Nick Offerman | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] if you've got and it's free check check you can hear me all right look at look at this magnificent bar so Nick I want us to start today by asking a little bit about your journey into comedy and what is it that pushed you towards acting and why were you drawn towards the arts in the first place that's a great question I grew up in a small town in Illinois which is right in the middle of America which is west of here and I grew up in the 70s and 80s long before the internet in a pretty poor household so we didn't even have cable television we got a VCR at one point and we had six movies five of which were musicals and so nobody in my entire sphere my entire community had ever gone into the arts and I and I grew up this precocious kid there's a famous in my family there's a famous home movie I was about age 12 of me somebody is taking an 8 millimeter movie of the family on vacation and everybody's kind of shy and avoiding the camera and then it gets to me and I'm just doing this awkward horrible dance as if to say if you're rolling a camera you want to get a load of this [ __ ] right here and only later you know for years I was embarrassed by it and then once I I found out that you could study theater in college and I said oh I think that's what I want to do I want to entertain people and my entire community said you can't do that you can't get there from here and I said by god I think I can those those actors must come from someplace and and so I got into theater school and only then did I look back and realized that I had always had this penchant to make people laugh or to make them have a catharsis which means [ __ ] yourself I don't know if you guys studied Latin but so I mean it really was an organic impulse I I had a lot of catching up to do once I got to college and my cooler friends that had grown up with culture handed me that literally handed me things and this is the late 80s like the Beatles and I've said these guys are great like I think they're going somewhere and so I started catching up as quickly as I could when I realized oh I can I can get work entertaining people but I have a lot of catching up to do and that was 20 years ago and I'm still catching up as fast as I go sorry that's 30 years ago ha still catching up following from that so you're early craze you said was dominated by the theater in around Chicago but I want it now do you miss the stage and would you ever consider going back to your roots I do miss the stage but I do still work in theater just I used to be full-time theater and then my wife and I met if you're not familiar my wife is named Megan Mullally cheaply I agree she's Karen on Will & Grace and she's Tammy too on Park City right and not everybody knows she's also the funny sister with the cats named Gail on Bob's Burgers yeah that that's the the peak of the conversation she and I met doing a play in 2000 and we then did several more plays at this company we did a play together I think five years ago in LA and then took it to New York and then three years ago I had the great pleasure of adapting the comedy novel a confederacy of dunces to the stage in Boston so I so I do still pursue the stage the tricky part is in the film business particularly the the the good jobs you need to book booked them six eight months in advance and so you're always booked up and then somebody calls and says hey you want to come play Hamlet I get asked that all the time you wouldn't believe and I say no let me give you Benedict's number and I heard he did a fine job he did then I wondered if I could turn to your most popular performance as a woodworker saxophonist and staunch libertarian there are several obvious parallels between you and Ron Swanson so I wondered where does Ron begin in the line between Ron and me and I wish I had my guitar my last tour which will be coming to a broadcast channel somewhere at some point and the show ended with a song called I'm not Ron Swanson and I'll quickly recite it for you I understand you've come to love another man he's studly and heroic so I completely understand but now your expectations are a little high I fear because if I had to live like him I'd be dead within a year he can eat a big-ass steak for every single meal his colon is fictitious while mine is all too real and his Scotch intake would be my livers doom because mine is controlled by nature and his by the whims of the writers room I mean that's the that's the the general gist of it is Ron Swanson is 20 times the man that I am no mortal man can be what he is he's superhuman and but I am I'm the simpering ninny of my family I I have two sisters who can out out chop firewood compared to me they can they can pound me into the ground so I'm I'm much more effeminate which has probably become clear to you and seeing me in person I had two semesters of ballet but I'm you know I'm a human being so Ron Swanson is is staunchly dependable he's a he's an expertly written comedy character and I'm complicated I I make a lot more mistakes I you know I'm more wishy-washy I'm a human being I'm not a libertarian libertarianism is dumb it's I mean it's it's wonderfully written and it works perfectly as it needs to in the formula as a foil against Leslie Knope on our show and and the the you know the sort of core tenets of libertarianism are absolutely admirable but obviously they can't work is the problem we've tried it it does it just doesn't work and and you know I love red meat but it I read something where it's proving to be not so great for the atmosphere and that gives me pause and I also want to live a long time so I eat a lot of salad because I'm not in a comedy I'm not trying to get a laugh with my diet I like pooping regularly Ron is terribly constipated they never did that episode then I wanted to ask just another follow-up question about the characters the American identity seems to be firmly rooted in most notable characters you've played so I wondered do you see the American identity essential to who you are outside of your performances well gosh that's I mean the American identity you know it's something that in this current climate has really sort of come under the microscope I think and and I think I'm excited that we're fine we're coming closer and closer to the truth that the American identity is a very human identity sort of the exciting thing about America is that it's where we Homo sapiens have had the opportunity to be us as honestly as possible you know it's it's in many ways the most advanced part of Western civilization or or where we've had the most swings at free choice and and the result of that you know is in parts heroic and impressive and disgusting and rapacious and embarrassing just like us and so to my way of thinking the American identity is a very human identity and it's not necessarily something to be patriotic and you know to say we're the greatest because if we if we are the greatest perhaps we've made the most money but we've also to [ __ ] our pants the most and so yet you have to take both sides