I found it kind of strange, especially since the guy had known me for a long time. And humorously, when we were going into production with the play and I was going back and forth with the director about what kind of mustache we should do for Ignatius, if we should do something real or prosthetic and whatnot, and I did a Google image search of Ignatius, the seventh thing that came up was Ron Swanson from an episode where Ron was sick. He had a hunting cap on, like Ignatius, and scarves, and I was at my chubbiest, and constricting my face so I had several chins—which is one of the cool looks I do—
M: Hold me back.
N: —and it looked just like Ignatius. And I thought, “Aha. Maybe the producers didn’t just think of me out of the blue as much as I think they looked at this photo and said, ‘This is our guy.’”
But that’s the kind of thing that a job like Parks & Rec, or Will & Grace, will do for you. Makes people think, “He could be the person.”
M: On the subject of synchronicity, I have had some crazy things happen. The first time my parents took me to see a Broadway musical, I was sixteen. It was Chicago with Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera. And then years later, the first big successful job I ever got was a Broadway revival of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying with Matthew Broderick. And it was at that same theater where I’d seen Chicago when I was sixteen.
Then, the first Broadway play my parents took me to see was Equus, also when I was sixteen, and that was at the Plymouth Theatre, now poetically renamed the Schoenfeld, and I recently did my first Broadway play, Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play, at that same theater with Nathan Lane and, again, Matthew Broderick.
When I was about fifteen, the first taping of a sitcom I saw was The Bob Newhart Show, when we were in Los Angeles on vacation. Years later, we filmed the first eight seasons of Will & Grace on that same soundstage on the CBS Radford lot. That’s pretty crazy.
N: Yes, it’s uncanny.
M: You’re uncanny.
N: Also, it seems on topic that once you and I started having sex, you started winning acting awards, like, hand over fist.
M: Hand over fist would apply to our sex lives as well.
N: There’s a lot of synchronicity.
M: A lot of magical realism.
I wanted to add that if we’re going to isolate my few acting lessons, there’s the one with Suzie Plakson, and the one with Laurie Metcalf, but the first one was actually when I was doing that production of Fiddler on the Roof in Oklahoma City when I was twelve. Another little girl and I were playing the two youngest of the five daughters. My character’s name was Shprintze, and her character’s name was Bielke, I believe.
N: Shprintze’s the better of . . .
M: Shprintze’s the fox. I guess we really were murdering the dialogue. It was bad. We only had probably three or four lines apiece. We were rehearsing one day in this big ballet studio.
N: Which is where they shot I Love Lucy, crazily.
M: (Laughs) Can you believe?
N: It all ties together.
M: The whole cast was in this ballet studio, and the director said, “Everybody sit down against the wall.” The whole cast sat down. He said, “Megan”—and the little girl who was playing my sister, I can’t remember her name—“come right out here to the middle of the room and sit down on the floor.” We did, and he turned off all the lights. It was pitch-black in this windowless room. And I’m sure most of the cast started making out and groping each other, because that was really happening in that show. I learned a lot. And he said, “Now, say your lines!”
There was a line where we were supposed to jump up and down, and say, “We’re going on a train and a boat. We’re going on a train and a boat.” And he made us say it in the pitch-dark. And for some reason, à la Helen Keller, it kind of clicked, that we were saying an actual sentence, in English: “We’re going on a train and a boat.” And it all suddenly made sense to me. They’re just normal words that a person would say.
N: Were you possibly, as a kid, distracted?
M: (Laughs) Was I distracted? You didn’t know who the Beatles were till you were in college. (Both laugh) I think because we were kids, we were just going through the motions without it having any meaning. We didn’t understand that you just had to make it real. It’s language, and you can utter it so it seems like it comes from an actual human on the planet.
