Nick Offerman has been known for playing an archetype of modern masculinity: the laconic, mustachioed, libertarian Ron Swanson on “Parks and Recreation.” In the decade since that show ended, he’s been drawn to roles that subvert or undermine the manly man image he’s come to represent, with roles that include the despotic president of the United States in Alex Garland’s “Civil War” and Bill, the gay survivalist in “The Last of Us,” for which he won an Emmy.
Mr. Offerman is still regularly subjected to homophobic online slurs from Ron Swanson fans who felt betrayed by his embodiment of Bill. “Anybody who would go out of their way to criticize Nick for not being more like his character on TV is struggling with their own manliness and sense of self-worth,” said the musician Jeff Tweedy, one of Mr. Offerman’s good friends.
Most recently, Mr. Offerman was cast as President Chester A. Arthur in Netflix’s upcoming historical drama “Death by Lightning” and as a central character in Apple TV’s forthcoming David E. Kelly adaptation of the best-selling novel “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” alongside Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. All of which is to suggest that, at 55, he’s finally earned the serious actor status that he’s been pursuing since he drove his high school girlfriend to a dance audition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign more than 30 years ago, and discovered something called theater school.
“There was no path,” Mr. Offerman said, recalling his limited perspective as a performing arts-curious high school student growing up in rural Illinois in the mid-1980s. “I didn’t even know to ask the question, like, how do I get to be on ‘Taxi’ like Christopher Lloyd? I couldn’t even articulate my career goal, but that’s what it was. It was, how can I use what’s weird about me to entertain people?”
Long before Mr. Offerman started being considered for blue chip roles, he was perhaps best known in Los Angeles as the guy you called when you found a good-looking tree downed in the street. In 2001, four years after moving to L.A., he opened Offerman Woodshop, a woodworking collective in East L.A. that in its ethics and execution stands as a living expression of his life philosophy. It’s also the emotional center of his creative life, which includes what Mr. Offerman called his work as a “humorist” (he performs a live show that blends jokes with self-penned songs) and five best-selling books as a solo author. Mr. Offerman’s sixth book, “Little Woodchucks: Offerman Woodshop’s Guide to Tools and Tomfoolery,” a woodworking guide for children, will be published on Oct. 14.
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The post Nick Offerman Woodworked His Way to Playing the President appeared first on New York Times.