of the coin and if that's the case that I'm happy to represent the American identity but it's something you know when that country was founded it was called the the great experiment and I I really embrace that notion I think as human beings we'll always be prone to make mistakes no matter no matter how much we can perfect a system of governance and so it it's always going to be a learning experience and I'm happy to be part of that I you know I think it's foolish to ever think we're done learning or to claim that anybody is the best at anything we'll all never be the best but hopefully as we continue to learn and evolve everyone around the world will become more even and and that's the American identity that I enjoy there are great many Americans the majority of us did not vote for the embarrassing turd that's in the White House and I'm and I'm very grateful that you know that we have our hearts in the right place even though you know it we're all in this boat together where we're aware that climate change is that this terrible danger but we still flip on the air-conditioning when we walk in the house or you know I I have more socks than I probably need i've eight pairs of socks who needs you know I mean who do I think I am a rockefeller and then before opening up the questions the audience I just wanted to pivot away from art and politics and talk a little bit of time about I would say what first got you excited about wooden wood work and why is it still one of your most predominant passions today I'm glad you asked I grew up in in a wonderful rural family many of them are farmers to this day my family is hilariously salt-of-the-earth ike they they all fall under these headings teacher librarian nurse paramedic farmer I think that's that's everybody except for my brother who is a brewer of craft beer so he's the king of the family but I come from this incredibly salt-of-the-earth you know my family are all public servants and I grew up learning to use tools everybody you know we we had a huge garden we're all carpenters and mechanics and we can all mend our clothing and we all know how to cook and it was just a matter of self-reliance you know it's a certain form of frugality that's born of the agrarian lifestyle and it's just it's a way to affordably live on a small income but you know live deliciously and so I didn't know any better and then I grew up and moved to the city to have an audience for my my performing and unbeknownst to me consumerism was all the rage where I mean I'm not kidding my friends in Los Angeles if they get a flat tire they say oh my car is broken I have to throw it away and get a new one people no longer understand how to use tools and how to fix things and take care of their homes and so immediately I learned that I could use my carpenter skills to make money I built scenery professionally through my 20s while I was trying to get acting jobs and and then in my late 20s I sort of tricked myself and I guess that's the answer to your question is I had moved to Los Angeles I it wasn't as healthy of a community to build scenery in as Chicago had been and so I had my tools but no work to do and some friends hired me to build a deck a cabin in their yard and so I was building in an old timber frame style where you're not using nails and screws but you're making these joints mortise and tenon joints sort of like old Japanese temples are built and and I taught myself to build this joinery and it's the first time that I used chisels and and hand planes and suddenly I realized that I was building the same joinery that was used in antique furniture and it was really an epiphany where I had tricked myself it through years of carpentry and then and then this post and beam construction I said holy cow if I shrink this down and get some nice wood I can build an heirloom dining table and from that moment on I've just been fascinated I recognized it immediately as a discipline that that consumes me and I always say to people how are things going at the shop or because I have a wood shop in Los Angeles and I say things are going well it keeps me out of the pub and they always laugh and I say that it's funny but I mean it I recognized it as a healthy way of life it's something it's not a it's not unlike the feeling I spent two weeks one time playing video games and and I lost those two weeks to to the incredible dopamine rush of video games and at the end of the two weeks one was called earthworm jim and one was called banjo kazooie and me and my friend we beat both games and it was so fun and indulgent and we just ordered pizza every day and beat these games and at the end of it it was incredibly triumphant for all of 20 seconds and then I said oh my god what I just what what did I just do for two weeks and I've never played a video game since then because I get the same feeling when I am successfully altering the shape of a piece of wood but when I when I'm woodworking I feel like I'm playing a video game but when I beat the game when I finish I have a table or a chair or something beautiful that serves a purpose that I can get paid for and so it's I I recognized it it's something I can be involved in and it will keep me healthy and out of the pub as long as my hands keep working and so that's become my soapbox issue is whenever I talk to audiences I encourage everyone to find some I think that everyone is talented at making something the the human condition has has been I think so occluded by the Information Age and consumerism we have all these wonderful luxuries and and these crazy smartphones that are wonderful in so many ways but our handwriting is going to hell and the the incredible human magic of your brain coordinating with what your hands can do whether you're making lasagna or dining-room tables or your a masseuse or you're making dildos or you or orgasms are something you can make with your hands and you can be paid for this work I always encourage people no matter what your course of study is there's something you can make with your hands that will enrich your life and and keep keep you attached to the countless generations of people who went to all the trouble of figuring these things out I bet they don't teach that here maybe at all souls so with that let's open up the questions to the audience if you want to raise your hand and then we'll get a microphone to you let's go to the hand on the back right hand side is it working yep good evening Nick thank you very much for imparting all this knowledge valuable knowledge to us I'm gonna go ahead and pick your brain a little bit more with a very deep heavy loaded question which has philosophical ethical moral scientific some may even say carnal implications 7 and 5/8 inches right so follow-up question that's girth and I'm sure you have many answers to this one what is the favorite wood that you like working with that's that's and of course and of course why same answer it's a great question one of the wonderful things about working with wood what wood is such a magical and eldritch material when you when you actually learn how the