It’s just funny how things sort of flow along, how one thing leads to the next. For me, my big break was doing How to Succeed in Business when I was thirty-five, after I’d already been kicking around Los Angeles for nine years. We were doing the show out of town at the La Jolla Playhouse, and we got a review in the Hollywood Reporter. The reviewer singled me out in a way that created a minor hysteria, and I got a new agent, and a lot of good things started happening. I’d always been lucky with that kind of stuff—I had been flown out for screen tests for movies when I was in Chicago doing theater, like the lead in Risky Business and things like that. I had agents from Los Angeles pursuing me when I still lived in this little apartment in Chicago just doing theater. I moved out to Los Angeles when I was twenty-six, and I got signed at William Morris within the first two weeks. I don’t know—I just was lucky. I worked pretty steadily. There were a couple times my parents had to help me pay my rent, but other than that, I did pretty well. I’d book a pilot pretty much every year, but they usually didn’t go. (Laughs) They’d go for seven episodes, or thirteen, or zero. And that was that.
But I think a really key element in all of this is that maybe neither one of us was ready until we were a little older for any kind of appreciable success. I had a lot of talents, but I didn’t have a lot of skills in the real-life department, in terms of human interactions. And I’m not talking about the workplace, I’m talking about relationships. So if I’d gotten the lead in Risky Business, or any of those other big jobs then, I don’t think I would have been able to handle it very well. There might have been a bit of a Lindsay Lohan situation. I don’t know. I think everything happens in the time and the way that it’s supposed to happen.
Look, people. I have heard a lot of you over the years brazenly claim to be Megan Mullally’s biggest fan. In autograph lines, meet and greets, backstage greenrooms, grocery stores, lumber yards, airports, and just randomly out in public, you have run the gamut of humanity: from sweet-faced California Cub Scout to turnip-nosed Manhattan nun; from granite-jawed North Dakota big-rig trucker to pugnacious Skokie lipstick lesbian whose knifing stare would make either of the Hemsworth lads skulk silently to the valet stand, waggling his ticket with sheer panic. Each and every one of you has stared me defiantly in the eye and held forth that your fanaticism in the worship of my wife was easily greater, breezily more maniacal, than my own obsessed ardor of eighteen years and counting.
When I have, countless times over the years, apprehended such an affront, when you have said to me something to the effect of “I’m sorry, but your wife is the most amazing creature consuming oxygen, and so I am ready to entirely supplicate myself at her feet,” always with the implied “I am ready to defeat you in a contest of Megan Mullally adoration,” I have taken the high road, nodding and smiling affably, wearing my pacifism like an uncomfortable set of fake teeth, with a “Yes, sure, I agree!” Privately I am breathing deeply through my willfully unflared nostrils, maintaining my equanimity, because the answer I would prefer to serve to you pilgrims would be “No shit, Sherlock. I enjoy the flesh-and-blood version of her every day” and “If you love her so much, why don’t you marry her? Oh, because I already did, so you can’t marry her as she is unavailable because she picked me, you goddamn sneering little Cub Scout. Eighteen years ago. Eighteen and a half. So back your bad self up a step because you happen to be addressing Mr. Mullally right now. You think you’re her fan? I have taken a vow for life to have and to hold her, through good times and sick times and also shitty parts, something like that, and
she has made the same promise to me, friend.” The first thing I see every morning (when I am allowed to sleep in her chambers, usually at least second Tuesdays) is her sweet visage, very much like a freckly fawn/bunny/wood nymph/faerie queen, so you are welcome to “toss as many shades” as you like upon my lamp, neighbor, because I have most certainly won this paragraph. Motherfucker.
OK, that feels better. With that preamble out of the way, I would like to write a little something about what it’s like to work as an actor with a person like my wife, if you also happen to be married to that person. I have often said that Megan is like if a person could be a Mel Brooks movie all in one tiny package, but even that statement, meant as a substantial compliment, feels lacking to me, partly because Mr. Brooks’s films, however classic and genius, necessarily brandish a decidedly male point of view, and of the many descriptors that one can successfully apply to Megan Mullally, “male” is not one of them.
