Patton Oswalt always has something cooking on the back burner. And the front burner, for that matter.
He'll be in Lincoln on Friday night for a long-awaited COVID-postponed-and-rescheduled engagement at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, but first he'll wrap up shooting "Manhunt," an Apple-plus mini-series that centers around the 12-day search for John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
For Oswalt, whose list of movies, television and stage credits is the length of a CVS Pharmacy receipt, staying busy has been a constant. The guy is seemingly everywhere.
"I’m grateful for everything I have been able to do," he said. "I love doing creative stuff so when it comes my way, I am always up for it."
Still, you can't play every part. You can't be in every production. There comes a time when you have to learn to say no.Â
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That's an acquired life skill, Oswalt admits.
"You have to know when to juggle and when to take time off, when to power down and when to let yourself relax. I definitely make sure to take care of that." he said from Savannah, Georgia, where "Manhunt" is being shot.
"You definitely learn that as you go along. You learn to feel it out by trial and error until you fall into a nice pace. It’s hard to describe. When you’re there, you know it."
No need to describe. He's there. Living his best life. Blessed for the opportunity, he says.
In "Manhunt," he's playing Lt. Lafayette Baker, who is one of the lead investigators in the search for Booth, who shot Lincoln inside Ford Theater. In just two days, Baker and his men arrested four conspirators in the plot and a few days later, he tracked Booth to a Virginia barn, where he was killed.
"They were trying to keep him from getting down to the South because they thought — and they probably weren’t wrong — that if he could get down to the South, he would be taken in by the Confederacy and treated like a hero," Oswalt said.
All that's missing from Oswalt's role in the period piece are the mutton chops (he had a beard and a heavy flannel uniform). His performance, coming to livestream later this year, gives just another glimpse of his versatility.
Consider in the last year, he's played the man charged with finding the treacherous villain who killed the president of the United States; an irresponsible and somewhat childlike high school principal in "AP Bio," an underrated sitcom airing on Peacock; and Chuck Colson, an adviser to President Richard Nixon, in "Gaslit," a modern take on Watergate that focuses on the untold stories and forgotten characters of the scandal that would eventually bring down an administration.
And don't forget the commercial ads for Caesars Palace or the cherry on top: his standup comedy routine.
In 2012, the New York Post opined that since Oswalt began performing comedy in the early 1990s, he has mastered the art of conversational joke telling. In the decade since, he'd honed his craft and found a voice that can cover a variety of topics.
Performing at the Lied is a step up from the last time he was in Lincoln. His appearances on "The King of Queens" made him a headliner at local comedy clubs everywhere, but now playing theaters is an indicator of his hard-earned name recognition.
"It definitely feels better that a lot of the audiences are now connoisseurs of comedy," he said. "Now, as opposed to going to see comedy, they are going to see a specific person. There's something about that person that they like. You get people with more of a connection to who you are and what you do.
"That always feel great."