cells of trees behave it's it's incredibly magical and satisfying and depending on the tree species the woods behave in different ways they have different properties strengths and weaknesses so one of the most magnificent woods which you have a great deal of here this is is not that this is a pine this is a softwood which is a lesser wood I don't want to [ __ ] on this great room but a lot of the panelling I visited the chapel at Trinity College today and the paneling in that room if you want an example is a beautiful quarter sawn oak primarily white oak is I think the most heroic of woods it's it's so substantial that Her Majesty's Royal Navy was built entirely of oak 16 18 inches thick those magnificent ships of the line were built of this wood and you know they were so solid that they would receive nicknames like Old Ironsides was one of the civil war ships in America that is one of the favorite woods of furniture makers and cabinet makers because it's incredibly beautiful it's incredibly versatile and just ridiculously strong if you're building a canoe or a musical instrument you you don't want something quite so substantial you want for a canoe for example you want something with great tensile strength but actually much lighter and weight so a cedar or a spruce will serve you much more admirably so it all depends on what you're making but if I could only pick one wood it would be American white oak I'll tell you that right to your face several centuries ago it may well have been British white oak but you cut them all down to build the ships so you can't really get the good stuff anymore let's take another question yep thank you so much for sharing with us today I'm a big fan of Ron Swanson also of Tammy too but perhaps the most exciting the most the project that I'm most excited about is look and see the portrait of Wendell Berry so I just was wondering if you could speak on what about Wendell Berry's works resonated with you and what we might glean from them today Wow thank you what's your name I'm Tori Tori you no matter what happens you have won the evening I had the great pleasure and privilege of helping produce a documentary about my favorite writer his name is Wendell Barry he's 84 he's a Kentucky farmer and I'll tell you what if he writes essays and poetry and fiction and his thing is it makes sense I've already sort of given you a bit of my worldview and the reason he is who I most greatly emulate is because he's had the wherewithal to famously remain a simple farmer so he farmed he grew up farming with horses and when everybody started buying tractors he said I don't I don't have things are going fine I don't need to improve my situation just because there's this newfangled gadget that will allow me to to plow more fields and then he became a writer and sort of remained in a sort of Amish way he remained in his place he remained a staunch steward of his land and Kentucky which is quite beautiful it's it's rolling hills it's it's not dissimilar from perhaps the lake district so it's some beautiful forest some beautiful farmland and his point of view as a writer was to watch the world suddenly speed up around him and and just sign up hand over fist for this rampant consumerism like a fashion where people you know were suddenly buying things they didn't need because because they were receiving glossy advertisements telling them to and it's something that we've become so used to now but there was a time in his youth in the 40s and 50s when that was a real challenge you know the Industrial Revolution happened he speaks very eloquently about this and suddenly our industry was able to produce all of these items so much more easily and cheaply than we ever had before and they said all right we've made these kick-ass vacuum cleaners now how do we sell them to these to these people and and that's where advertising was born and it's quite nefarious if you go back and think about it people were perfectly happy cleaning their floors and and advertisers came in and said you you don't deserve to clean your house put your feet up ladies by our newfangled vacuum cleaner and they had to begin to sell us things and one of the things I I could never fathom as being a person working in advertising today you know if I I buy a pair of shoes hoping they'll last me for a couple decades and sometimes I'll get 10 years out of them but I buy things to last and to have the job of trying to convince you to buy a new kind of toothpaste seems like the seventh circle of hell to me because if you have a product if you have a soap that you use why would why do you need a new kind of soap and and so Wendell Berry maintains this this point of view and as let the world just completely pass him by he wrote a very famous essay in the 90s about why he'll never use a computer and he breaks it down to the point where it's what I was talking about earlier where he says even me on my farm here I do have electricity and so I'm complicit I'm just as bad as the city dweller depending on all the municipal programs as soon as as soon as you run one wire to your household and send them money you're saying I'm giving you the the Energy Company agency I'm trusting that you will send me this electricity or this coal or whatever you're sending me I'm trusting that you will show a good stewardship that you will treat the planet with fidelity while you're sending me what I need to fire up these light bulbs and we all know that some of those companies did not pay the proper or not paying the proper attention to take care of taking care of our planet and we've done great damage and that's something we're coming coming aware of and I'm big all of you who are younger and smarter than me to save the planet from my generation if there's anything I can leave you with tonight it's that please clean up my mess and I'm sorry for all of my socks but I I'm telling you I hope I've become friends with Wendell Barry and and I he and his family have a farming program I don't know if you're aware but in America most of the agriculture has been taken over by huge industrial corporations which and and I think it's there's some of that happening here as well where it's much harder for small farmers to make a living and so the the numbers are devastating like in in the early part of the 19th century you know I should memorize these numbers but they're 94 percent of the nation's farmers were small farmers family farms and now it's down to like two percent I mean it's it's absolutely devastating which means that you know industries are creating yeast-based slimes and factories based on the the mono culture gruel that they're growing across the country and it's dangerous in many many ways and so it's it's one of the great mistakes that we're learning that we've all allowed that our society to make and this guy's writing it just has the most clear point of view it's so rife with human wisdom and it all just comes down to focusing on stewardship of knowing where your food comes from paying attention to your relationships it's it's behaving like human beings did in