Of Megan’s abilities and work ethic I have written at some length in my many (three) other books, but on this particular aspect I feel that I have to date not elaborated satisfactorily. As previously noted, we met working together in a stage play in Los Angeles, which is where and when many of the weapons in her arsenal were revealed to me. During the spring (of 2000) in which we became acquainted onstage, I also spent some time at the house of a friend who had a television (I then had for entertainment only a twelve-inch DeWalt Sliding Compound Miter Saw), and on that television I sweatily watched my first reruns of Will & Grace—hilarious episodes in which even more of her tool kit was on display.
What became immediately clear was that I was dealing with an artist who, if we had been competing in the Olympics, would have astonished one and all, year after year, with enough variety to her prowess that I guess she would have belonged in the decathlon. Her karate was on point, is what I’m trying to say. If an image of her clearing the pole vault bar was on the box of wheat flakes, I would probably still be eating breakfast cereal, is what I mean to get across. Not only did her comedy slay in two very distinct mediums (television situation comedy and stage play), but her dramatic acting was also poignantly sincere and effective. She also displayed a bit of delectable singing and dancing that spring, every bit of which seemed effortless and completely off-the-cuff but in reality had been artfully curated.
In the nearly nineteen years that I have stood at her side, I have never once seen Megan “phone in” an effort. She will stay up way too late the night before a performance, perfecting her schtick/song/dialogue/dialect until she is satisfied that she’s ready to make the kill. Because that’s what she is, really. She’s like an artisanal assassin—the kind who meticulously lays out her weapons before even leaving the house on her deadly assignment, reassuring herself of the sharpness of the blades and devastating weight of the blunt cudgels so that she does not miss. You, her victim, never see it coming. In fact, you are probably thinking that you’re having the time of your life, when suddenly—snikt!—you have been slain by my wife, the ninja.
As we embarked upon our life together, I got to witness firsthand the accuracy with which she laid out her victims on a weekly basis at the Will & Grace soundstage, never more so than when I had a small role as a plumber, and it was all I could do to escape with my skin intact. That show, even when I appeared on it back in 2001, was an incredibly well-oiled machine thanks to the mastery of director Jimmy Burrows, the whip-smart writers, and the top-drawer cast, not to mention the crew of champions behind the scenes. Which means for a Chicago theater kid performing on his first sitcom, everything was fast, sharp, and utterly terrifying. One good thing I learned then about working with Megan is that all one really has to do is stand still and recite the dialogue at the proper interval, and you’re home free, because if Megan is in the picture, then nobody ever looks at you, for obvious reasons. At one point in the taping I stepped off course too far downstage, and there came an immediate, involuntary “ARGGHGHHHH” from the audience and the crew alike, which instructed me to immediately remove myself from their eye line to her. This is how we learn. It’s a tough business.
Over the years we worked together in more plays with our Los Angeles theater company, called Evidence Room, and my education proceeded apace. We also appeared in some independent films together, but never really facing off or getting to work as a team. So in 2009, when Mike Schur (Parks and Recreation creator) came to me and said, “We have devised this ex-wife character who is a raging bitch, works at the library, and has an evil sexual hold over Ron Swanson”—my character—“whom she can make do the most insane things with her spell-binding sexuality . . . Do you think Megan would want to play her?” I felt something very special happening in my lower-belly region. When I described the offer to Megan, she simply replied, “Tell them yes, but I want to take my top off.” I expired and fell to the floor, neatly murdered once again by the Sex Ninja.
