The emotional peak of the scene is Ron looking around astonished, he’s been Leslie Knoped the hardest he’s ever been Leslie Knoped. He goes to Leslie and says, ‘I’ve got a problem, I want to be useful. That’s a new thing for me. I’m uncomfortable, help me. I’ve made the mistake of not consulting you before and I don’t intend to make that mistake again.’ And she f—ing hands him a national park (laughs) and says ‘Here, paddle your canoe, walk around by yourself in this park, that’s your job.’ And oh boy! Whoa Nellie! I had to look at Leslie and say, ‘Thank you, Leslie.’ And Mike even did me the favor of writing the stage direction ‘very small’ before the line ‘Thank you, Leslie.’ I was rehearsing it the night before, and I’m in the park, talking to these rangers, the crew was there in my head, and I’m saying, ‘What are you telling me, Mike, by saying ‘very small’? And I did the scene sitting in my living room and I did it very small and I said, ‘You son of a bitch!’ For Ron, it’s the biggest thing by far that he has had to say in 125 episodes, and Mike told me to do it very small, knowing how greatly that would compound its impact. I was saying ‘Thank you, Leslie,’ and then I would think ‘Thank you, Amy,’ and I would think ‘Thank you, Mike, thank you, Morgan [Sackett. executive producer], thank you, Dean [Holland, director].’ I felt like I was the show saying thank you to everybody… Mike allowed me the equivalent of saying thank you to the universe—thank you to my parents for giving birth to me and thank you to Mother Nature for making me, so that I could stand here and say thank you to Leslie for giving me her final gift.‘
Nick Offerman on Leslie hiring Ron in the future (X)
(via poehlaris)
