Fresh Air - Best Of: Flea / Nick Offerman

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

Flea co-founded the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1982. The bass/trumpet player spoke with Terry Gross about how his music and his life have changed. “Thank God I've changed. I was a lunatic. I was 19 going on 10.” He has a new solo jazz album called ‘Honora.’ Also, we’ll hear from Nick Offerman. He stars in the new series ‘Margo's Got Money Troubles,' 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. The ‘Parks and Rec’ actor spoke with producer Ann Marie Baldonado about transforming for the role. TV critic David Bianculli will review Zach Galifianakis’ new gardening show.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

From W.HY.Y.Y. in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Flea, he co-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 Flea's music and life have changed. Of course, I've changed. And thank God I've changed. I was a lunatic. I was, you know, 19 going on 10. Also, we hear from Nick Offerman. He stars on the new series Margot'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 Aliphonakis has a new gardening show, and David B. Uncule has a review. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. Guess Flea co-founded the multiple Grammy-winning band The Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1982. He's a songwriter and the band's bass player, known for his fast, percussive grooves. They started as an L.A. punk rock band when L.A. and New York were the punk capitals.

Their lead singer initially rap more than he sang. Flea has just released his first solo album called Honora, and it's a big departure, various styles of jazz figure into it. Flea's stepfather was a jazz musician, and listening to his music, starting when Flea was seven, changed Flea's life in ways he's still grateful for. But Flea's stepfather was also addicted to heroin and alcohol, and that made home life unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, leaving Flea 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, Flea plays trumpet, the first instrument he learned

to play. The album also reflects how Flea started studying music theory about 10 years ago. Honora includes original compositions by Flea, as well as covers of songs by George Clinton and Frank Ocean. Tom York of Radiohead sings on one track. Nick Cave sings Wichita alignment. The arrangements feature strings, brass, and woodwinds. When I recorded this interview with Flea last week, we talked about his childhood, his relationship with his stepfather, the chili peppers, wild, and how Flea and his music have changed. He wrote a memoir in 2019 titled, Acid for the Children. Flea, 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 Red Hot Chili Pepper's first demo record. Well, cool. And this is Nevermind. You're, of course, featured on bass. Never mind a pack down.

I'll never mind a gap band. I never mind a zap band. Wow, Terry, good call on that one. Okay, well, let's compare that to Frail from your new album, Honor. Okay. With you featured on trumpet and bass. Okay. So what do you think the 20-year-old you 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. And when I listen back to, you know, Net the song, Nevermind that you played for my first demo tape, and the feeling that I had making it and the feeling that I had when it, you know, we went around with that tape playing it for people with our cassette tape, trying to get booked into clubs to get gigs, it's. It's, you know, it's, you know, a similar feeling that I have now with the record that I just made honor. 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, the chili 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, 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 Honor. 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 a change in you? You're older. You're not in your 20s. You're in your 60s. Yep. Constantly, 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, 19 or 20, I was listening to, you know, ethereal jazz music all the time.

I grew up with 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? Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, I mean, I was a street kid. and I was, you know, emotionally and in so many ways, you know, 19 going on 10, you know, and I continue to try to grow as a human being in all the ways, you know, emotionally, spiritually,

to me more considerate of my fellow human beings. I mean, in every way. So it all feeds into the music and it all feeds into the way that I interact with other people. And, yeah, I mean, I'm a different person. You know, I think this is something I think about a lot in a 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 their years are far apart. Yeah, it's true. 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 and 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, bebop, the music exemplified by Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro and Thelonious Monk. They played jazz like that.

And 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 a great tenderness. They played with great violence and physicality. And it was wild.

You describe it like it was punk rock. Well, you know, for me, you know, all music is music. But it's, you know, there's a, so if I think of punk rock, right, Like you take a song like Nervous Breakdown by Black Flag and it goes, I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. My head really hurts. You know, 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 bass is going, Bittik-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum. My drummers are 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 anyway, so, yes, when I was a kid and I heard them playing that jazz, it just blew my mind and changed my life forever. So you were born in Australia and lived 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 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 bass player, Walter Urban Jr. Yep. 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 loved who introduced you to great people? 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. I, 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 was kind of the same. And there were the strict, you know, codes of conduct that you did not break or you got the belt. You know what I mean? You didn't mess up. You never embarrassed yourself. You never embarrassed the family. You did, you played by the rules.

