Note: This story contains spoilers from “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” Episode 7.
After juggling his sobriety with complex family dynamics since showing up at Margo’s doorstep fresh out of rehab, Nick Offerman’s Jinx took a step back in his journey in the penultimate episode of “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” Season 1.
In Episode 7, Thaddea Graham’s Susie finds Jinx as a shell of himself, swirling up concerns from Susie and Margo (Elle Fanning), who eventually find him passed out in the bath tub after relapsing.
His setback, which leads to an “intense” scene Offerman details filming below, prompted some questioning on the actor’s part to understand the leadup to the event.He revealed talking through the moment with friends of his “who suffered or are suffering the same kind of addiction disease and live in consistent recovery.”
“It’s an escapism,” Offerman told TheWrap. “It’s an inability to buck up and say, ‘Alright, I’m going to face these problems — I’m going to address them like a big boy or succumb to the chemical addiction and the emotional addiction, of that escape, of that euphoria, in his case, of painkillers and then heroin … it’s sort of everything.”
As Offerman retraced Jinx’s journey of sobriety, he noted arriving on Margo’s doorstep and meeting her baby enabled the character to feel “heroic” as he stepped in to help his daughter and grandson. But, the trouble was when reality began to set in.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, actually, I’m broke. I’m a loser — I can help out, but can I stay here with you, my daughter and your friend, in your college apartment?’” Offerman recalled. “Things are bleak, and I think it’s just it’s too easy to slip back into.”
Offerman noted the relapse was initially a bit more overt in the original script, which took the lead from Rufi Thorpe’s novel, revealing the Vegas trip saw Margo realize Jinx had been sneaking more painkillers than she had been doling out to him after his injury in the ring with Lace (Nicole Kidman). “It’s all of those story events that you know are sad but understandable,” he said. “We all face that at some point.”
As for filming the scene when Margo and Susie discover Jinx passed out in the bath, Offerman noted there was plenty of care that went into choreographing the scene, saying “every inch and second of that scene was given such thoughtful consideration.”
“I’ve never gone through something that extreme, but I’ve certainly been in situations where I employed escapism of some sort, using some kind of intoxicants,” Offerman said. “Thankfully, I’ve never gotten into that kind of trouble, but I could definitely tap into why you go there and then just turn it up.”
Offerman revealed the tub that Jinx is found in is actually a replica of a tub constructed from a half-inch thick foam rubber, with rubber also making up the tile on the wall to account for “thrashing and contusioning” in the scene. “I did a bunch of wrestling in the show, and I think I beat myself up more flopping out of that tub onto a hard floor than I did in the actual wrestling ring,” Offerman joked. “It was really intense.”
That impact was minimized heavily by the stunt team, which Offerman applauded for “taking a beating to figure out how to do it so that we don’t have to take a beating.” It was especially needed for the latter part of the sequence, which sees Jinx fall directly back on Margo, plunging Margo into the tub under his weight.
“I always pay as much attention as I can to Thaddea and Elle, because I’m a big old football player, and so I always want to be careful that I’m not inadvertently crushing somebody’s ribs or something,” Offerman said. “It’s really hard, it’s really arduous for them to achieve and maintain that peak of emotion of ‘it’s an emergency’ for minutes at a time, doing the physical moves, the talking, the breathing, doing CPR, all of that — doing that repeated times is incredible.”
Offerman estimated only one shot with a stunt double made it into the final cut, and the rest was him and Fanning, with the team shooting through a plexiglass side in the tub to get a shot of Fanning underwater. And of course, each reset saw the crew come in to clean up the water that had escaped during the shoot.
Everyone certainly slept well after that day of shooting, Offerman joked.
Its scenes like the one detailed above that Offerman relished in being a part of “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” calling the series a “lush work of art that I’m so grateful to be part of.”
For Offerman, the chance to work under the genius of David E. Kelley, whom the actor said is on his Mount Rushmore of great entertainment writers, and alongside Fanning, Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer was an easy yes to say the least. Plus, the series shot in Los Angeles, which Offerman calls an “incredible rare treat,” saying “nothing shoots there anymore.”
“It’s not just the character, it’s that the whole thing just really makes me feel and it makes me cry and it makes me laugh,” He said. “It’s messy and it’s alive, like people …. that’s why very few people could write a successful novel, because it’s a magic. It’s an alchemy that’s really hard to get.”
It was the writing specifically that appealed to Offerman, who noted “I feel so lucky when I when I get to choose projects that have the best writing.”
“I love reading books, and I love great playwrights/screenwriters, and it’s funny, in this modern age, I feel like … kids are no longer required to write with their handwriting, and people don’t have an attention span, people don’t listen to whole albums. People don’t read a whole book,” Offerman said. “In that erosion of our global psyche or intelligence, I’m so grateful when writing comes my way that is literally a great novel.”
“Margo’s Got Money Troubles” releases new episodes Wednesdays on Apple TV.