communities before we had smartphones and Elon Musk and you know electric scooters the the documentary is called look and see it's on Netflix and oh it's not a UK Netflix god damn I mean we're you know in my lifetime I can only imagine that we're coming closer and closer to when I release a movie everybody can see it at the same time until then I apologize I'm not in charge and I'm still at the whims of those douchebags so let's take another question yes no not just in the aisle Hynek thank you for coming to speak to us and I actually started listening to your audiobook with Megan over Christmas so it's amazing that you're coming so soon after and I was wondering what it was like recording a greatest love story ever told because it seemed like a really like relaxed and funny insight into your dynamic as a couple and you guys seem to be learning about each other as you're recording after like 15 years of marriage and what's your favorite part of the book well thank you there's a few compliments in there and I appreciate it this is this is good is anyone in the room married Wow congratulations I recommend the choice I I have three books I had published three books and and Megan after the second one and the third one she started saying we should do a book together and I would say okay what what is it because my my three books I had you know an agenda that I was passionate about that that fueled me for 340 pages and and I love collaborating with Megan but I'd you know to just say let's do a book I was like well sure but what you know what what are we what are we telling people my first books about farting my second book is about Wendell Barry my third books about woodworking what what is our book about and and finally and this this is the marriage lesson part I said okay and even though it didn't fit into you know my ego based life path and like you know my agenda that the things I want to disseminate to my readership or my audience I just I said I trust you I trust your taste and your acumen and she said the book is just gonna be about us it's gonna be sort of a memoir of our marriage and I was like all right I'll go along with it and and we did the book the idea was we were gonna record a bunch of conversations as foundational material we would transcribe those conversations and then use that to then write these chapters well we got the transcriptions back and we read them and we thought they were funny first of all but second we said this is this is it this is the chapter like we can't improve on this because these conversations contain our dynamic and how are we going to embellish that by writing and editing we can't and so the meet of the book are these conversations on different topics so one chapter is us talking about family religion you know what have you orgasms mainly just lubrication actually and then we each wrote a few essays single-handedly and she's you know I've done all this I've done a great deal more writing than she has but of course her essays are incredible and brilliant and she's she's I'm a big fan she's pretty astonishing it whatever she puts her hand to and so so it was a wonderful lesson because it turned out wonderfully and people are very moved and and enlarged by this book and they do they learn about things about a healthy relationship in Hollywood you're not supposed to be able to stay married for 15 years we've been together for 18 years and yet we we are we have a healthy relationship and we talk about how how that requires maintenance you know were two human beings sharing a tube of toothpaste and that can devolve into slap fights about who left the camp off not me and and I was really thrilled with how the book turned out even though even now I can't it's you know it's it doesn't fit into my clumsy you know I'm the donkey in our house and I'm like this just doesn't this isn't a donkey book but that's okay that's and that's a great a great marriage lesson that you can get involved in something that's not particularly donkey fare but it can still be healthy and and roberta v' my favorite part of the book each chapter and it's heading has a gorgeous photograph and they were all megan designed this is i'm telling you she's astonishing she designed the book there's illustrations all of the art in the book is her brainchild and i think there's nine chapters and each one has a beautiful photo that she designed and I showed up at a photo studio on the day she told me to and they gave me funny outfits to put on and I had no idea because it was I learned a long time ago not to weigh in because that's that's just frustrating she she has an amazing taste but she also is very exacting and perfectionist so there's only pain for me if I was to say well I want to be involved it's it's our book and she would say okay for this photo we're gonna look like ballet dancers from Russia in the 60s and I would say can I have it she'd say no and I say I I'm just gonna go wait in the car I learned that a long time ago so I she said I'm gonna do these photos and I said great just tell me when to show up and these photos are gorgeous they're crazy we shot 11 of them in one day Excel so did the cover of the book and the author photo and once again you know there's something to be said for any partnership about swallowing yourself and and having the wherewithal to say okay let's do what you want and and to not be resentful not and not keep score of like okay we did what you wanted less Sunday so this Sunday we're going to watch West Ham United goddammit that's a soccer team we call it football here but so that's my favorite part of the book is is you know a healthy marriage is a continuing education again you know we're two we're two human beings and so we're never done learning and growing and whatever we get mad at each other for today it'll be something different next year and so you have to keep your knees bent and be ready to play solid defense another question the gentleman in the fund right so first as a I grew up in rural Vermont sugaring and we're working why what you said resonates a lot but I've also always found it sort of difficult to move from working with your hands into doing like an academic degree or something else with your mind so I was just wondering how you balance your various projects along with your woodworking and crafting well that's a good question I are you a student here yeah I'm a depot student in Medieval Studies a doctoral student fantastic congratulations well when it's done I'm a big fan of Vermont do you know Sterling College I do the Sterling College I don't know know a great deal about it but it's a it's a it's a working it's a working farm where you can get a degree but you're you work on the farm and they farm with horses they log with horses so it's sort of Emersonian in a way but you can still get an English degree or you know and they are partnering with Wendell Berry's family with that that farming program I mentioned they're using the accreditation of Sterling College and it's it's a new thing this is their first semester so that's it's one of my pet I do