Best Of: Flea / Nick Offerman

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From WHY and Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Fleet, eco-founded the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1982.

From the first time we stepped on stage,

we were intent on being the wildest band that ever existed on this planet. We'll talk about how Fleet's music and life have changed. Of course, I've changed, and thank God I've changed. I was lunatic.

I was 19 going on 10. Also, we hear from Nick Offerman.

“He stars on the new series Margo's Got Money Troubles.”

It's about a bright college freshman who gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby. Offerman plays her estranged father, a former pro wrestler, who comes back into her life to help. Offerman is best known for playing Ron Swanson

in Parks and Recreation. And Zach Elephanakis has a new gardening show, and David Biancouley has a review. This is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Terry Gross. My guest Fleet co-founded the multiple Grammy-winning band

The Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1982. He's a songwriter and the band's base player, known for his fast, percussive grooves. They started as an L.A. punk rock band when L.A. in New York or the punk capitals.

They're lead singer initially rap more than he sang.

Fleet has just released his first solo album called Onara,

and it's a big departure, various styles of jazz figure into it. Fleet's stepfather was a jazz musician and listening to his music, starting when Fleet was seven, changed Fleet's life in ways he's still grateful for. But Fleet's stepfather was also addicted to heroin and alcohol,

and that made home life unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, leaving Fleet afraid to go home. He spent as much time as he could on the streets and with friends, often doing things that could have had serious consequences. On the new album, in addition to bass,

Fleet plays trumpet, the first instrument he learned to play. The album also reflects how Fleet started studying music theory about 10 years ago. Onara includes original compositions by Fleet, as well as covers of songs by George Clinton and Frank Ocean,

Tom Yorick of Radiohead sings on one track, Nick Cave sings "Witch a Tall Line"ment. The arrangements feature strings, brass, and woodwinds. When I recorded this interview with Fleet last week, we talked about his childhood, his relationship with his stepfather,

the chili peppers being wild, and how Fleet and his music have changed. He wrote a memoir on 2019 titled "Assid for the Children." Fleet, welcome to fresh air, congratulations on the new album. So let's get to your music. I want to compare where you started from in terms of your recordings,

and where you are now. So let's start by listening to a brief part of "The Redhack Chili Peppers' First Demo Record." Well, cool.

And this is never mind, you're of course featured on bass.

Wow, Terry, good call on that one. Okay, well, let's compare that to frailed from your new album, Honora, with you featured on trumpet and bass.

“So what do you think the 20-year-old who would have thought of the music from your new album?”

I would have been really happy with myself, making music that I cared about being a student of music, continuing to just love music. When I listen back to, you know, not the song "Nevermind" that you played for my first

around with that tape, playing it for people with our cassette tape, trying to get booked

into clubs to get gigs, it's a similar feeling that I have now with the record that I just made, Honora, it's a feeling that I haven't really had since back then, and it's a feeling of, I've made this music that is really, you know, obviously it's a collective, you know, that Shirley Peppers made the music, but we made music, and I had a feeling that we are filling this place, an empty place in the world, that hasn't been filled before.

We've created this thing that is ourselves purely, so it can't be anybody else, and

“we're filling this new place, and it's a really beautiful feeling, and that's how I feel”

about the music that I've made with Honora, it's the same thing, like I feel like I'm making

music that occupies its own place in the world, and that feels good to me. Does the change in music represent the change in you? Your older, you're not in your 20s, you're in your 60s? Yeah, I mean, of course, even though back then, you know, when I made that music when I was 20, I think, I was 20 years old when we recorded that in 19 or 20, I was listening

to, you know, a theory of jazz music all the time, a group of jazz music, and I was listening to jazz music back then, but of course I've changed, and thank God I've changed, I was a lunatic, you know what I mean? I was a street kid, and I was emotionally, and in so many ways, 19 going on 10, and I continue to try to grow as a human being in all the ways, emotionally, spiritually to be a more

considerate of my fellow human beings, I mean, in every way, so it all feeds into the music, it all feeds into the way that I interact with other people, and yeah, I mean, I'm a different person.

