WEBVTT - Brent Forrester 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.000 I'm Brent Forrester. I was a writer and producer at 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:19.279 the Office. Hello everyone, and thank you so much for 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.760 joining me again. This is the Office Deep Dive, and 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:28.840 as always I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today we 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:33.360 are continuing our mini dive, if you will, into the 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:38.160 Writer's Room with the one and only Brent Forrester. Brent 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.680 joined the writing staff in season three, which, as he 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.200 talks about in this conversation, this was not an easy 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.200 thing to do. I mean, there were some real heavy 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.920 hitters in the writer's room at that point. So how 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.880 did he survive? Well? With the help of an army 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:02.440 survival manual. That's right, he used an army survival manual 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.880 to survive the writer's room at the Office, and eventually 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.720 he became a real key part of the team and 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:15.399 wrote some amazing episodes, including one that several of the 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.319 other writers consider to have in it the best moment 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.199 in the entire show. I'm not talking about the chili scene, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.240 but but Brent did direct that scene, all of which 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.720 we talked about in great detail very shortly. I am 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.520 so glad I got to sit down with him, because 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.520 he is so smart and thoughtful, and he was super 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:41.240 candid about the writer's room, both the good and the bad. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.720 I know you guys are gonna absolutely love this one. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:55.680 So here he is Mr Brent Forrester Bubble. I love it, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:03.560 bub bubb this quicker cook at every moon lift over 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:20.600 from the Nutty. Oh yeah, what's up? Oh my goodness, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:25.600 it's so good to see you. Oh my gosh. I 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.680 created the circumstance of office endless office reunion for yourself, 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:40.880 everybody from Laverne, you and Kevin Riley and everybody. Everyone 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.480 has been amazing, how generous people have been. And yeah, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:50.520 we're all hams to talk about it exactly. Ever, never 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.880 underestimate the power of just untapped narcissism. I would say, 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.760 how is Base Force going? Oh so fun? I mean how? 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.520 It stars Steve Correll and John Malkovich as the comedy 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:11.080 pairing at the center. Greg Daniels wrote the pilot with Steve, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.800 and uh, you know, Greg's influences is all through it, 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.839 as is Steve's. You know, he has this interesting sensibility 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.960 which is not always what you would expect, you know, 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.440 the direction he went in the office with naturalism, which 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.880 is so great. He also has a silly side which 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.520 is appropriate to a show like this. That's very cool. 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.839 Now your podcast, by the way, do you guys, are 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.520 you like Mark Marin level let's get emotionally self revelatory? 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.880 Are you more history of the podcast? It's definitely neither 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:51.480 of those. Um, I mean how I'm viewing it well, 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.960 I truly am actively seeking the answer to some questions 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.160 that I have about what went on and how things 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:05.800 were constructed. And it's anything with memory, something's I firmly 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.120 believe I remember, and then as I talked to people, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:16.240 I realized I remember incorrectly or there's different perspectives on that. 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:20.960 So yeah, I I think for me more than anything, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.359 it's just conversation. Well we should we should win then, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.960 because it's my favorite thing. Every time I've been in 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.400 this kind of situation, there hasn't been enough time. Weeks, 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:35.000 time we have, we have time. So, um, prior to 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.400 the office, what were you doing immediately before you got 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:43.799 brought off? Um? Well, you know, my career started way 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:48.359 back in the in the tailing dying and of the 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:50.479 multi caam era. I got my first job on a 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.920 show called Nurses, which was a multi caam show put 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.760 on by with Thomas Harris. They had done the Golden Girls, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.159 and you know, there were these factories of multicam in 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:04.320 the late eighties and early nineties, and uh, you know, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.640 so I come out of there then I had been 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.680 on the Simpsons is how and you Greg, now was 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.719 that Susan Susan Harris? I hear it was your first 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.200 sort of mentor yea time. Yeah, you know. I had 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.400 actually gone to high school with her son. And when 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.839 I came out of college, I had literally Brian trained 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.800 myself to be a short story writer, and that I 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.360 didn't realize there was no money in short stories. I mean, 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:30.479 if you take it even farther back, I was raised 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.599 in a house with no television. My mom hated TV 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.359 and would not allow it in the house. Yeah, and 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.040 so I had no television and I picked that up 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.760 as a habit, not watching television. And I continued in 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.760 that habit through college. So when I got out of college, 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.680 I had trained myself to be an expert in a 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.520 dying art form. Nobody told me that short stories weren't 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.800 popular anymore, because my mom had prevented me from having 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:59.640 any contact with modern culture. Anyway. The relevance is that 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.359 I suit to college and thought, oh, man, can I 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.279 be a writer of some kind? It just so happened. