Nick Offerman Says He Still Feels 'Like I'm Kind of an Underground Property' Despite Parks and Recreation Fame

Nick Offerman is reflecting on his career and the kind of fame that's come with it.

The Last of Us actor appeared on the Nov. 6 episode of Where Everybody Knows Your Name, a podcast hosted by Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Joined by his wife, Megan Mullally, Offerman opened up about his winding path to success.

Hit comedy show Parks and Recreation was Offerman's first big leap in terms of his acting career, he said.

"I was very happy," Offerman, 54, said of that time in his life. "I was Mr. Mullally. I had a wood shop, and I was working regularly at guest star jobs and Sundance movies. And we were big fans of The Office."

Offerman recalled mentioning to his wife — who starred in Will & Grace and later guest-starred alongside him in Parks and Recreation — that if he was ever going to "make it," it would be in a role like that of Dwight Schrute in The Office. But when he auditioned for Michael Schur, the creator of The Office, he didn't get a part.

Luckily, Schur remembered Offerman and already had him in mind when he later created Parks and Recreation.

"If Ron Swanson was like any other character, it was similar to the Dwight Schrute paradigm," Offerman said of his quirky role in the show.

The actor continued, "And so from the get-go, it's just that thing where [Schur] saw me. He saw through the facial hair to a spark of charisma, where he's like, 'I think I can turn you into something palatable to an audience?' And by God, he did."

But the exposure the show brought him has its nuances. While Parks and Recreation was functionally Offerman's "big break," he didn't ascend to massive fame, he said, like actors in similar positions had.

"It's interesting, because I still feel like I'm kind of an underground property," Offerman said. "I didn't become, you know, Steve Carell or something."

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Offerman has since featured on shows like The Umbrella Academy and The Last of Us (for which he won an Emmy) and appeared in movies such as Sing, We're the Millers and Civil War.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name explores the lives of famous friends that former Cheers costars Danson and Harrelson have made throughout their acting careers — and serves as a way for the pair to keep their friendship thriving after their shared projects ended. The podcast airs every Wednesday.