The actors of “Parks and Rec”, one of the most popular series of the 2010s, in a photo taken to mark the achievement of the 100th episode, PHOTO: Max DeAngelo / Pacific Coast News / Profimedia Images
Actor Jim O’Heir has nearly 200 roles under his belt, appearing in dozens of hit shows including “ER,” “Friends” and “Better Call Saul,” but few would dispute that his most beloved character is Jerry Gergich in “Parks and”. Rec,” he recalls The Everyday Beast.
But things could be very different, as the 62-year-old actor revealed in his new book Welcome to Pawnee – a combination of memories, oral history and a love letter to the show that changed his life – and in a recent podcast interview The last laugh to talk about the book.
O’Heir said that when his agents called to let him know he had been cast as Jerry, they advised him that “maybe I should turn it down” because he doesn’t even have lines until the third episode, essentially being a “background”. “character.
“I have nothing against background work, but at that point in my career, that’s not what I was doing,” O’Heir said. He explained that he still decided to accept the offer after seeing the work of the creators Parks and RecGreg Daniels and Mike Schur, at The Officeone of the most popular TV series of the period.
“I saw what happened The Office with Stanley, Meredith and Angela,” he said, referring to the characters who started out as mere background presences on the Steve Carrell-led series, but became central to the story along the way. “I had no guarantees, but I told my agents that I would try. They had reservations and they were justified. But I had absolutely no excuses and luckily things went exactly as I hoped.”
The actor says that even his colleagues were worried about the jokes about his character
For seven seasons, Jerry Gergich was the “punching bag” of Pawnee Parks Department employees, making fun of himself in increasingly absurd ways, including setting himself on fire at one point. But O’Heir insists he never felt hurt by the insults directed at his character.
“Sometimes the cast members felt it was going too far,” O’Heir said. “I never.” He remembered Amy Poehler and Chris Pratt in particular often asking him, “Are you okay with this? Is this sequence OK?”. His answer? “Are you kidding me? I live for it. I was born for it. There was never a scene that felt like it was going too far.”
He revealed that the only scene in the show that made him feel “uncomfortable” was the one where he had to appear in a shirtless bay. “I’m a big man, it’s not a secret. And I play characters that are big, because this is Jim O’Heir,” said the actor. “But I never wanted to make a joke. So that scene was the hardest I’ve ever shot: taking off my shirt and putting it in the tub.”
But O’Heir got his own “revenge” when producers tapped supermodel Christie Brinkley to play his wife, Gayle. As the actor explains, the writers felt they needed to give Jerry a “reason not to kill” given how he was treated in the office. He then gave him a strikingly beautiful wife and “three beautiful daughters.”
“He gave me a gift,” he said, noting that “at the end of the day, Jerry has the best life of all.”
show Parks and Rec aired on NBC from April 2009 to February 2015, in 125 episodes over 7 seasons.
If O’Heir was already a veteran actor when the series premiered, Parks and Rec is credited with launching the careers of many actors, including Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Offerman, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari or Adam Scott.
