Nina Bloomgarden was shocked to learn Ron Swanson a.k.a. Nick Offerman was going to play her on-screen father in Peacock’s “The Resort.”
“My friends in high school, we were like obsessed with ‘Parks and [Recreation]’ so when … he was cast, my friends were like, ‘Oh my god! Ron Swanson,'” Bloomgarden tells Page Six, before gushing about her time filming with the actor.
“He’s the most incredible guy. He’s humble, he’s kind, he’s lived a billion lives, he’s a master at a million things, he’s written so many books,” she says, adding that it was a great experience getting to improvise with him.
The pair play a father and daughter on a holiday vacation in 2007 when Bloomgarden’s character and another hotel guest go missing from a resort in Mexico.
Bloomgarden tells us she even picked up some chopsticks lessons from Offerman while they were on set together.
“There’s a scene where Nick is actually teaching me how to use chopsticks because he spent a year in Japan where he was doing Kabuki theater … and that, I think, made it into the show, where he’s teaching me how to use chopsticks, so that was fun.”
Despite the show taking place in Mexico, the cast filmed in Puerto Rico, which Bloomgarden says wasn’t always a picnic.
“[There were] so many ups and downs,” she explains. “Their dish there is called mofongo, so every time something would go wrong for us — which would happen a lot over there — we would all say, ‘Oh, we just got mofongo’ed,’ and that just became an inside joke for all of us.”
However, according to Bloomgarden, the weekends were “incredible,” as the cast would go to the beach, camp and hike together.
“It felt like summer camp mixed with college,” she shares. “We were all a family.”
“The Resort” — which follows a couple who stumble into solving an unsolved mystery during a Mexican vacation — premieres July 28 on Peacock.