fundraising for them because they're there it's a program to teach small farmers how to try and survive in this in this modern climate to answer your question I I always like in my life to a circus act where you've got your spinning plates and you and you got five seven plates that you got to keep spinning and when when Parks and Recreation became popular my life changed drastically at the time I was more before it happened I was more successful than I ever thought I would be I was mr. Megan Mullally which was a wonderful gig I had my wood shop in LA and I was working consistently as an unknown character actor and then doing theater and and whatnot so I was always very busy but then when Parks and Rec happened suddenly you know a shift happened where I was being offered all of these jobs that the kind of jobs you would think you can't say no to and I spent a few years failing to say no to them and so I just 24/7 all year was working all kinds you know writing books touring as a comedian doing acting jobs working in my woodshop and and it it was fun and lucrative but pretty quickly both my wife and I said well this is kind of [ __ ] this is this is an embarrassment of riches it's too much of a good thing and it's I've sort of heard people talk about this and it's something nothing in my experience has ever been able to prepare me for it it's if you achieve the success that you dreamed of and maybe even more success than you dreamed of then then what do you do and because that becomes your problem sort of my vice my indulgence became saying yes to too many of these things and so this was about the time that I decided to write my third book which is called good clean fun and it's a woodworking book and that was my solution was I told all of the people in my my all the machinations my agents and and you know and my wife I guess that's everybody I said I'm gonna do this book with my woodshop and I'm gonna need four months in the shop and you can all go to hell and because it was going to make income ostensibly I was allowed and so that's been that's the answer is if you're lucky enough to you know to have a program of study at this incredible establishment its university is what they call it and also have whatever else you have going on in your life I assume that you're rowing crew and and you want to get some woodworking in there you have to call it out you know I one of the most wonderful things about playing Ron Swanson was when when the show looked like it was going to continue my boss said and this is funny if you if you've seen the American off the office if you go back and look at the first six episodes Steve Carell had a bunch more weight on him and he was also kind of balding and the show got picked up and he and he was like oh [ __ ] and he he got in shape and I don't know what he did and I loved Steve and I'm a huge fan I mean I I don't mean to disparage him and all but like it's a great example of he was like oh I'm gonna be the lead on a TV show so he clean cleaned himself up and it paid off he became a huge movie star fifteen minutes later because of that Parks and Recreation was born of the office so Mike Schur who created our show with Greg Daniels that came from the office fun fact if you if if you like the office Dwight Schrute had a cousin named Mose Schrute out on the beet farm with that Amish beard that's Mike Schur who created Parks and Recreation Mose who like runs alongside the car so when our show got picked up because of the office Mike said hey please don't lose a bunch of weight to me specifically he said I would I would appreciate it if you stay beefy I really like for you know for Ron to look like a meat-eater and it's the you know in this town of anorexia it's one of the most wonderful things your boss could ever ask you to do and so for seven or eight years I would always happily order that second cheeseburger because I was being a good employee you know I was I was willing to do that for my work and and then once that ended I I started at 38 and I guess I finished about at about 45 years old 44 then the show was over and I was like okay I'm I'm overweight I'm 44 and and all the things I was getting offered were like X rugby player you know 50 pounds past his prime in his briefs crying in the mirror and I thought I'd like I'd like to see a little more variety in the roles that are coming my way and so I started eat at cleaning up my diet and I trimmed off I don't know 20 pounds and then a couple years ago I'm coming back around and my point which is I I'm the boss of everything I do I write books I'd you know I do all these things and I'm the boss of all of it I it's also what I choose to do and yeah and I love exercising I was always an athlete I spent some years doing yoga that's another huge difference between me and Ron Swanson Yoga is amazing like I'll [ __ ] tell him that any day but but since I got so busy I never had time to exercise and I said wait a second I'm in charge of this whole goddamn thing and so a couple years ago I said you know what I'm gonna start running for the first time in my life and I did I went out that day and I started running and and I haven't stopped I run every day I run four miles a day usually and I lost another 20 pounds and so so that's the answer is you know is it's choosing long term goodness over over short term gratifications you know and it comes with age I mean when I was you know when I was in college I I was getting shit-faced as much as possible but your bodies are much more bulletproof and you know I think it's a good time to sort of find find those limits and and see if you're going to be a partying college student or a lifelong alcoholic and and to begin to deal with the repercussions of either at the same time woodworking is something that requires a usually a specific space you know it's an activity that you need to go to a place even if it's a small space you can't just like set up on your kitchen table but I what on this subject matter I often encourage people who say like I live in a tiny apartment in the middle of London or New York and I say well either look into turning small things like pens or look for small bowls like the there is woodworking you can do in this much space or learn to make dildos or you know some of the other options I mentioned I think about time for one final question in this case the lady in the third ring hi and so I'm actually from rural Kentucky and it's always been a pleasure to hear somebody speak positively about my state for what so first thanks for that yeah and then also kind of being from rural Kentucky and being here and I just want to ask you about like what you think about the American psyche about rural urban divide and how can we get past that because it seems like right now it's such divisive for us I mean even me being here I'm all the time talking about home and like telling people that it's it's not all you know podunk people I wear shoes things like that so how do we get past this divide well it's a great question you know in the sort of wendell berry of it all that's that's part