‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Did Not Skimp on Its Pro Wrestling Action

“I [would] love for someone to say, I have to play tennis and I have to look like I’m good at tennis [for a role],” Nick Offerman told IndieWire during a recent interview for the new Apple TV series “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” In this particular case, Offerman had to wrestle and look like he was good at it, as the actor plays a former professional wrestler, drug addict, and estranged father to Elle Fanning’s titular Margo in the series. 

The show, based on Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel of the same name, follows Margo, a new mother at just 19, who finds herself deferring from college and embarking on an OnlyFans career in order to provide for her family. This includes Jinx (Offerman), who looks after baby Bodhi in exchange for a place to stay after being released from rehab, and Margo’s friend Susie (Thaddea Graham) who, as a wrestling fan like yours truly, is momentarily starstruck that she’s now roommates with her favorite wrestler.

As a former high school football player and Chicago theater actor, Offerman found that wrestling was the perfect combination of athleticism and theatricality and jumped at the chance to do his own stunts on “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.” 

“When you’re doing a play and you’re doing a fist fight, you do it so that you never actually hit anybody and you do it with sound [and movement],” Offerman said. “But in wrestling, you’re quite often actually hitting each other, but we know where to do it and how to do it so that it hurts [the least]. It’s really beautiful once you learn how it works because they have to convincingly perpetrate this violence upon one another. I was blown away to learn how incredibly athletic and tough these wrestlers actually are.”

“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”’ stunt coordinator Jon H. Epstein was awed by Offerman’s willingness to get in the ring. “I have worked alongside the likes of Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, Jackie Chan,” Epstein wrote in an email to IndieWire. “I can say in my 40 years, I have never been more impressed with an actor as I was with Nick Offerman! Dedication to rehearsals, filming, and pushing the envelope of his abilities — I can’t say enough.”

While the wrestling in “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is scant — most of it takes place in this week’s fourth episode, “Buddies,” and in the form of snippets of old matches and promos from Jinx’s heyday in the 1990s — the show follows in the footsteps of recent wrestling shows such as “GLOW” and “Young Rock” in that Epstein employed the services of wrestling consultant Chavo Guerrero Jr. 

‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’

Belonging to the legendary Mexican-American Guerrero wrestling dynasty, Guerrero wrestled in World Wrestling Entertainment and Total Nonstop Action before making the switch from active competition to the production side of things in “Lucha Underground,” a wrestling program that was more stylized and atmospheric than most traditional wrestling shows.

While there, he was contacted by the horror series “Grimm” to assist on a wrestling storyline, followed by “GLOW,” “Young Rock,” and the 2023 film “The Iron Claw.” “I kind of became the wrestling guy in Hollywood,” Guerrero told IndieWire, picking up the mantle from former stuntman and ex-wrestler Gene LeBell. “I fell into it.”

As evidenced by the successful acting careers of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, John Cena, and Dave Bautista, professional wrestling skills are transferable to Hollywood. “It was wonderful and necessary to learn the actual moves, but Chavo would give me little moments of acting class,” Offerman said, referencing a moment when Jinx takes his opponent’s shirt and wipes it between his legs. “He literally just handed me my entire role!”

That said, it was director and executive producer Dearbhla Walsh, who directed four of the season’s eight episodes, including the pilot, who was “extremely instrumental in all of the wrestling choreography,” Epstein wrote. “Hands on — upon my initial pre-production meeting with her, she physically ran through the moves herself on me!” Epstein would take Walsh’s ideas to Guerrero, who worked with Offerman, Nicole Kidman (who we’ll get to momentarily!), and the other actors to translate them to the screen.

Guerrero found that, although actors are often apprehensive when first tasked with playing wrestlers — “They know how to pro wrestle; they just don’t know it yet. [They’re] already acting, now [they’re] just gonna act like a wrestler,” he explained — once they learn the ropes, “a lot of times I have to hold them back!” 

He hypothesized that wrestlers might have the less challenging role, though: “Sometimes it’s easier to wrestle a 20-minute match than it is to do a 45-second scene in a film or TV show. With a 20-minute match, after that you’re done for the night, but a 45-second scene is [shot] over and over again with different angles, they go to lunch, and then they do it again. Three falls  — or bumps, as we call them in wrestling — [in one 45-second scene are filmed] 15 times. So that’s 45 bumps. Sometimes working on set is harder than being a pro wrestler,” he said.

Guerrero has his own ring that he has nicknamed “the Cadillac of wrestling rings,” modified for relative softness for the performers and sound so that the usual claps a traditional ring makes don’t interfere with film and TV dialogue, that he rents out to studios. “I can only pad it and soften it up so much, but it’s still metal and wood,” he said. 

The main thing is earning the actors’ trust and ensuring their safety. “The studios are trusting me with millions of dollars of actors and actresses to make them look as good as I can without them getting hurt,” Guerrero said.

Perhaps the biggest actor Guerrero has worked with and one whose insurance premium is definitely in the millions is Nicole Kidman, who plays former wrestler Lace, who has since transitioned into the legal profession and advises Margo in a custody dispute later in the season. In this week’s episode, we see Kidman get in the ring at a wrestling convention with All Elite Wrestling competitor Chris Jericho and Offerman’s Jinx.

Both Guerrero and Offerman were full of nice things to say about Kidman, who had just one day to shoot her wrestling scene and the previous day to rehearse it, for which Guerrero flew to Nashville to train with Kidman in a boxing gym alongside her stunt double, former wrestler Danielle Moinet.

“I didn’t have a lot of time with her — I wish we did; I know she wishes we did,” Guerrero said.

When it came time to shoot, Kidman was sick and they weren’t sure she was going to make the shoot. Like real wrestlers who often wrestle through illness and injury, though, Kidman toughed it out and filmed the scene. “Hats off to Nicole Kidman,” Guerrero added.

“She’s a very formidable person,” Offerman said. “I said to her, ‘I already admired you powerfully, but the way you showed up today is how you get to be a world-class movie star.’ Just getting to do a scene with her was so far beyond my wildest dreams but to get my ass kicked by her is an upper echelon of bucket list. I have to raise my expectations now.”

Coming away from “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” Offerman’s opinion of wrestlers has also been raised. “The quiet dignity that they retain while putting on this show together that involves improvised violence. They do get hurt, but they’ve developed a way to do it so that it hurts the least,” he said with a laugh. “But it still hurts!”

“Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is now streaming on Apple TV. Its finale will be available on Wednesday, May 20.