“And I think, if this is something I think about a lot, and the way that just like as a parent,”

you know, I have three kids, one is 37, the other one is 20, and the other one is three, and I've been a different person for each one of them, you know, I've been a different kind of parent. Oh, right, and a different stage of your life, because here you have a far apart. Yeah, super, they're all 17 years apart, and 17 years if one is willing to, you know,

feel the pain and suffering of being a human being, you're going to grow. So I'm grateful for growth, and I'm grateful for humility, I'm grateful to be a student. You started playing trumpet as a child, and then you kind of gave up trumpet more or less for the bass after the Red Hot Chili Peppers formed. Your stepfather was a jazz musician, and he played bass.

Tell us about the music that he played, I know it was jazz, but what kind of jazz, what's

“some of the music that your father and his friends introduced you to?”

Straight ahead jazz, B-Bop, the music exemplified by Charlie Parker, and Fats Navarro, and Flonius Monk, they played jazz like that, and my, my stepfather came into my life when

I was about seven years old, six or seven, and the first time that I ever saw him play

with his friends in New York, his buddies came over to the house, set up in a living room, and they started throwing down, they played fast, they played furiously, they played with our great tenderness, they played with great violence and physicality, and it was wild. You describe it like it was punk rock. Well, I, you know, for me, you know, all music is music, but it's, you know, there's

a, so if I think a punk rock, right, like you take a song like "Nervous Break Down" by Black Flag and it's a beautiful song, I love it, and then you take a song like Cherokee, best played by Clifford Brown and Max Roach, and like the basses going, and they're both very fast, very aggressive, they both have a beginning, a middle and an end, and they are both played by people yearning with every fiber of their being to make sense of the world that they live in.

But, you know, I love both, and I'm studying, but not only way, so yes, when I was a kid,

So, you were born in Australia and live there for the first four or five years of your life.

“When you were around four, your family moved to New York where your father got a job,”

and he sounds like he was a very briefcase, follow the rules, working men dinner at the same time every night kind of guy, except for when he drank, and he loved you, but he also gave you the belt when you stepped out of line, they divorced when you were seven, and your mother wanted to live a more Bohemian life, so she married your stepfather, the jazz-based player, Walter Bernard Jr., and what was he like as a man?

You described him as sad, and he was also addicted to heroin, and he was very moody. Can you describe what it was like for you as a child to grow up with somebody whose music you love to introduce you to great people and great sounds, but who also could be like a scary person,

“he could be an irresponsible person, and an inattentive parent.”

It was difficult, you know, when my mother and Walter, his name, you know, Walter, when they got together, it was really exciting at first, because, you know, my dad was very much by the rules, and every day it was kind of the same, and there were the strict, you know, codes of conduct that

you did not break, or you got to belt. You know what I mean? You didn't mess up. You never

embarrassed yourself. You never embarrassed the family. You played by the rules, and my dad was like a very, like, kind of prototypical, fifties responsible men. You know, you were called, you were your suit, and you get drunk at night, and my father was an alcoholic, all of his life. But Walter, it was really fun. He was playing jazz music, you know, he just like a hippie, he wore dashikis, and he was like, "Cool man, far out. Yeah, take this cannibal,

utterly record." You know, and it was really exciting for me as a kid. And also, like the rules went away. Like all of a sudden, I would get up in the morning, go out in the street, no one asked where I was going. I went and did whatever I wanted, all day long. So, you know, there's a freedom of nat, but also, you know, a lot of troubles in that, because you're getting in trouble, because there's no, you know, there's no rules. And, you know, you kind of left to figure things out on your own.