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.159 I only knew one person who was a professional writer. 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:11.120 It was Susan Harris, the creator of The Golden Girls. 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:16.320 I lucked into mentorship of sorts with one of the 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:22.120 greatest uh natural dialogue writers ever, Susan Harris. So she 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.640 helped you get the job on Nurses, gave it to me. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.599 that's right. Yeah. You know, her son had a lot 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:32.440 of friends who wanted to be TV writers. Um, to 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.120 my knowledge, I was the only one that she ever 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.400 gave a job to. And I think the reason was 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.400 she just told me how to write a spec script 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.960 and she said, right about what is difficult for you, 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.520 even painful, and trust that it will come out funny. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.159 And I've never heard better advice in comedy writing. And 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.279 I tried to do that in the form of a 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:59.400 spec blossom Awesome. That was my winning spec that got 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.560 me in the district blossom blossom. Yeah. Okay, so you 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.320 work on Nurses, then you work on a number of 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.600 other shows. Yeah, well I was. I was through with her. No, 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.440 I was, actually I was fired from Nurses with the 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.600 entire staff. They just replaced the staff. It was. It 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.480 was a pretty bad show, even at the height of 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.080 bad television, and they just said, we have to replace 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.600 these writers. I'd only worked there about, you know, four months, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.120 just long enough to uh see that there was this 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.920 thing that was the punch up writer, and there was 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.480 this reverence for the writer who could throw jokes and 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.280 comedy into a script and that rewrite process. So I 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.440 saved my little amount of nurses money and stretched it 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.800 out for like a year and just tried to teach 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:45.720 myself joke writing and display what I learned in the 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:48.640 form of a spec Rosianne script. And you know, that's 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.000 the writer's life is like a lot of time writing 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.400 what you hope is a spectacular spec script. And I 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.320 happened to get that Roseanne in the hands of a 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.960 young comedian who was becoming a producer named Judd Apatow. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.239 Apatao was twenty four. He had uh met Ben Stiller 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.680 in lined on Elvis Costello concert and they the stories 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.000 they just kind of hudsput each other into, like selling 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:12.760 a TV show. What's your name, Ben Stiller? What do 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:14.160 you do? I'm an actor? Yeah? Who are you? Joe? 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.560 You comedian? Right? Stuff? Oh yeah, that's so the show. Okay, 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.320 let's do and they went to Fox show Wow. And 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.400 so you got a job on that through the Rose 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.000 and inspect Yeah, and then you you end up winning 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.200 an Emmy. Yeah. Yeah, it was incredible. I mean it 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.320 was really Bob Odenkirk is why we won that Emmy. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.640 You know, he was the head writer of the show. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:36.960 He uh also created Mr Show with Bob and Dave. 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.440 You know, for sure, one of the greatest sketch shows ever. 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.559 UM and Bob was the head writer and under his 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.280 influence of a group of totally untested writers, won the 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:53.240 Emmy for Best Comedy Writing UH that year. And you know, 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.080 for me at that point, I had a Emmy and 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.400 about like a year of television writing experience and then 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.839 they put me on The Simpsons and that's where I 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.960 met Greg and was truly tested. So you worked on 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.840 the Simpsons for what five years? No? Actually I worked 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.640 two full years to full years. I had a four 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.400 year contract and I bailed after two years, going to 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.360 the craziest self destructive moves in a weird way. But 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.000 I was young. I was in my twenties. I've worked 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.040 there for two years. I felt like I've learned everything 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.320 there is to learn about writing for the Simpsons, and 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:28.360 so I quit and uh had a memorable like had 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.320 to have a showdown with Jim Brooks where they called 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.640 me into his office and and Brooks, Uh, he said, hey, man, 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:37.480 I hear you're on strike. Man, do you know Brooks 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.080 at all? No? I mean I've met him, seeing him, 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.600 but I don't know him. No. Well, I don't think 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.000 he would know me for sure, but we all worship him. 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.440 He is like one of the Mount Rushmore guys of 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.640 our medium. And uh, he's a genius and he's got 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.400 kind of a hippie vibe. But somehow I enraged him 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.439 by saying this thing that writers all knew to say, 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.560 which was, hey, I don't think you'd want to have 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.200 a writer in the room who doesn't want to be there. 