Devs creator Alex Garland approached Nick Offerman even though he hadn't watched Parks and Recreation

The Daily Beast

“I was at my woodshop one day and I got a call that Alex Garland wanted to meet with me about a new show he was doing," Offerman said on The Last Laugh podcast. "I've had a wonderful run of good fortune in my life, but still getting that phone call was a big surprise. I would never have thought I would be on Alex's radar, mainly being such a huge fan of Ex Machina and Annihilation. I would have played any goddamn part in that show. He was not familiar with Parks and Recreation, I eventually learned, which was pretty satisfying. It’s always my goal to have some of the audience at some point say, ‘Oh my God, that’s that guy from the other thing!’”  Offerman also recalled an incident when he was recurring on 24 and was told by a director to physically rough up a female actress without taking precautions. "Like really be brutal to this actress," he says. "The first thing you are taught as a stage choreographer and stage combatant is obviously, it’s f*cking safety first. The most important thing is that everyone feels safe." Additionally, Offerman credits his success with appearing to have a lack of ambition. “I have this disposition where—and it’s served me so well in this stupid, gross business—and that is, I’ve never been terribly ambitious," he says. "I love getting to perform good writing for people, whether it’s funny or gives them a catharsis of one sort or another. When I was merely an unknown character actor and ‘Mr. Megan Mullally’ and working as a carpenter and an aspiring woodworker, I thought I had made it beyond my wildest dreams. I was like, holy cow, this life has turned out amazingly. Then when I was 38 I got Ron Swanson. And life was like, ‘Oh, by the way, things are going to get way more super crazy.’ I’ve gotten to do things beyond my wildest dreams and so that allows me to not be ambitious.”