But it turned ugly with my stepfather. He was a drug abuser, he was an addict, he was an alcoholic, and he was prone to these wild fits of violence, where something would set him off, and he would just like start destroying the house, smashing all the windows, breaking everything, everyone like begging him to stop, you know, kids being, we be terrified, we were running out in a street, you know, and it grew violent and his violence extended to, you know, to us.

Even though he never hit me or beat me, but it got bad with my mother and, you know, and with my sister.

And he'd be both of them. He did. Were you afraid to be at home? Of course. It was, you know, a lot to deal with as a kid, but it's, you know, it all shaped me, and it's all a part of who I am. And at the same time, and this could not be understated, is that when I saw my stepfather played music, and I didn't really understand it at the time, even I understood it in a way that

“it's been a part of me, my whole life is that when I saw him play the bass, he played with such”

aggressiveness and with such intensity that it was, I would see him get into the sort of animal state beyond thought, like this primal just attacking this instrument, one with it, sweating, breathing, grunting, you know, playing this instrument, um, like completely gone in the music. And I knew that he was using all that pain and anger and fear and anxiety that had made him act like he did, using it in a really healthy way and turning it into something beautiful, transmuting all this pain

and anger into something beautiful, this like metamorphosis, this alchemy, which is, you know, music's greatest gift for him and for all of us who have enjoyed so much music that is made by people expressing their pain and fear and hope, you know, in sound. Is there like a particular track that stands out to you from your own work, either from the new album or from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where you feel like you did the same thing, where you took like pain that you were feeling

is there anything that really expresses that the most in your mind from your own music? When we recorded the track, when I played the trumpet for the track, willow weep for me. I remember feeling a great deal of sadness and when I played that song, I remember feeling that, like, let me, please, you know, let me let go of this and express it and into something beautiful.

But I don't, you know, it's always a thing with me, like I mean, for the chili pepper

shows for the last 45 years, it's like, I can't tell you how many zillions of time I get in and I'm like attacking my instrument and, you know, letting the rhythm throw me around like a rag doll on the stage, that I'm, you know, hoping for healing and hoping for letting go of pain and anger and fear. Well, we need to take a short break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, I guess it's flee and you probably know him from the Red Hot Chili Peppers,

after for many albums with the Chili Peppers, he's recorded his first solo album and it's called Honora. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross and this is fresh air weekend. So you actually have like three or at least three separate music spaces in your life. When, when you're coming of age, you've got your father's jazz, which you love. You have the Red Hot Chili Peppers, which starts off as a punk band. Kind of. Yeah. And then you have

school orchestra and marching band. And that was like a different kind of discipline probably.

“I mean, you must have been good. You won a national orchestra competition for playing”

Hayden's trumpet concerto. I did. I mean, that's better. That takes some discipline. Yeah, and I didn't, you know, I really, you know, if I really would have had discipline, I think I could have gotten a lot better, but it came pretty naturally to me. But did you love it? Did you love me? And I loved it. Yeah, that was the thing I loved it. I loved playing in an orchestra. I loved playing my played in the LA Junior Philharmonic for a while.

So one day I got real stone and went there and made a mistake. And the guy put me out of the first

chair into the junior chair and I was embarrassed and never went back.

In marching band, did you were a uniform? No, my, our school didn't have it. Like all the other schools had the big epilets and the big fur hats and and all that stuff. And we didn't, we just had t-shirts and said Fairfax band on them. Yeah, and we were terrible marchers. We just kind of walked out into a clump in the middle of the fields. But we were good though. We were good. We used to play Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, but at a, but at a, but at a, but at a, but a, but a, but a, but a, but a, but a, but a, but a,

which was, see if you want us tribute to Duke Ellington. And, um, and yeah, we were pretty funky. I remember us beat like I remember feeling excited about the music. Describe what you were like on stage in those early years of the chili peppers and how you're background in gymnastics, surfing, and other sports may have figured into what you were able to do