And my dad was like a very like kind of prototypical 50s responsible man. You know, you work hard, you wear 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, He dressed like a hippie. He wore dashikis. And he was like, cool, man, far out. Yeah, dig this cannonball-ladrally 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 and 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 freedom in that, 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, he 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'd be terrified. We ran out in the 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. He beat 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, you know, it all shaped me. 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 though I understood it in a way that'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 this sort of animal state beyond thought, like this primal just attacking this instrument, one with it, sweating, breathing, grunting, you know, playing this instrument 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 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, other 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 and turned it into beauty, whether it's, like, beauty expressing anger, frustration, sadness. 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.

me please, you know, let me let me let go of this and express it 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, my guest is Flea, and you probably know him from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. After 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 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. Yeah. And, I mean, you must have been good. You won a national orchestra competition for playing Haydn's trumpet concerto? I did. I mean, 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 being in that kind of setting? Yeah, that was the thing. I loved it. I loved playing in an orchestra. I loved playing.

I played in, you know, the L.A. junior Philharmonic for a little while, so one day I got real stoned 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 wear a uniform? No, our school didn't have it. Like all the other schools had the big epaulets and the big fur hats and all that stuff. And we didn't. We just had T-shirts that said Fairfax Band on them.

Yep, and we were terrible marchers. We just kind of walked out into a clump in the middle of the field. But we were good, though. We were good. We used to play Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, which was Stevie Wonder's tribute to Duke Ellington. And, yeah, we were pretty funky. I remember us being excited about the music.

Describe what you were like on stage in those early years of the chili peppers and how your background in gymnastics, surfing, and other sports may have figured into what you were able to do on stage. Well, I think, you know, from the jump, all of us... Literally jump. Yeah, we wanted to be... 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 the way we dressed, the way 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 Ornette Coleman's saxophone. We wanted to, you know, we just wanted to be wild. And so whatever, you know, I was always a very physical person. I always played sports. I loved 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. And for all of us, you know, for all of us. And we love movement, we love dance, we all invented our own funny dances, 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, 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 c-ch is what we called it. that was something like, you know, Halel and Anthony and I, we would do that at home, like, to be funny. You know, someone would come, I think it may have been Anthony, like, came like walking out of this room with, you know, with just a sock. And, you know, we're all laughing and hanging out, and we all did it.

And, yeah, and I can't, I think I remember the first time we did it, we used to play this strip club It's a perfect place Yeah yeah we played this strip club On Santa Monica Boulevard Called damn it I wish I could remember the name of it But anyways we play there

And I remember one time we were playing And And we went off stage And we were getting ready to do the encore Everyone was screaming and yelling And Anthony I probably said Sockman, sock man And we're like

Oh great, great idea And so we put on socks, stripped down, put on socks, and came out and played, and it was met warmly. And I think on that particular show, we were opening up for another band called Royd Rogers and the Whirling Butcheries. It was just, it was Hollywood in the early 80s. Let me tell you, people were just doing weird stuff to be weird. Like it was really embraced. There was this underground scene. And I'm saying these things that some people might find repugnant.

It's cool. You know, I get it. But we grew up in Hollywood. We ran around on the streets in 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 gay club, you know, making out in the street dressed in nothing but leather chaps and chains. Like, that's where I grew up.

That's where I'm from. And I embraced it all. You know what I mean? I never, you know, I've always embraced it all. Did you do the socks thing at punk clubs too? Yeah, yeah. Then it became like a thing. Like it was so fun and then we did it all the time.

