Nick Offerman on Parks and Recreation, Good Omens and travelling with wife Megan Mullally

They’re two of the most beloved comedians in the world, but there’s one thing they love to do when they’re on the road together.

Four years after the end of Parks and Recreation, people still conflate Nick Offerman with his fictional counterpart, Ron Swanson.

Such is the power of Offerman’s most iconic character, the stern-talking, no-nonsense, moustachioed woodsman. Ron Swanson adorns mugs and T-shirts, he’s the subject of memes and he’s still part of the cultural consciousness.

“One of the strange phenomena in this day and age is streaming, so a great many people are just watching the show now,” Offerman told news.com.au while he was in Australia for his comedy tour, All Rise.

“A lot of the audience is seemingly unaware that we finished making the show. My natural beard has a lot of white in it so quite often, I’ll run into people and they’ll say, ‘why do you look so different from Ron? I was just watching it this morning. You look thinner and older.’

“And I say, ‘that’s the magic of Hollywood, my friend’.”

Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson (left) in Parks and Recreation. Picture: Chris Haston/NBC.

Parks and Recreation, a comedy about the inner workings of a small government department in Indiana, USA, was very much a product of the Obama era — an optimistic series about the good government can do in the lives of its citizens, characterised by Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope, a determined, ambitious and kind-hearted government worker.

Offerman’s Ron Swanson was her boss. Ron Swanson was anti-big government, loved conspiracy theories and guns. Even though, on the surface, he may have seemed more fitted to a Trump presidency, Ron Swanson was still a great admirer of decency.

Asked if Parks and Recreation would be a different series if it was made now, Offerman said: “You know, I don’t think it would be terribly different.

“We sort of had Trumpian storylines, where there was a family called the Newports who were pretty vapid and they achieved great financial success without any apparent merits. But I think the show naturally shies away from specifically topical issues, and instead try to hit more general governmental and social dilemmas.

Offerman played the anti-big government boss of Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler. Picture: NBC/Mitch Haddad.

“Generally, the attitude and agenda of the show would’ve remained the same — and that’s if you try to be nice to everyone and work hard, the community might be better off than if we act selfishly.”

Parks and Recreation may have been Offerman’s breakout role after toiling in bit parts since 1997 (including as an impassioned wolf-rights activist on The West Wing), but it’s ensured that the American funnyman has stayed busy and in-demand since the series premiered in 2009.

Between his side business as a wood craftsman, touring with his comedy show and publishing three books, Offerman has also, somehow, found time to be in a bunch of movies and TV shows, including Making It, which he hosts with Poehler, Fargo, The Founder and Hearts Beat Loud.

“One of the ridiculous pieces of good fortune with a job like Parks and Recreation is you can meet people who you powerfully admire and they happen to be fans of your work on the show, and they can be mutually pleased to meet you,” he said.

Fans still conflate Offerman with his Ron Swanson character on Parks and Recreation. Picture: Theo Wargo/Getty Images.

One of those people was Neil Gaiman, whom Offerman “inadvertently” sat next to at a conference when he snuck into the room late.

“I felt like a 12-year-old, sitting next to the author of some of my favourite books, the greatest works of fantasy that had shaped my young manhood.

“So we became pals, and we had already talked about the fact that he was adapting Good Omens, so it was not entirely crazy when he texted me and said ‘I have a small role but I need a donkey-headed American to play this role you sprang to mind’.

“I’ve had worst compliments!”

Offerman is only in two scenes as the American ambassador in Gaiman’s Good Omens series, which he shot in Cape Town, but they were memorable ones.

Gaiman adapted the series from the apocalyptic book he wrote with Terry Pratchett some years ago. Starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant as an angel and a demon trying to stop the end of days, the darkly funny Good Omens, streaming now on Amazon Prime Video, is one of the best series released so far in 2019.

At Good Omens’ New York premiere and press junket, rather than donning the customary fancy red carpet outfit, Offerman turned up in a monk’s garment — a nod to the biblical themes of the series.

Offerman has a small but memorable role in Good Omens.

“It was the beginning of this tour trip,” he said. “I thought I didn’t have room to pack a sort of fancy suit so I texted Neil and said, ‘Would you mind if I dressed as a monk?’. Then I was able to come up with a monk outfit from a costume house in New York.”

Offerman said he can “absolutely recommend” the sartorial choice, likening its comfort factor to the snuggie or slanket.

“You’re really just putting on a sleeping bag and lounging about in it.”

Offerman said he enjoys touring Australia because he finds us “intelligent” and that he doesn’t have to “spoon feed” Australian audiences like he does American ones.

“I feel like one of the causes for the dilemma we find ourselves in is that through decades of prosperity, our society in particular has become rather comfortable, and quit paying close attention to people driving the bus.

“And Australian audiences, perhaps because voting is a requirement here, just pay a lot more attention to what’s going on.

Nick Offerman at the premiere of Good Omens in New York City.

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“In America, a great many of us were rudely awakened to the fact that our representatives have gone quite off the rails and need some correcting.”

Offerman happens to be on tour at the same time as wife Megan Mullally’s band, Nancy and Beth.

“That’s really fun — this was sort of getting our cake and eating it too. Because we each get to do our main thing, which is my slow-talking humour and her astonishing force of entertainment that is her band.

“I actually got to see half of her shows and she’s going to see mine tonight. It’s pretty dreamy so we’ll probably try and engineer things like this down the road.”

Offerman and Mullally married in 2003 after meeting while working together on a play. They clearly enjoy each other’s professional as well as personal company — they’ve toured together as a team, he’s opened for her band and her band has opened for him.

They’ve also, memorably, appeared together on screen — she on Parks and Recreation as Ron Swanson’s ex-wife Tammy, their antagonistic but sizzling chemistry an undeniably delicious combination. In return, he’s been on Will & Grace — once in the original run and a second time in the revival series.

Offerman and his wife Megan Mullally. Picture: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Alliance for Women in Media.

When they are able to travel together, whether for work or pleasure, they indulge in romantic interludes, when they can.

“There’s a restaurant in London, whenever we can, as soon as we land there, we go and eat there — it’s exceptionally delicious but also romantic. (These days) it’s less about hamburgers and more about a beautiful vista in a park or a romantic bridge overlooking a river.”

That’s not something you’d expect Ron Swanson to say.

As for that clamoured-for Parks and Recreation reunion, especially now that creator Mike Schur has announced the upcoming season of his show The Good Place would be its last and might have a little more time on his hands? Offerman said he would be interested in revisiting Pawnee.

“I think everyone would come running if Mike came up with an idea to which we could apply our shoulders and make-up brushes.

“But I’m not holding my breath. I certainly hope I get to have more fun with Mike and the gang, but he usually surprises us. Whatever it is we hope for, he usually has a different and better idea.”

Good Omens and Parks and Recreation are streaming now Amazon Prime Video

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