“on stage. Well, um, I think, you know, from the jump, all of us literally jump. We wanted to be”

from the, from that point from the first time we stepped on stage, we were intent on being the wildest band that ever existed on this planet. And we wanted to express that in a way we dressed, where we moved, the way we spoke, we wanted to be shocking. We wanted to cut a hole in the smoggy skies of Hollywood. We wanted to be a beam of cosmic light that came out of our net Coleman saxophone. We wanted to,

you know, we just wanted to be wild. And so, um, whatever, you know, I was always a very physical

person. I always played sports. I love to dance. I love to move. I found extreme freedom in movement. And like that thing I talked about earlier about that state of enlightenment of getting beyond thought. I often had that from physical movement. And so that was just a big part of the whole operation, you know, um, and for all of us, you know, for all of us. And we, we love movement. We love dance. We invented our own funny dances, um, just to feel free, to feel alive, to be excited. And to, you know,

we're entertainers. I wanted to do the thing. So one of the things you did, and this is kind of famous,

“you, the band was dressed. I think it was all the band that, what you were dressed in was just a”

sock over genitals. Yeah, socks on. It was what we called it. That was something like, you know, hello, and Anthony and I, uh, we would do that at home, like, to be funny. You know,

you know, with just a sock. And, um, you know, we're all laughing. And hanging out and we all did it.

“And, um, yeah, and I can't, I think I remember the first time we did it, we used to play the”

strip club. It's perfect place. Yeah. Yeah. We played this strip club on, uh, on Santa Monica Boulevard, called, um, dammit. I wish I could remember the name of it. But anyways, we played that. I remember one time we were playing. And, um, and, uh, at the, and we went off stage and we were getting me to do the encore from a screaming in yelling, and Anthony, I probably said sockman, sockman, and, uh, we were like, oh, great, great idea. And so we, uh, you know, put on socks,

stripped down, put on socks and came out and played. And, uh, it was met warmly. And, uh, I think on that, that particular show, we were opening up for another band called, "Royed Rogers and the whirling butt cherries." It was just, it was Hollywood. In early '80s, let me tell you, stuff of people were just doing weird stuff to be weird, like it was really embraced. There was just underground scene. And I'm, you know, I'm saying these things some people might find repugnant

and that's cool. You know, I get it. But, um, we grew up in Hollywood. We ran around on the streets and Hollywood. We were so used to, like, I lived in West Hollywood where it was nothing. Like, I would, when I was a kid, I would go walk down the street and I would see, you know, guys come, I'd be on my way to school and I'd see guys gay leather guys walking out of a, uh, of a gay club, you know, making out in the street dressed in nothing but leather chops and chains. And like,

“like, that's why I grew up. That's where I'm from. Um, and I embraced it all, you know, I mean,”

I never, um, you know, I've always embraced it all. Did you do the socks thing at punk clubs, too?

Yeah, yeah. Then we, then, if I just became like a thing, like it was so fun and we did it all the time. Did you ever get plastic for it? Like, in, in decency? Yeah, once in a green bay Wisconsin, we played a show and I can't remember if we did socks or we went completely naked. But if you're sure it was socks, maybe a sock fell off. I don't know. But, um, we played a show in this club. It was midwinter in Wisconsin. So snow everywhere freezing. And we played a show and then,

like, we walk off stage and there's the cops. And you know, like, out to the car, you guys are arrested for indecent exposure. And it's like, okay. And we walk out and, you know, they're kind of like put us in single file and we're walking to the cop car. But I mean, I have to look at each other and and one of us is like, let's make a break for it. And we see this like the club is kind of removed, like, you know, an outskirts of town and we see these woods. And we just bolt and it's a midwinter

and snow. And we are wearing nothing. But socks, you know, they knickers walk out there. And I socks in the freezing cold. And we just bolt out the middle of the night, said midnight into these woods naked. And we just run. And we get away. And we run and we were like, running for a while, we're like freezing. But we're like laughing. And aesthetically, you know, we just played a gig. We ran away from the cops. It's like, these times when you're like, oh my god, I'm so happy

“in this moment. Like, a few times I remember that like consciously in my life.”