of it is is so much of our population has moved and continues to flock to urban centers and when you know there's a vicious circle where the the huge industrial companies farm acres that you know say say you're farming a hundred acres fifty years ago let's say that required eight people now it requires one quarter of a person like one person can farm 2,000 acres or whatever and so it's no longer lucrative and no longer requires a community and so the young people either moved to a city to find a way to make money or if they stay home they that that's where the opioid crisis kicks in they get hooked on usually video games and opioids a very anti video game but but I don't know I mean that's that's a huge question and a huge issue I'm just starting my next book and and what I'm trying to tackle is the notion the the concept I don't think this will be the title but the concept is Walden now and it's an ID it's it's how we as a society relate to nature or how we fail to which ties into all these issues of do you know where your food comes from do you know do you have any idea where where wood comes from do you do you know who's making your stuff how can we how can we be expected to respect and and take care of our climate when we never pay attention to Nature herself you know we we've built all of these mechanisms to shield ourselves from nature we have an idea that anything that gets your clothing dirty is beneath us and so you know you we need to pave everything so that you don't soil yourself or any work god forbid that gets dirt on your clothes that you know we you you hire people to do that you should you should you should go to Oxford and and keep yourself from ever having to dig in the garden you get people from Illinois to do that for you but you know it's that sensibility that that we've been sold by consumerist society that I think I'm optimistic that that we are realizing as a people and we're like okay how not really how do we get start breaking this down and cleaning up this mess that we've made and it you know it seems to be taking root I'm excited by the forward-thinking green New Deal policies that are that are cropping up and making a splash in in this new American Congress you know it's it's been such an incredible [ __ ] show the last couple of years but in a way and I even said this there's a wonderful actress named Ellen Burstyn who's in her 80s and I I worked on a couple films with her around the campaign and when Trump got elected and she said this is going to be very good for us it's gonna it's going to be terrifying and dangerous but it's going to slap us out of the sort of the sort of comfort that we've been riding along in you know we elected Obama and said great racism has been solved and you know we really I think that really is true and suddenly Trump's regime has exposed all of the issues that that have such a long way to go even in you know an hour to ostensibly most progressive countries and so that that's it's very much on my mind and that's a question that I'm asking of myself and the rest of us and again I implore you study hard and and answer these questions to what let's all answer them together and I I'm happy to hang out for a few more questions if you if you guys are not bored yet I came all the way from Notting Hill any other questions take the one hand in there yeah hello Nick I wanted to thank you for your time here at the Union and I wanted to ask you what what kind of advice would you have for young people looking to get into woodworking is that rolling yes yes ask your question again Ron I just wanted to know what kind of advice you would have for young people looking to get into woodworking Ron's served me to you earlier this evening it was delicious thank you well it's a great question because I it seemed really easy to me but then but I accidentally had you know 15 years of carpentry training so I was good of skilled with tools when I discovered woodworking but the the trick to anything is you know it's the the answer is the same as if you want to learn to play piano and and the key to it is you have to practice a tedious amount of time to learn to play piano or guitar and the way to achieve that is to find something that you can enjoy playing a thousand times I mentioned the Beatles earlier they have some very catchy melodies that might serve you but the great thing about you know about the Internet is that if you want to become a blacksmith you can find all the information and instruction and ingredients and tools no matter where you are you can get everything you need nothing will ever replace the efficacy of the a human hand teaching you I've had one class in woodworking in my life when I was in Boston doing that play there's an incredible trade school there that's a two and a half centuries old which is quite eldritch for America and this hero of mine named Peter galbart he makes Windsor chairs and it just so happened that he was teaching a week-long workshop while I was there and I was able to take it and it was the only time in my life that I've had a teacher that I'm self-taught which means from books and and some videos but mostly books and there's a tool called a draw knife and and you have pieces of oak and you're holding them and what's called a shaving horse so it's it's this clamping vise with a piece of wood and you're shaving off pieces of this of this oak and he was just going around like any coach like any sports coach talking to us about our fundamentals and improving our technique in a way that if I was trying to learn this on my own even from a video I was he was just saving me weeks of mistakes that started crying I was I said oh my god like like my mom or dad or a grandparent who takes the time to say hang on your whatever technique that they're improving for you and so get online you know look around I'm certain that in the general Oxford neighborhood there are probably an embarrassment of great woodworkers and classes that you can take you just can't beat hands-on instruction that said the the the modern disease causes us to always look for the fastest coolest way to do things that's that's part of consumerism and so when you get into woodworking it's a it's a common joke that if you start shop woodworking stores there's always a new gadget there's always a time-saving you know this great new jig that with this really loud dangerous motor you can do things in 9/10 of the time and it usually ends up not even being true if you're if you're good with hand tools it you're usually just as fast as with electricity in most applications so I always encourage people to just start reading looking at publications because you'll see that there are many aspects it's like you know it's like saying how what's your advice for getting into writing well what do you want it right you know so start looking at stuff because maybe you want to turn bowls maybe you want to build chairs maybe you want to make dildos if you do make sex toys of any sort just make sure you sand them really effectively because splinters can cause lawsuits I say from experience