Tan, fight, write: Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally’s guide to staying married

One of the best things about interviewing celebrities over Zoom is glimpsing their backdrop. Are they in a soulless room at their manager’s office, or are they at home? Is there art on the walls or a fireplace in the background? Better yet, a shelf full of awards. The options are endless, but one thing you never really prepare for is partial nudity.

“Don’t be alarmed, but I don’t have a shirt on,” says Nick Offerman, the Emmy-winning actor you’ve probably seen (fully clothed) in shows such as Parks and Recreation, The Last of Us and Fargo. “Megan just finished spray-tanning me, and so I am letting it settle.”

Emmy Award-winning actors and real-life partners Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally will be appearing at Vivid Sydney. Credit:

“Megan” is Megan Mullally, Offerman’s wife and an Emmy winner in her own right, best known for her role as the scene-stealing Karen Walker in the long-running sitcom Will & Grace.

She is on the call too. In fact, they’re in the same house, but different rooms, with Offerman relegated to the garage while his tan does its thing.

“I’m his official spray tanner, I see it as part of the deal,” says Mullally, laughing. “It’s a good way to stay married.”

In a town where celebrity couples change with the wind, these two are outliers. They have been together for more than two decades, meeting in 2000 and marrying in 2003.

Shirtless, again: Offerman and Mullally at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2022. Credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

“I think the key to that – and this is something people might not know – is we’ve never actually consummated it,” Offerman jokes. “We’ve done almost everything else, but Megan keeps promising, or intimating, that maybe it will be soon.”

The big day might be just around the corner. The two are bringing their live show, Unscripted & Unfiltered, to Vivid Sydney in June and, Mullally says, “I was thinking we’d do it in Australia. Make a big show of it on stage.”

In addition to possible consummation, the show will see the two discuss their respective careers and unpack what it takes to collaborate as life and creative partners.

In the 25 years they’ve been together, Mullally and Offerman have starred in countless films and TV series, co-hosted the podcast In Bed with Nick and Megan, and co-authored The New York Times bestselling memoir The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. How do two people weather all that and live to tell the tale?

“It’s not always pretty,” Mullally admits. “If we’re trying to write something together, we’re going to get in a fight at least once a week.”

Adds Offerman: “Any couple that lives and works together knows that things begin to compound. If I’m upset about how Megan stacked the dishes, but we’re also disagreeing about the work, it starts to add up.”

I ask if they are familiar with Australian couple Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, co-creators and stars of the hit comedy series Colin from Accounts.

“Firstly, we love that show,” Mullally says. “And secondly, I did not know they were a couple. That makes so much sense. No wonder they have great chemistry.”

In a recent interview, Dyer said the key to their working relationship was “one massive fight every season to clean out the pipes”. Sound familiar? “Absolutely,” Offerman says. “Every forest has to burn down to regrow.”

Australian comedy couple Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall (with Colin the dog) in season two of Colin from Accounts.

Remarkably, for all the joint projects in the Offerman-Mullally back catalogue, one thing they’ve never done is write, create and star in their own TV series. But not for lack of trying.

“We’ve pitched at least four shows starring the two of us and have been knocked back every time,” Mullally says.

Offerman doesn’t take it personally. “Hollywood is in a weird flux state presently, and the few studios or streamers who make shows aren’t looking at the content so much as the algorithm,” he says. “I’ve heard that Robert De Niro has a show nobody wants, and Meryl Streep, too. What has the world come to?”

The industry is obsessed with reboots and remakes, too. Which inevitably brings us to the much-loved Parks and Recreation, in which Offerman starred as dour manager Ron Swanson and Mullally guested as his ex-wife, Tammy.

Offerman and Mullally have forged a creative partnership that spans film, television, podcasting and co-authorship.Credit: Getty Images

The series ended a decade ago, but whispers of a reboot refuse to go away.

“If we were ever going to do anything again, it would mean [creator] Mike Schur had an excellent idea to get the gang back together, and it wasn’t just for nostalgia purposes,” Offerman says. “Until then, it’ll remain a fond twinkle in our imaginations.”

Mullally, who lived through the 2017 reboot of Will & Grace, is equally wary. “With a reboot, you are always trying to recapture that magic,” she says. “And it’s never quite the same.”

Unscripted & Unfiltered with Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman is at Vivid Sydney on Saturday, June 14, at ICC Theatre Sydney.

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