Another time was like hitchhiking in a pouring rain in the UK once, like three in the morning,

all alone. I will never be this happy again in my life. Like, look at me. I am living right now.

Anyways, it felt like that. And we ran into the street. We see some this car going by with these kids, like, our age. We had been to the show and it had given us a ride. They take us to our their house and we hang out and have a party with these people. And, you know, those were the days. Please, been great talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Please, no solo album is called Anara. He co-founded the Red Hot

Chili Peppers in 1982. On Earth Day, April 22nd, Netflix launched a six-part series called This is a Gardening Show. Its host is Zach Elephanakis. The comic actor best known for the hangover films, the TV series "Baskets" and his own "A Serbic Talk Show" between two ferns. Our TV critic David Biancoly says that while this series is just as funny and delightful as you

might expect, it's also surprisingly informative and even serious. Here's David's review. This is a food gardening show with your host, Zach Gaspo Fidacity. You don't expect Zach Elephanakis to take himself seriously in his new Netflix series, and for the most part, he doesn't. This is a gardening show, is loaded with botched takes,

and so do his guests. One segment in each episode has him interviewing kids at a grade school,

“acting like art link letter used to in his very old radio and TV shows.”

The questions typically revolve around gardening fruits and vegetables, but invariably, veer off into uncharted conversational territory. The host proved his Adlib prowess as an interviewer on his between two ferns show, but the object there was to make his guests intentionally uncomfortable. On this show, whether he's talking to farmers, horticultural experts, or little kids,

Galifinakis himself always ends up being the butt of the joke. Here he is chatting with a

series of kids as he tours their school garden. Somehow, the conversational topics shift from ghost peppers to the movie's school of rock. "These old ghost peppers?" "Are they haunted?" "No." "Well then why did they call them ghost peppers?" "Because they'll wear your hots."

“"The most ghost aren't known for being hot. If you could be anything in the world that you”

wanted to be, what would you be?" "I want to be a bat." "You don't mean a veteran, you mean a veteran, a veterinarian." "Yeah." "Well boy, so many folks in the show." "Works in a show?" "Yeah." "Oh, like show business stuff." "Yeah, like have you loved watching school walk?" "Who's that with?" "Jacklock." "Never heard of that guy." "He is one of my favorite actors." "Good for him?" "No, I forced to go to his online level." "Right in Reynolds. It'd be nice to meet an actor one day." "Yeah, it would be nice to meet one of

what's in Jacklock." "Yeah, you've heard of this size, Zach Gallifadakis?" "Yeah."

"What do you think of that guy?" "It's not my fault." "The six episodes in this first season.

I'm hoping there will be more." "Or devoted to apples, tomatoes, foraging, root vegetables, corn, and compost." Zach, who lives in British Columbia, has been gardening for some 25 years. This is a gardening show was filmed on Vancouver Island, and every farmer he visits is a true character. Especially Murray, who's been growing corn for about half a century, and easily handles any question thrown at him. Even when Zach brings up the phenomenon of crop circles.

"Anybody ever come in here to try to do a crop circle?" "No." "And he did it with a certain point in a rope when they could crop circle." "You don't think they're aliens." "No." "They're just junk kids doing it." "No, old people with a piece of board. You've probably seen it on TV again." "We need old people by that." "Oh, like our age." "Our age." "What do you look seven years?" "In the same episode on corn, an actual food archaeologist is brought in, and while you're likely to learn something,

it's always with a smile." "Food is one of the topics that I study in archaeology,

and we began to find corn in an ancient village site that we were working at in Chiapas, Mexico. "We took samples of that carbonized corn and sent it to a radio carbon laboratory. How old was it?" "Over 3,000 years old." "Wow." "Older's old." "The director of this as a gardening show is Brook Linder, who also proved his skill at mixing different topics and comic tones in the live Netflix talk show everybody's live with John Mulaney. These gardening shows rely

