'The Last of Us' star Nick Offerman says he almost passed on his role until his wife Megan Mullally read the script: 'You have to do this'

• Nick Offerman almost didn't take his widely praised role in "The Last of Us."
• He said that actress Megan Mullally, his wife, read the script and told him he had to do it.

Nick Offerman said that he was originally going to turn down the role he was offered in "The Last of Us" — that is, until his wife Megan Mullally intervened.

Offerman stars in episode three of the HBO video game adaption series as Bill, a rugged survivalist living in a fortified village during the cordyceps pandemic that turns humans into fungal infected. The episode has garnered widespread praise, with Insider's Kirsten Acuna calling it "by far the series' best."

Appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," Offerman said that he wasn't planning on taking the role at first after screenwriter Craig Mazin sent him the script.

"I didn't have time on the calendar to say yes to this job," Offerman told Kimmel. "And my incredible goddess of a wife read it and said, 'You're going to Calgary, buddy. Have fun! You have to do this.'"

The episode, titled "Long, Long Time," represents a departure from the storyline of the original game and an expansion of Bill's character. In the episode, Bill reluctantly takes in another survivor named Frank, played by Murray Bartlett ("The White Lotus"), and the two fall in love.

Offerman called the praise a "tsunami of wonderful, generous plaudits," joking that HBO had sent him on the show to "cull the stragglers" who hadn't seen it yet.

"The 17 of you that haven't seen it yet, you're in for a treat," the actor said.