Nick Offerman has a new nickname around the house after his breakout role on HBO’s The Last of Us.
Offerman’s performance opposite Murray Bartlett in the third episode of the series, as a couple finding love amid the apocalypse, left the audience in tears when it aired in early February. As a result of the acclaim, wife Megan Mullally told The Hollywood Reporter that “I started calling him ‘Episode Three’ around the house.”
“So many people have gotten in touch with him to tell him how great he is, so it’s just kind of crazy,” she said on Wednesday night at the season three premiere of her show Party Down. “Even my cousin, who is in her 70s and lives in Tulsa, was like, ‘Episode three was magnificent!’ She didn’t say the name of the show. This is my cousin in Tulsa, so I just started calling him ‘Episode Three.’”
Offerman has been quick to give Mullally credit for him taking the role in the first place, telling Jimmy Kimmel she convinced him he had to take the part after he wasn’t sure he could make it work logistically.
“His schedule was really packed, and he loved the script, but he was just so busy,” Mullally explained. “And I was like, ‘Well let me read it,’ and I was like, ‘You’re doing it.’ So then he did.”
Though she’s got a starring role on the revived Starz comedy, which picks up a third season 13 years after the first two seasons of Party Down, Mullally may have “agent” in her future after making The Last of Us gig happen.
“I mean hello, where’s my 10 percent?”