on a basket of tricks. They use time-lapse photography to capture both growth and decay. They use the segments with kids for pure comedy. Galifonakis also visits different farms and farmers to sample their wares, and every time he bites into an heirloom tomato or a home-grown carrot, he pronounces it the best one he's ever tasted. And I don't think he's kidding. In the course of these compact 15 to 16 minute episodes, he learns how to graft apple trees,

make richer compost, and generally how to self-sustain. The future is a grayion he says in every episode, and not as a punchline. And he points out how happy the Canadian farmers all seem to be, even Murray, as well as how much tastier the locally grown fruits and vegetables are. In several spots watching this as a gardening show, I became nostalgic for a past I'd almost forgotten. When I was a little kid, my uncle Tom had a farm-sized backyard where he grew cherries and tomatoes,

and harvested seeds from his hottest peppers each year to keep growing even hotter ones. He also could walk through the nearby forests and confidently forage many types of wild mushrooms,

“leaving the poisonous ones behind. I also remember a corn farm in Ohio, where on harvest day,”

the farm would set up boiling cauldrons in the fields and invite the public. You could go there,

was the best corn I ever had. Zac Gallifonakis in his new series spreads that kind of joy

“for eating as well as gardening. But he issues a dire warning, too, that if we don't return to”

our roots, the roots in our own gardens, our future may end up being a lot more bleak. That's a bitter pill to swallow, but this is a gardening show serves it up persuasively and deliciously. David B. and Kooley reviewed this is a gardening show. Coming up we hear from actor Nick Offerman, he stars on the new series Margo's Got Money Troubles based on the popular book of the same name. This is fresh air weekend. Our next guest is actor writer and woodworker Nick Offerman,

he's best known for his role in parks and recreation, and for his Emmy award-winning role in the show, The Last of Us. His new series Margo's Got Money Troubles is based on the book of the same

“name. He spoke to fresh airs and Marie Boldenado. The new Apple TV series Margo's Got Money Troubles”

is about Margo, a bright college freshman who ill-advisedly has an affair with her English professor. She ends up getting pregnant and decides to have and keep the baby. Margo herself was raised by a single mom, her dad, jinx, played by Nick Offerman, was a popular professional wrestler when she was born and has been pretty absent from her life. Now his careers in the past and his injuries have caused him chronic pain. He turns to pain killers, then heroin, and then rehab. He's there

when he hears about Margo and decides to come back into her life after years of being away.

In this scene he comes to Margo's door and meets the baby for the first time. Margo is played by

Elfanning. Here at Grandpa. Everyone says he's beautiful, so I'm going with that. He's the most beautiful. I'm brought you a check, so I'm sorry, but I wasn't able to call you back. Where are you staying? Well, for tonight I got to figure and then start in tomorrow. Guess if I got to figure that too. Can I hold him? He's a little fussy.

Oh, man. He likes you. Jinx moves in with Margo, the baby, and Margo's roommate, creating an unconventional family unit. Jinx is there for Margo in a way he wasn't in the past, but the pain and struggle of addiction persist. Nick Offerman played the beloved character, Ron Swanson, and the comedy series Parks and Recreation. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a drama series

for his role in a heartbreaking episode of the series The Last of Us. In addition to Margo's got money troubles, he stars in the Netflix show, Death By Lightning. Nick Offerman, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me. The series is great and you're so good in it.

“You said that playing this role really scared you. What was so scary about it?”