it's not from personal experience the question to the hand on the hello we stand up for these apparently okay hi thank you for coming today I had a question about kind of borrowing your words from earlier about the turd that is in office right now in America and I was wondering if you thought your show Parks and Rec if it happened right now do you think it would have a different place in meaning in the social climate of what's going on political do you think it would have a different character in the eyes of the people who watched it if it happened right now gosh I I don't think so I mean I think you know we won one funny thing and my my wife being on Will and Grace is Marya fective television comedies in our household and i I don't know if those of you that aren't from Vermont or Kentucky there's a term in American baseball there's a young male or female called the bat boy or bat or ball girl and they're they like hang out by the dugout and it's a great gig because you get to hang out with a professional team and and you're sort of a equipment manager you take care of everybody's bats and whatnot I've always felt like the the bat boy for willing grace because I I'm always there watching them you know perform their incredible gymnastics and so I've been there for you know since they're back I've been seeing 18 years of that show and and the tricky thing is because of the metabolism of making such a show if something is in the news whether it's a Muslim ban or a government shutdown over a wall or whatever you can't really write stories that are that time-specific because by the time your story airs it's it's going to be at least two or three months later and for all you know the story can have changed drastically so so you have to be pretty analogous if anything or allegorical and so I think that you know I'm sure I'm sure that we would have had some storylines that were you know that were that had to do with like alternative facts and and the sort of the way that that this administration is is is sort of destroying and redefining levels of comportment and decency in politics in our country and we may even had a you know some sort of huge blowhard character but but I think generally Mike sure who was Mo's and created Parks and Rec he also is his main gig right now is the good place it's his show and so you can sort of see the relationship that he's interested in creating comedy that explores ethics you know and asks questions about like how you know are we being how are we being decent to one another or how are we failing to do so and how can we improve that and I imagine we would you know do the same thing with slightly different storylines a nest egg one final question let's cut the hands down here please hi hello I just like to know about your early acting career from training into getting your jobs where you can make a living from that and obviously you can read a lot on the internet stuff like that but let's hear from the horse's mouth himself how about journey was was it a seamless affair was a hard you've touched on it slightly already bar just like to know in a bit more detail if you can sure yeah it's interesting because because it's the answer to your question you can't really read about cuz it could because nobody gives a [ __ ] about all the work you do until you get to do things that people care about and that's that's the crux this make is crossing that bridge do is there is there are there theater majors at it this Cox furred it's been great talking to you you should check him out they're fun so I so I went to theater school I you know I've always been very aware of the great fortune that I benefit from I auditioned for what was a very nice theater conservatory and they only took 16 actors a year in this program and it was the first time I auditioned for anything I mean I was just a hilarious rube when I went to audition in fact that you know they I got I got the materials that told you what you had to do and it said to prepare two contrasting monologues so one monologue was from The Elephant Man it's completely nonsensical sure no one has ever you it was the doctor describing Edward Marek's deformities like it was a ridiculous choice and my second monologue was a scene of dialog from the 70s play called steam bath and and so I so for a monologue in an audition I did a scene I did both parts of the scene like yeah welcome to the steam bath thank you can I sit yeah come on in and then you had to like write an essay and be interviewed and so I wrote this very sincere essay that just said look I I I'm completely ignorant I don't I'm an absolute babe in the woods but I'm really hard-working and I really just wanted to do great theatre and and what what I learned later so then I got in and I was one of the sixteen and and what I figured out then as I went through the program and they refused to cast me I couldn't get a part and there would be parts that that I was clearly perfect like the specific roles and I was much cuter than and I was very I was a football player and so there was there was a few roles where I was like boom oh that's mine and they there was one part that they actually like recruited a guy from another school and I was like man what is the deal but at the same time I kind of knew that it was because I was really bad I hadn't figured out the secret to naturalism which is just act natural I I spent my first five or six years theater school in to Chicago just trying too hard I unconsciously thought that this small-town guy didn't have any value was uninteresting I had to be way cooler and so when I would do scenes I would just try way too hard I'd be like what's up a pretty [ __ ] cool here and this this play and and when it when it finally clicked the Sun came out I was like oh man I'm gonna do great but so what I figured out is even in even in a conservatory you're gonna do Shakespeare plays you need people in those plays to carry the leads onstage you know in like Antony and Cleopatra you need supernumeraries and if they're strong and can carry things so much the better so that's how I got into school then I got into Chicago theater and the thing is and I'm sure this is true in a lot of all of the United Kingdom you can make a perfectly decent living working in theater I love you know you where you're not living in poverty you're making just a perfectly nice living and in Chicago there's there's a wonderful theatre community and there's probably 12 cities in America where that's true where you can make a living and so I had a wonderful time I live through my 20s I built scenery for pay and I worked in plays at night and then I got cast in a couple movies because sometimes movies come to Chicago or Liverpool or you know Northampton and I got into a couple movies that got my union card and everybody everybody said you should move to LA you've got a great mug is what they said you'll do well and I had a tooth that needed fixing and I had heard of this sag dental insurance Screen Actors Guild and so I moved to LA to get my my molar fixed and it took me a couple years of age like 