Did you ever get busted for it? Like in decency? Yeah, once in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We played a show. And I can't remember if we did socks or we went completely. naked, but I'm pretty sure it was sock. Maybe a sock fell off. I don't know. But we played a show in this club. It was midwinter in Wisconsin, so snow everywhere, freezing. And we play the show and then, like, we walk offstage and there's the cops and they're 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 me and Anthony, look at each other. And one of us It's like, let's make a break for it. And we see this, like the club was kind of removed, like, you know, on the outskirts of town, and we see these woods, and we just bolt. And it's midwinter and snow, and we are wearing nothing but socks. You know, they make us walk out there in our socks and the freezing cold. And we just bolt out the middle of the night, it's like 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 hysterically. 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 the pouring rain in the UK once at 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. But anyways, it felt like that. And then we run into the street, we see this car going by with these kids like our age who had been. into the show and give 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. Flea, it's been great talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Flea's new solo album is called Honora. 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 Galefinakis, the comic actor best known for the hangover films, the TV series Baskets, and his own acerbic talk show between two ferns. Our TV critic David Biancouli 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 Zatch Gaspafadasky.

You don't expect Zach Galfanakis to take a good. himself seriously in his new Netflix series, and for the most part, he doesn't. This is a gardening show is loaded with botch takes, toss away asides, and truly terrible jokes, even knock-knock jokes. He clearly has fun, and so do his guests. One segment in each episode has him interviewing kids at a grade school, acting like Art Linkletter 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 ad-lib 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, Galafenakis 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 School of Rock. These are ghost peppers?

Are they haunted? No. Well, then why did they call them ghost peppers? Because they're really hot. But most ghosts 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 vet.

You don't mean a veteran. You mean a veterinarian? Yeah. Yeah. Probably someone who's... works in a show. Works in a show? Yeah.

Oh, like show business stuff. Yeah, like, have you ever seen School Walk? Who's that with? Jack Black. Never heard of that guy. He's one of my favorite actors. Good for him. No, my first favorite is Ryan Reynolds.

Ryan Reynolds. It'd be nice to meet an actor one day. Yeah. It would be nice to meet Ryan Reynolds and Jack Black. Yeah. You ever heard of this guy, Zach Galafidakis? Yeah. What do you think of that guy?

He's not my favorite. Hmm. The six episodes in this first season, I'm hoping there will be more, are 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. even when Zach brings up the phenomenon of crop circles. Anybody ever come in here try to do a crop circle? No. And he did it with a center point in a rope and like a crop circle. You don't think they're aliens. No. They're just drunk kids doing it.

No, old people with a piece of board. You've probably seen it on TV. What do you mean old people by that? Well, like our age. Our age? Well, you look 70-ish. Oh. In the same episode on Codney's

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 radiocarbon laboratory. How old was it? Over 3,000 years old. Wow.

Older than Murray. The director of this as a gardening show is Brooke Linder, who also proved his skill at mixing different topics and comic tones in the live Netflix talk show Everybody's Live with John Mullaney. 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. Galaphanakis also visits different farms and farmers to sample their wares, and every other. Every time he bites into an heirloom tomato or a homegrown 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 agrarian, 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 much tastier the locally grown fruits and vegetables are. In several spots watching this is 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 caldrons in the fields and invite the

public. You could go there, pick ears right off the stocks, shuck and boil them on the spot, and eat what I still remember was the best corn I ever had. Zach Aliphonakis in his new series spreads that kind of joy for eating as well as gardening. But he issues a double-of-and-a-bus. 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. Uncully reviewed, this is a gardening show. Coming up, we hear from actor Nick Offerman. He stars on the new series Margot'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 Margot's Got Money Troubles is based on the book of the same name. He spoke to fresh airs and Marie Baldinado. The new Apple TV series Margotes Got Money Troubles is about Margot, 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.

Margot herself was raised by a single mom. Her dad, Jinks, played by Nick Offerman, was a popular professional wrestler when she was born and has been pretty absent from her life. Now his career is 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 Margot and decides to come back in. 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 El Fanning. You're a grandpa. Everyone says he's beautiful, so I'm going with that. He's the most beautiful. Oh, I brought you a check. Sold an old bike. It's not much, but I'm sorry. I wasn't able to call you back.