Well, I suppose, you know, I've had a really lucky career. I've gotten to work a lot, which for an actor, just getting jobs is wild. The numbers are so stacked against you. And, you know, with the good fortune of getting to work consistently, I also, you know, fell into a certain category of like dependable supporting actor, you know, journeymen bus driver slash plumber, you know, slash manning the grill. And so one thing I haven't been called on to do a lot of

is have like a complicated emotional relationship or have an inner emotional arc that we want the audience to care about. And so that part of the show, not only having two of those

relationships with with L fanning and with Michelle Fyfer, not only having that for the first time

kind of, but to have them with these like world-class, Mount Rushmore, like a list actresses,

Well, I've read when you're preparing for a role. You think a lot about facial here. Maybe all

“of your hair, but facial here in particular. And I imagine to you think a lot about physicality,”

like, how would this character carry himself? What does he look like physically? Can you talk about what you thought about in terms of your look when you were playing jinx? Who was that, you know, had been a wrestler, a little pasted prime? I love transforming. One thing I love about a 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. And so, because I'm blessed with a healthy crop of facial hair and and here on my head,

that's kind of just my jumping off point. Like, okay, which version of Lon Cheney will I bring

“to bat in this game? And then also a work with a great trainer named Grant Roberts”

to make my body look more like a former pro wrestler and then head the incredible opportunity to train with Chavo Guerrero, 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. I mean,

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, John Epstein. Yeah, you're shown wrestling in flashbacks. You sort of on video tapes. And then you wrestle at an expo for wrestlers. And you even wrestle Nicole Kidman's character. Yeah, that was in the modern parlance of not on my bingo card and the wrestling Nicole Kidman was definitely not on there. I want to play another scene from this series. Here,

Jinks is at Margo's apartment with the baby. He's cleaned the place. He's trying to help out. And he decides to ask Margo if he can move in. Again, Margo is played by L fanning. Susie mentioned that you might be looking for a roommate and I need a place to live. Oh, and well, I mean, I can't contribute a ton for rent. The divorce wiped me out. But I can cook and I can clean. And the idea of getting to spend time with you last time.

“Okay, I think I got my answer. It's not, um, I don't mean we do need a roommate. And it”

would be nice to spend time with you. But I know the statistics on drug addicts. And if you were going to stay here, you would have to be clean. If you were going to be around Booty. Margo, I am clean. I am the one who checked myself into rehab. Why me? Why don't you ask Andrea or one of the boys? I check their Instagrams. I know they're financially stable. My therapist thinks that the stress of those relationships might cause me to relapse.

And the idea of getting your own place? That would definitely relapse. I mean, there would be no one to perform sanity for. That's a scene from Margo's gotten money troubles. Your character jinx is a hulking guy, used to being physical. But it's his wrestling that has brought him pain and in response to that chronic pain. He starts using pain killers and his addiction goes on from there. How did you tackle

that part of the role? Did you talk with wrestlers or people who've dealt with chronic pain or those dealing with drug addiction? I did. I mean, sadly, in my business as well as wrestling and pro sports, I sadly have a couple of friends who went through the exact same trajectory of inadvertently getting hooked on opioids and then having that uncover tendency for addiction that led to heroin use. And so I have dealt with that and have some

knowledge of it from being adjacent to it. And a lot of wrestlers and former wrestlers live in Los Angeles or Las Vegas. So it was easy to get a lot of sort of research and talk to these

problems in my life, but I've certainly dabbled in indulgence in ways that like, I've learned

“lessons over the years of, of like, well, this is fun. Let me try partying this way for a week”

and then learning, okay, I see how. If I don't stop that this, I will ruin a lot of my life. The thing that's so heartbreaking about jinx is that he's trying so hard, but the audience can tell that he's struggling. You know, he's trying to make up for the past, but he's not sure if he can do it. Can you talk about trying to play that part of jinx the struggle? Yeah, I mean, it's tied to your last question. I'm a human, I'm a human male. And so that if you're honest with yourself,

that, you know, brings a certain lesser batting average than perhaps we'd like to believe.