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.400 We were always told, like amongst each other, that you 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.240 could get out of a contract if you just simply 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:08.760 said that. So I said it to Brooks. He got enraged. Man, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.559 his beard was shaking, and he said, don't go down 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.719 that road. Don't float that balloon. I've never heard that 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.880 phrase in my life. Float that balloon, don't float that balloon. 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.280 It might be like a World War two reference, like, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.040 I don't know. If you meet him, please tell him 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.280 I'm sorry and asking what that means. Okay, but you meet, 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.079 you meet Greg. Yeah, you meet Greg while you're there, 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.640 and eventually you start working on King of the Hill 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.640 with Greg. Yeah, that's right. So he liked you, he did, 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.120 he did. Uh. Greg was like one of those um 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:47.240 senior writers on The Simpsons, at least in my view. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.600 He was one of those Harvard guys who was clearly 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.480 a genius. The whole staff was Harvard guys when I 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.160 showed up there. Uh, you know, I was sort of 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.000 in the second way if there was the Harvard guys 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.560 who created the show, and then after four years half 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.320 of them went off to do their own thing, and 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.120 so all these slots opened up, and I got in 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.319 one of those slots. Now Greg was already there, and 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.560 you know, Greg was obviously just a great writer of 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.880 of this show. He wrote some of the best episodes ever. 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:17.080 Bart Sells his soul is still just I mean, untoppable 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:19.840 and very greg. You know, because Greg liked that kind 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.760 of telling, a yarn sort of storytelling. He was even 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.000 then heading in the direction of naturalistic storytelling that you 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:27.840 see in King of the Hill and then The Office. 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.319 It's funny because my perspective is slightly different. I remember, 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.440 I'm sure you and I had this conversation, especially in 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.280 later seasons, where we would read a script and we 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.120 would start looking at it and I would go up 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.920 to the writer's room or have conversations with clusters of 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.120 you saying, guys, guys, I am not a cartoon. There 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.280 are physical things that you are writing right now that 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.000 my body is incapable of doing. So it's it's I 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.199 can't go from here to here in no time like 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.280 you can in a our tune. I always yeah, there 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.439 was definitely some Homer Simpson elements. That's funny. Well, you 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.200 you know, you hit on a key thing that writers 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.600 have as a deficit. You know, we are not out 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:17.200 there physically acting. We're all in our little minds and 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.920 you know, we're rewarded for what pops on the page, 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.120 and so you know, we violate these rules whereas an actor, 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.240 how what are you thinking. We're like, we're just trying 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.680 to preserve our jobs by making the other guy in 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.520 the room laugh. And we you know, if it breaks reality, 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.600 we just we can't be bothered. Right. And so by 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:37.800 the time you came in in season three, were you 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:43.160 watching um, were you watching The Office? Seen some although 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:47.840 I continued my habit of not watching much TV until recently, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.960 where I've really forced myself to become a consumer. So 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.520 I was aware of it for sure, because the comedy 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.280 writers were aware of it. The comedy writers and taste 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.720 makers were aware of the British show, and we were 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.920 aware of the Americans for sure. And then, of course, 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.040 you know, I knew Paul Lieberstein from King of the Hill. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:06.920 He was a writer on King of the Hill, and 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:08.800 so you know, Paul and I hang out and you know, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.480 we'd go for a for a jog and he would 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.520 tell me about the show he was working on. I 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.720 do remember when Paul said to me, all I want 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.640 in my career is for this show to go on. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.959 That was season two. He had that feeling. I've never 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.720 heard him say that about anything he'd ever worked on. Wow. Okay, 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.160 so you came in season three. Yeah, do you remember 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:35.360 anything about walking into the writer's room you knew some 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.360 of the people there about Yeah, Well, you know, writer's 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.520 rooms are very competitive, right, It's a very competitive environment. 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.360 We are trying to impress each other that we're smart 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.640 and talented, and we have a method, which is UH 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.200 time to say something funny and who can do it? 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.120 And so I definitely remember the first day I walked 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.240 into the office writer's room, Mike Sure was there, uh 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.880 and uh Paul liebres Gen Silata, and Uh. I knew 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:04.559 it was going to be brutal. So I had brought 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.880 in a prop. I brought in an Army Survival Manual, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:09.760 and I just had it with me. I thought, that's 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.520 supposed to be kind of funny to call out the subtext, 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.600 right like, I mean, this writer's room where nobody knows 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.840 me or wants me on this show that they created. 