Where are you staying? Well, for tonight I've got to figure, then start tomorrow. I guess I've got to figure that too. Can I hold him? He's a little fussy. Hey, little man. Wow.

He likes you. Jinks moves in with Margo. the baby, and Margot's roommate, creating an unconventional family unit. Jinks 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 in 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 this series, The Last of Us. In addition, Tamargo'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've 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, journeyman bus driver slash plumber, you know, slash guy manning the grill. And so one thing I haven't been called on to do a lot of, as 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 Al Fanning

and with Michelle Pfeiffer, not only having that for the first time, kind of, but to have them with these like world class Mount Rushmore, like A. actresses, you know, it was like, well, I wanted a challenge. Here you go, buddy. Well, I've read when you're preparing for a role, you think a lot about facial hair, maybe all of your hair, but facial hair in particular. And I imagine, too, 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 past his 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 hair 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 I worked with a great trainer named Grant Roberts to make my body look more like a former pro wrestler.

And then had 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 videotapes. And then you wrestle at an expo for. for wrestlers. And you even wrestle Nicole Kidman's character. Yeah, that was in the modern parlance of not on my bingo card. Wrestling Nicole Kidman was definitely not on there. I want to play another scene from this series. Here, Jinks is at Margot'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, Margot is played by Al Fanning.

Susie mentioned that you might be looking for a roommate, and I need a place to live. Oh, um, well. I mean, look, 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, lost time. Okay, I think I got my answer. It's not, um... 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 Bodie. 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 mean, 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 Margot's Got Money Troubles. Your character, Jinks, 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 painkillers 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 a 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 people about their interior lives. And I can, I mean, I thankfully have not had such addiction problems in my life, but I've certainly dabbled in indulgence in ways that, like, I've learned lessons over the years 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 Jinks is that he's trying so hard, but the audience can tell that he's struggling. 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 Jinks, the struggle? Yeah, I mean, it's tied to your last question. And I'm a human, I'm a human male. And so that if you're honest with yourself, that 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 I have three great siblings. And we all, you know, we're all doing our best. We've got school teachers and librarians and nurses and an actor. But we all, you know, each in our own way, we emulate our mom and dad. 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. 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 Malalley, 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 stumbles and some pitfalls and sometimes when I've had to say, wow, I handled that. horribly. Please forgive me. And so I have, I'm a person who's honest with himself. So I have a wealth of opportunities to draw upon for jinx to find his feelings in. Now, many listeners will know you from your role as Ron Swanson in the show Parks and Recreation. I want to play a quick scene from the show, one that shows Ron being Ron. Here's

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 an anaphrase, and just forged and shaped the rings. Any moron with a crucible and a sutiline torch and a Iron Waffle Maker could have done the same. The 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. me TV writers and they would write me apart in their pilot and it never worked out. And then finally,

we were watching Rain Wilson on The Office, who's a dear old friend. And I said, you know, if I'm ever going to get a shot, I think it's going to be something like Dwight on the office. And sure enough, Dwight's cousin, Moes Shrewd, played by Mike Schur, who created Parks and Rec with Greg Daniels of the office. They had me in. 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 as Amy's 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. Like, 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. Oh, that was a bit of heartbreaking. I would sob inwardly like, oh, cool, sounds good, man. See you later. So finally, it came down to where there were just a couple of us. Amy came to town.

They were getting ready to start shooting. She moved here from New York to L.A. 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. Like, she was like a comedy butterfly hopped up 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 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 assery and, and insulting the actor Jim O'Hare. Who played Jerry Gary. And whose character, yeah, who always, the running joke was that everybody made fun of. Yeah, he's the E. Or, and he couldn't be a sweeter, you know, more wonderful guy. And it's just, it's a joke we'll never, we'll never drop. Like, it was a cast full of wonderful, talented actors and also Jim O'Hare is the running bit.

Nick Offerman, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Nick Offerman spoke with Fresh Airs, Anne-Marie Boldinato. He stars in the new series Margot's Got Money Troubles. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorock,

Anne-Marie Boldenato, Lauren Crenzel, Monique Neffampton, Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yucundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nestor. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.