We’re fairly certain this next piece of Nick Offerman knowledge will be new to you, however: He’s started his own newsletter on Substack called Donkey Thoughts With Nick Offerman. If you’re a fan of any of the above-mentioned Offerman offerings, you will almost indubitably enjoy Donkey Thoughts as well; think of it as a vehicle for gathering up some life-lesson morsels from an old friend you always have fun shooting the breeze with. Plus, Offerman has promised that some of his “newsletters” will be delivered in audio form. As he put it in his inaugural issue, “If you like to hear slow-talking or watching a medium-looking white guy in his fifties try to find his figurative ass with both hands, then this might be just the subscription for you.” To find out more about his latest ventures, Parade recently sat down with Offerman to ask him why he started the Substack, what made him say yes to Pam and Tommy, whether fans will get to see him on Mullally’s upcoming Party Down revival, plus what life advice he might have for those of us who’d like to live a little more Offerman-ly.
So far, the first three issues of Donkey Thoughts include hilarious questions that were asked of you primarily by your family back home.
Well, the thing is, it’s designed to be a Q&A but in order to start it I needed some primer, some starter dough, and so I had some friends and family send me some questions.
That makes sense. Do you foresee this as an advice column or something else?
I don’t think I have a high enough opinion of myself to say it’s an advice column. It’s maybe a humorous advice column… I’m not a prolific creator of content. But then I thought of that format and said, oh, you know what actually, that could be really fun. It’s a way for me—the older I get, the more I love writing, but I still have so many plates spinning in my particular circus that I’m rarely able to write regularly. As soon as I finish a book, then I dive into a touring show or an acting job or what have you. And so I found this to be an attractive way to sort of keep working out my writer muscles.
You strike me as a Renaissance man—which is an old-fashioned way of saying you’ve achieved an admirable work-life balance. So that is a piece of advice I’d like to ask you now. How might we all be able to take steps in our lives toward more balance?
You know, my first impulse is to say you’re mistaken, but I do feel like I’m successful in some ways at trudging toward that balance and the way I do it is—it’s a hard thing to take on board, I think, in this modern life, but it’s simply by setting limits for myself. A challenge that I never dreamed I would have to face has been being very successful in the entertainment business. I never dreamed in a million years that I would have to say no to jobs that the 20-year-old me would, my head would explode and say, what? How could you pass on that with this amazing person or this director or this amount of money or it’s a network sitcom or whatever? But eventually learning the hard way that if you say yes to too many things, if you try to, I think if you listen to our consumeristic comedy, if you allow yourself to be blinded by the goals of materialism, you should do everything you can to hoard as much wealth as you can—and you should do it with as thin of a waistline and as tan of skin and blond of hair and so forth. That’s kind of what we’re taught, that’s all of the messaging driving us toward. If you listen to all that stuff, that’s going in the wrong direction. If you can turn those channels off and say, “Oh wait a second, what if I have my waistline as an inch bigger but I hug my mom once a week?” And if you make an alternate list that isn’t flashy or exciting and will never appear on a listicle unless it’s the five most boring things you can do with your evening, that’s where I focus: What if I don’t kill myself to fly to do some crazy job and instead I pay attention to my household, my wife, my family, my friends and myself? So I mean, it’s a long-winded way of saying, limit the things you say yes to, to turn off the constant messaging of more, more, more.
What made you say yes to Pam and Tommy? And p.s., I absolutely love Pam and Tommy!
I do too, I’m really proud of it. When I got the offer for Pam and Tommy, the first thing is it made me think of the sort of historical shows that Ryan Murphy has been doing where I was like, “Oh, this has the potential to be a powerfully impactful piece of content.” The people involved are the top drawer kind of talents I aspire to work with, the writers, the producers, the actors, the directors, and then I read the role and I was like, this is fantastic. All I ever want to do is be unrecognizable. All I ever want to do is avoid repeating myself and so this is certainly a bunch of boxes that I had not checked with the role of Uncle Milty in this show. And then finally, I read all the scripts because there was maybe some trepidation and a bit of doubt around, like, how is this going to be handled? Hang on, is it going to be cool to sort of reproduce this? And frankly, I was quite ignorant to the actual story.
I think all of us were, really.
So when I started reading the scripts that was the first thing that struck me was, people are going to flip out when they find out the true details of this story, it’s absolutely crazy… [The] series starts out a bit salacious and it’s like, rock and roll! It’s Baywatch and Playboy bunnies and it feels like it’s sort of exploiting the underbelly of the story—but then pretty quickly you come to understand, oh, regardless of Tommy Lee’s malfeasance being the cause of this, or the foible that set all of this in motion, these people were clearly fully the victims of a crime. Regardless of the questionable character of Tommy Lee, these people are innocent victims and this is horrible. The whole world has this wrong… There are some wonderful things that Lily James has to say about how when you take your top off, when you work as a “slut” of some sort, you are no longer afforded any rights as a citizen. And I just think it goes from being entertaining and elucidating and kind of rollicking to then becoming actually quite substantial and moving. So I’m very proud of the work, I can’t believe what an amazing job Lily and Sebastian did and I’m very grateful I got to be part of it.
I might get fired for not asking you about Parks and Rec, but I’m going to go out on that limb because what I really want to know is, are you going to be on the Party Down reboot with your wife?
I am such a huge fan of Party Down.
Yes, such a huge fan!
Oh my god. When Party Down went away after two seasons in ‘07, ‘08 or something like that… that was horribly heartbreaking. I mean, do you know how hard it is to make a show like Party Down? So many brilliant people have to collaborate and 11 people have to win the lottery; it’s insanely impossible and to then toss that away is just so frustrating. But that’s showbiz. So I’m so excited that it’s coming back and I’m helping Megan run lines for her episodes and so I secretly—I can’t say this to her because it would be unseemly—but I secretly am like, “Oh God, I hope they want me to come do something because I love the show, I’m great friends with all the cast members, especially anything I can do with [former Parks and Rec co-star] Adam Scott, I’ll run a mile over flaming coals to get to see his face.” So I hope so, but only time will tell. Next, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein Tell Us How They Found Their ‘Natural Chemistry’