We ended up getting to do a handful of “Ron and Tammy” episodes, and they were nearly my undoing, as an artist and as a man. You see, now that I’ve given you some idea of Megan’s acumen in the thespianic arts, as well as my slavish devotion to said acumen, you can then understand how I was the most helpless sitting duck for her techniques in dealing comedy death. When she made a “sex face” at me and then proceeded to slap herself on the cheek of that face with a large plank of beef jerky, what was I to do but perish? All of my fancy University of Illinois Shakespeare training could not have remotely prepared me for the onslaught of Megan Mullally–brand wiles of seduction. The sheer force of her carnal punches obliterated any professional resistance whatsoever on my part, the type of resistance upon which I would normally rely in any given scene requiring me to look at a very funny person without cracking a smile. I have withstood Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. I have tolerated Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, and Andy Samberg. I have stoically endured soft-core porn scenarios with Eric McCormack and Debra Messing. Chris Pratt! The cast of Childrens Hospital! Melissa McCarthy! Even Conan O’Brien, of whom it has been said, “To even countenance his puppet’s physique is to chortle with gaiety!” All of these master clowns and more have I resisted, but I have never been, and Lord willing never will be, equipped to resist the love shuriken of my wife, the ninja of my heart.
Nick: What’s our topic?
Megan: It’s a double. First topic: PAST RELATIONSHIPS!
N: Should I just hand this to you?
M: I resent your tone! (Laughing)
N: (Laughing) I’ve also had some . . .
M: You’ve had, like, one! So this is going to be a short amount of talking from you . . .
N: I won’t have to talk much because . . . you’re . . . so much . . .
M: . . . of a whore . . . ?
(Both laugh)
N: The difference here is that you were my first grown-up relationship. I had a couple of long-term relationships before ours, but I was still young to be heading toward marriage.
M: Sigh.
N: So why don’t I get mine out of the way? The only one I had in my twenties that was of any length was with Cecilia. And it was only a couple of years, tops, if that. Looking back on it, it seems pretty collegiate. It was when I was living in that warehouse where you had to walk a quarter mile to use the bathroom. Or pee off the fire escape. We did The Crucible together, and it was a show romance that just lasted for a while. We were supposed to move to LA together, but she got cold feet and disappeared entirely. Turned up back in Mexico, where she was from, sometime later with her family.
M: Don’t tell Trump.
N: My contribution feels pretty lightweight on this topic.
M: So this will just be my exclusive chapter.
N: You had previous relationships?
M: (Laughs) I had a boyfriend when I was four.
N: OK, that’s one. Is that it?
M: Then I had a boyfriend in kindergarten.
N: Two.
M: Bill
y Tillman.
N: I met Billy Tillman.
M: You did. There’s still a spark.
N: I let him keep his kneecaps. So far.
M: (Laughs) I had a boyfriend in first grade named Terry Traub. We kissed lying down in his driveway, and his sister saw us.
N: I haven’t met that motherfucker.
M: I had a boyfriend in second grade named Mike Mee. Then I had a boyfriend in third grade named Chip Oppenheim.
(Both laugh)
M: Who is someone Nick knows quite well.
N: I’ve met that sonofabitch. Dangerous.
M: Then I had a boyfriend in fourth grade named Mike Mee. I went back to my second-grade love. We used to lie under his trampoline and kiss. When no one was jumping on it, mostly.
N: You mind if I step into the other room? Because this is going south real quick. . . .
M: (Laughs) It went on like that, really, up until the day I met you. And then I homed in. But yeah, I had a lot of boyfriendies, most of them extremely forgettable, and some of them only memorable because of their hideousness. I mean, in adult life. Kindergarten through fourth grade went pretty well. And I was definitely the shot-caller in those relationships.
N: You don’t say.
M: On the playground, there was a bush . . . Let me finish . . .
N: (Laughs) What age was this?
M: You know, second grade. And it was hollow in the middle, and I would sit in there . . .
N: In Oklahoma City, if there’s grass on the field, play ball.
M: I would sit in there, and I was the queen. All these boys who were my courtiers—I would send them out on errands to fetch me twigs and stones. To do my bidding in general. So it really just went on from there. Things never slowed.
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Page 7