rich or famous.

And so I lived incredibly frugally, which is a very polite way to say I lived like a bum.

survived on peanuts all through my 20s i was young and pretty bulletproof so as long as i was doing theater 24 7 you could always get a burrito or a sandwich someplace but having a tv that was a luxury you didn't need one who had time to sit around and watch tv

But there was also this anti-sitcom sensibility.

What would you need a TV for?

Like we're performing the works of Ibsen, which of course was like a pretentious defense mechanism.

But that's why I didn't have a TV.

And it's funny.

I mean it's still something I'm wrestling with where when you look at film and television, you have to ask yourself eventually if you're lucky enough to get work in the business.

what is it you want do you want to get rich and famous do you want to make good art you know do you want to like deliver medicine to an audience via laughter or pathos or catharsis you know what is it you're after and then that directly affects the choices you begin to make where you

Are you going to get on the hamster wheel and run like hell for as long as your knees hold or not?

Do you want to have a more considered, more unique personal approach to your work as an artist?

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.