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.480 And so I'll have this Army Survival Manual and in 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.360 it there's an acronym that the army has U S 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.480 U R V I V A L. And each of 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.440 those letters has a thing you're supposed to do s 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.960 you know, to survey the situation. You understand the risks. 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.200 It's impossible in a survival situation you would die. Just 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.720 try to remember what the second V one of them 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.840 is vanquished fear and panic. Okay, I mean you never 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.720 say vanquished in your life. I love though, that's amazing. Well, 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.800 it was my It was my way of surviving. I figure, 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.280 if it gets tighten here, I'm gonna have a whole 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.760 bit I can do. Right. I never busted that out, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.040 but I do remember it got contentious on the first day. 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.240 It was, you know, just one of those kind of 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.720 ego things. We were arguing over some plot points. Should 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.120 the story go this way or shouldn't go that way? 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.120 And so we just got into some disagreement and I 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:10.320 just went into an English accent. Why would you do that? 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.680 Did it help or did it hurt? Absolutely helped, I 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.320 mean it diffused everything. And then on some level it 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.240 kind of says we're playing a game of comedy performative cleverness, 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:44.000 and this is just a move in that dimension. Do 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.040 you consider Gregg a teacher? Oh for sure. Yeah, he's 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.720 a friend of mine forever now. And we were in 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.680 the trenches at the Simpsons ten am to ten pm 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.760 every single day, so you know, we're all buddies. But 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:00.800 for sure, big time. He uh someone someone told us 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.400 this exercise that he had something that if you were 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.720 having trouble breaking stories, and he called it unlikely duos, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.160 And there were note cards on the wall with all 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.360 the character's names, and the idea was to pick two 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.080 characters that you would not necessarily associate with each other 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.920 together and then write a story on that. I think 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.760 that's always a great method. Um Early on, back on 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.080 Nurses for me, I asked one of the senior writers 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.080 there what makes a story? And the guy called me 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.840 into his office. His name was Bruce Ferber. He closed 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.040 the blinds, shut the door, locked it, and he said, 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:41.160 a story is usually about two people, and then he 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.320 unlocked the door and made me leave. It sounds so 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.480 a common place, but it's actually the key. Yeah, that's 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.280 what's great is what's an unusual pairing. That's how I 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.320 got my first Simpsons episode was I paired Homer versus 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.080 Patty and Selma. It had never been done before, so 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.760 I got an episode. But for sure, on any show, 0:16:57.920 --> 0:16:59.880 you know what, two characters have never been in a 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.240 already together? Do that right? Well, that's genius. It's the 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:09.280 small attention to details. When you know the characters and 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.680 how the characters would behave you almost don't need anything 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.480 more than this. I was told that during the testing 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:19.000 of the show with the Gems and the Dwights, The 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:25.639 direction from Greg to the actors was very simply, Uh, Jim, 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.720 bring Dwight a glass of water, right, and then what happens? Right? 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.480 You know Dwight is going to be skeptical, right because 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.760 you know, you know, he's afraid that Jim has done 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.200 something to the water. And I felt like you guys 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.560 did such a great job of of that, of studying 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.480 the character's behavior and how each character would behave in 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.160 a given situation. Now you've you've hit it on the head. 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.160 And if you notice, uh, ask Greg what his favorite 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.760 television show is of all time. I remember he was 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.920 being interviewed and he sat there for an hour trying 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.320 to think, you know, and asking the write is what 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:04.040 they thought? It was? Larry Sanders and uh, Judd Apatao. 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.040 If you ask him, he'll give you the same answer. 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:08.919 I worked with Judd on a show called Love we 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.680 did for Netflix. I was the head writer there and 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.320 I remember we delivered scripts to Judd. The first four scripts. 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.760 I thought they were good. They were real clever and funny, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.200 and he was so bummed and he as he tried 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.040 to articulate what it was, he said, Wat's the Larry 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.200 Sanders show. And by the end, we had a a phrase, 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:31.120 a motto, and it was behavior over banter. I never 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.000 forgot it. Man. You know, you don't have to have 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:38.120 clever word play if the characters are in an interesting behavior. Now, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.440 I can tell you two behaviors that are funny for actors. 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.160 One is lying, always funny. The other generally his seduction. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.160 Unless the person I suppose is really hot, it's gonna 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.199 be kind of funny. So I wondered for you as 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.159 a comic performer. You know, you're talking about the glass 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.480 of water thing, which is complex behavior. Are there other 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.320 categories of behavior that are funny for you to perform? Oh, 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:04.240 that's a very interesting question. Um. For me, the biggest 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:11.399 laughs that I ever remember was when Holly was told 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:16.119 that Kevin was slow. That's that was my recollection, and 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.960 people went sort of bonkers about it. And I think 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.719 the reason why is because it was a very simple 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:27.760 joke that is set up by years of history and 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.479 knowing the character. And as soon as you hear the 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.119 setup of that, you know instantly that she will believe 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.600 it and that there will be confusion between her and 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.720 Kevin that could play out as long as we wanted 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.679 it to. I think that when you truly, when you 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:46.600 have the time to create a character and there's an 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:50.840 expectation from an audience on how that character would respond 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:57.200 the anticipation of that and delivering that or the opposite 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.320 of what the expectation is. To me, those things are 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:05.120 very funny. Wow, that's gold. Um you at one point 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.520 said this. It has been said by wiser artists than 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.639 me that the more personal you make your writing, the 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.840 more personal it will become. Um, do you feel like 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.680 you right? Personally? I aspire to for sure. Our medium 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.120 is very interesting because it's collaborative, and I am hired 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:28.000 to execute the vision of somebody above me. And you know, 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.240 I've come to think of the writer's room, uh as 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:36.600 an art project. The the show runner is the artist 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.000 of the show. That's the Picasso, and we're all there 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.480 to sort of make his or her vision come to life. 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:44.919 Having said that, when you get an individual episode at 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.560 a certain point, they send you off, and that's when 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.199 the art form becomes yours and you really try to 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.520 pour yourself into it. So on the Office, I always 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.800 did try to find what was personal about it for 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.920 me in that episode. Um, So you join in season three, 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.400 we've got this, uh Stanford story, Jim is away and 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:12.720 your first episode that you wrote was the Merger Um, 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.480 which was about the branches coming together. Are really them 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:21.280 being folded into Scranton, But nonetheless you have new people 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.520 coming in. Was there anything about your personal experience entering 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.240 this show or entering the writer's room that mirrors some 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.200 of the Stanford people coming over? Oh? Yeah, I think 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.600 it's very common in any dynamic. Uh, if you have 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.399 a workplace and somebody new comes in, there's gonna be 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.680 a feeling of like we're the old guard, right. Um. 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.960 That was always true in every writer's room I've ever 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.760 been in. I know it was true. I shouldn't say 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.120 I know, but I could feel it in the actor's 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:52.880 new actors coming into the office. Of course, there's gonna 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.040 be a period of almost testing. I would think, you 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.800 know that that goes on subconsciously. I've never met a 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.960 nicer group of people than the actors on the office. 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.040 But as professionals, there's this sense of, Hey, we're trying 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:06.600 to do something at the highest level. You can you 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.680 step in and do this? Um, So I wouldn't surprise 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:13.000 me that the the new actors felt really challenged when 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.560 they when they first came in. Yeah, there's a weird 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.080 sort of dichotomy that existed on the show, right, So 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.600 when you think of the office, it's really about the bullpen. 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.520 It's about the same group of people that exist in 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.200 this same place over nine years. But of course when 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.240 you just back up a little bit, it's really not true. 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:36.560 And I feel like you guys did a great job 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:43.040 of creating energy by infusing that stasis with new people 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.280 or you know, even making Jim go away. That creates 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.120 a different environment. Um, I thought that you guys did 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.879 a really great job in keeping that energy while still 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:56.280 maintaining the feeling that nothing is changing. Brilliantly said, I mean, 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:58.320 I think the lion share of the credit probably goes 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:00.879 to Greg and his three dimensional chess that he plays 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.640 with this line, I remember Greg had figured out that 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.879 TV shows should have arcs before anybody did you know 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.600 TV historically you're watching individual episodes that could literally be 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.560 shuffled in syndication. They were designed to be unrelated to 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:20.239 each other. And Greg recognized that arcing out was the 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.280 new way of doing things. He was reading Game of 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:24.680 Thrones and and the Game of Thrones started airing and 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:27.000 he's like, oh my god, they're benefiting from the fact 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:29.520 that they know where they're going long term, and suddenly 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:34.440 he was applying this very archy mentality to the show. Yeah, 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:36.560