I have incredible parents. My mom and dad are really great citizens. And if three great

siblings and we all, you know, we're all doing our best. We've got school teachers and librarians and nurses and and an actor. But we all, you know, in each and our own way, we emulate our mom and dad. And you know, I'm living this crazy life traveling the world and singing and dancing for people, but still trying to participate in the conversation of values that my mom and dad sort of imparted in us. I have a very successful marriage. I've been with my wife Megan Malali

“for 26 years. I think we've been married 23. And you know, being with somebody for 26 years”

is definitely good to include some some stumbles and some pitfalls and sometimes when I've had to say, wow, I've handled that horribly. Please forgive me, you know. And so I have, I'm a person who's honest with himself. So I have a wealth of opportunities to draw upon for for jinx to find his feelings in. Now, many listeners will know you from your role as Ron Swanson in this show, Parks and Recreation. I want to play a quick scene from the show when that shows Ron being Ron. I'm here as Ron

turning a wall sconce into wedding rings for the characters Leslie and Ben. It's not rocket science. I removed the sconce, fired up my grandfather's torch, heated up the pieces in a cast iron bucket, liquefied the metal, poured into a mold. Obviously, keep it over a low flame to achieve a nice temper. Cooled it in any freeze, and just forged and shaped the rings. Any more on with a crucible and a settling torch in a cast iron waffle

maker could have done the same. Whole thing only took me about 20 minutes. People who buy things are suckers. That's a scene from Parks and Recreation. It's a beloved show. You play a beloved character. Can you tell the story of how you got the part of Ron? 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 Rainwillson on the office, who's a dear old friend, and I

“said, "If I'm ever going to get a shot, I think it's going to be something like Dwight on the”

office." Sure enough, Dwight's cousin, Mose Schroot, played by Mike Scher, who created Parks and Rec with Greg Daniels of the office. They looked at me for another role that role never happened, but they took a shine to me, thankfully, and wanted to put me in his boss, this guy Ron Swanson, who thank goodness. They really wanted a slow talker, and still 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. So for five months, since they first read me as Ron, they read every guy under the moon. I mean, everybody I met was like, "Oh my God, I went in for the greatest part. It's Amy's boss on our new show." And I would sob inwardly, like, "Oh cool, sounds good,

town. They were getting ready to start shooting. She moved here from New York to LA, and they brought

“me and another guy in to improvise with Amy as the final audition, and they taped them and then”

turned them in to NBC. And, you know, I did my best. And Ron and Leslie were really born in that room

that day, because I had never worked with Amy before. I had known her for a long time and was crazy

about her, but like she was like a comedy, a butterfly, hopped up on on uppers, like just comedy, dynamoing around the room. And I had no choice, like, but to sit there and withstand her,

“and then say like 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?" So that went great. And then Mike called me the next day to say that I got the job and that they had only turned in my tape. They didn't even turn in the other guy's tape. And so it was, I mean, good lord. I mean, it changed my life so profoundly and I'm so grateful

“to Mike and Greg for sticking with me. I mean, I'll be forever in their debt. Fans of this show”

love this show. And they want, they want you all to still be in touch with each other. Are you still

all in touch with each other? The cast does have a text thread that has never stopped.

It's, you know, as you can imagine, it's mostly congratulations and happy birthdays and so forth with, you know, a lot of sincerity and affection and also a good amount of smart assory and insulting the actor Jim O'Hare. Who played Jerry Gary? And who's character? Yeah,

who always do the running joke was that everybody made fun of? He's, yeah, he's the E or and he's

couldn't be a sweeter, you know, a more wonderful guy and it's just, it's a joke will never, will never drop. Like, it was, it was a cast full of wonderful talented actors and also Jim O'Hare. The running bit. Nick Offerman, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Nick Offerman spoke with fresh airs and Marie Bowdoin Otto. He stars in the new series Margo has got money troubles.

Fresh air weekend is produced by Theresa Madden. Fresh airs executive producer is Sam Brigger, our technical director and engineer is Archie Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Meyers, Roberta Chorock, Anne-Rabel Denado, Lauren Crenzel, Monique Nazareth, they a challenger, Susan Yocundi, Anne-Abalman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivinezberg. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.