“I’m just so grateful that I get to do this.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Courtis available now.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You’ve narrated Twain’sThe Adventures ofTom Sawyer.What made you take onConnecticut Yankee?
Credit: Audible
NICK OFFERMAN:I love reading and I love audiobooks.
I was doing cartwheels when they asked me to doTom Sawyer.
I would do audiobooks constantly if they would have me.
I love great writing and trying to communicate that to a listener.
I’ve heard actors say it’s the most exhausting thing they’ve done.
Well, I’ve poured concrete and blacktopped roads, so it would not be in my top five.
It feels like the perfect pairing to me, you and Twain.
Well, that’s very generous.
When did you first discover his work?
I recognized early, “Oh, I want to be a weirdo.
I want to read books that not many people like to read.”
So it was an active choice for you to become a weirdo.
[Giggles] “That’s what I want to be.”
So, I was at the right age.
Who did you like better, Huck or Tom?
That’s a tough question.
They both have attributes that I greatly admire, and they both have flaws that I readily identify with.
I suppose I liked Huck better because I identified more with Tom.
I had a really great upbringing, a really great family life.
Whereas Huck had the freedom to roam, for better or for worse.
It made me romanticize the life of the hobo or the itinerant sailor.
What is it like to read Mark Twain’s books?
Sorry, that wasn’t my best-worded question.
Oh no, sorry, I’m chewing a Brussels sprout.
Well, that’s the thing about great writing.
His jokes aren’t necessarily overt.
They’re a lot of behavior or character-based pieces of humor.
Like you said, that’s why we can still laugh at it in 2017.
I think Mark Twain himself would be astonished at how prescient and timeless his writing was.
How do you prepare to perform an audiobook?
My wife and I love audiobooks.
Megan is the entertainment director of our household.
So [when we’re going on a trip], she’ll audition a bunch of audiobooks.
First, it has to be an exciting book one way or another.
Sounds too much like my high school librarian,” or whatever.
It’s 13 hours.
But then I have this new novel from George Saunders."
So then we’ll choose our destination based on the length of the audiobook.
We’re really obsessed with those.
The example I always give is, we started listening to Tim Curry reading the Lemony Snicket stories.
It’s always theater people they’re so amazing at just crapping out 46 incredible voices.
I was kinda nervous about that.
SoTom Sawyer, for example, was trial by fire.
I made code names, where I was like, “Okay, this is Gandalf.
This is Colin Firth.
This is Timothy Spall.
This is Tilda Swinton.”
I’ll tell you one thing that seems pertinent.
Like, I tried everything I had in me to create as menacing of a voice as I could.
And I just couldn’t get around how terrifying I found Injun Joe as a kid.
Hopefully that’s just my own insecurity, and people listening to the book do find him terrifying.
I imagine that they do, but… it was funny.
I felt perfectly fine with my Becky Thatcher.
[Giggles]But my Injun Joe… Well, thank you.
We’re both so grateful to know George, but to be a part of that thing…
I think it’s a crazy, singular masterpiece, in the same way that his book is.
I love his originality.
George says, “Eh… And then the audiobook followed suit.
Getting to man a threesome with George and David Sedaris made me about the proudest kid on the block.
And Megan and Bill Hader are so deeply, gut-wrenchingly hilarious in that performance.