28 and 29 where I couldn't figure it out aiiow rive to discover that that the business was even more disgusting than people say it's just really superficial like I was getting cool meetings but with people they weren't merit-based meetings like I had a really good theatre resume and they would they could they didn't even know how to read it they were like do you have anything on tape that you know this is the late 90s so so we're we're not online you know YouTube isn't there yet so literally they're like do you have something I can put in my VCR and watch and I and I didn't I was like no but look at my theater resume you know it's it's very substantial and they were like I don't know what language you're speaking and my friends would say no no these are these meetings where you have to convince them that you have the X Factor that you're cool and sexy and that they need to like get you on a development deal because otherwise you're gonna go across town to the other studio and they have to get you first and I was like that's [ __ ] like I people hire me because they see my work I don't want to sell myself I don't want to have to be cool in any way and so I did that for a couple years and I was quite lost I was casting about drinking way too much bourbon looking for that and that was when I discovered woodworking in fact I was just working all the time on my own carpentry work and finally after a couple years I said okay la is a much worse town for theater than Chicago was but I became a man in so much as I was at the time by doing theater and so I just have to find a play and do a play I have to save myself otherwise I'm gonna probably end up failing and moving back to Chicago so I told all my friends they found this weird play this carry Sturman breakdancing soldier who had a monologue comparing his phallus to his anus and they said it's right it's you and and I went in and I auditioned and the lead of the play was Megan Mullally and we fell in love and she saved my life and and and that that was it that and that was and this is I'm going to turn this into a general truism I had dinner last night with a great director named Douglas MacKinnon he's directed Sherlock and Outlander and things like that he's just finishing directing a Neil Gaiman series for Amazon called Good Omens that I have a small part in which is why how we became friends and we were talking about this this inscrutable thing no matter no matter what field you're going into when you're doing an interview or an audition or trying to get that thing that you want so badly that you feel a desperation and in acting especially in Los Angeles you if you're you know if you're broke and you're having a tough time paying your rent you go to these auditions for a TV show or if it works you're literally signing papers that say if you get this job you're gonna make you know whatever 35 grand a week and and the trick is to then go in the room and behave in a way it's so hard to not go in the room like hi please love me that would be great and people tell you this you know they're like if you want to get the job you're gonna stand a much better chance if you don't give a [ __ ] because if you can if you can arrive at the sensibility that your whatever the opportunity is you know whatever your field is if it's some great honor or huge you know goal or prize it doesn't matter you have to come you have to hold it against your life and so it has to be a choice so you go in to audition for that 35 grand a week or whatever and you have to you have to hold that against your life and understand that it could go either way it's probably not going to go your way but even if it does you still have to think about it and that simple power if you walk into the room and it's not it's not being cocky or anything it's just like a naturalism where you're saying hello I'm Nick you know I'm this is me I'm I'm hopefully you understand that I'm friendly I'm professional I'm prepared I'm gonna do my best I know I'm gonna give you a solid reading maybe I won't be right in some way but but if they can tell that you don't give a [ __ ] if you get it or not it's inscrutable it makes them want you there's there's a similar analogy in furniture when I when I started making tables for people in LA I I didn't know what to charge making these beautiful I mean museum quality custom tables and and and I don't mean that as a brag because my specialty is to take one slice of a tree and put it on what's called a trestle base it's not it doesn't have a high degree of difficulty you're sort of getting out of Mother Nature's Way but when you look at a slice of a walnut tree it's museum quality and it's only because I have the wherewithal to let mother nature do the talking and but but I know how much how long it took me to make it and so you know if I charge myself you know 25 bucks an hour it's it comes out to you know six seven eight thousand dollars and I would think what kind of [ __ ] would pay $8,000 for a dining table I can't and so I started when I started out I was charging people like something that I felt okay about 1500 2500 and Rainn Wilson who was an old friend who played dwight schroot he called me up and he wanted a thick ass Gustav Stickley Arts and Crafts style white oak table for his for his family room his kitchen and he and I said great and and I drew him the table and I sent it to him and he said okay what what's this gonna cost and I said yeah 5500 and he said you [ __ ] I've been shopping for these tables how about about ten thousand dollars and I said I'm sorry I cry a lot that's another difference Ron Swanson has cried three times I cry all the time but I mean that was such a moving and generous lesson that he gave me and and and the the trick is and I've learned this in the fancy furniture shops is if you charge 1500 people are gonna think something's wrong with it or you if you charge 15,000 and they only have 12,000 to spend they're gonna think that's the best goddamn table they've ever seen and they're they're more likely to pay ten times the price isn't that crazy but it's all part of the same thing it's it's it's a great human lesson and that's I mean that's how I finally got to the place where where I was able to walk into these rooms and understand that this might this might not go my way today but I've created a life with my wife and my home and my woodshop that I'm happy all the time and maybe sometime I'll get a good acting job but here regardless or regardless I will what's the deal with that is a irregardless is not a word is that the thing okay I'm seeing some nods I'm down I've used it but I'm going to stop see we can all learn regardless if you if you make your life happy which you can do by baking bread giving one another orgasms with your hands and then eating bread then you can be happy no matter what happens at all of your auditions thank you for your kind indulgence this evening you

Channel: OxfordUnion

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Length: 84min 0sec (5040 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 22 2019