Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Guess what it's me, Brian Baumgartner here, welcoming
Speaker 1: you very warmly to a very special episode of Off
Speaker 1: the Beat. What a year it's been, am I Right?
Speaker 1: Where did the year go? I can't believe we're already
Speaker 1: to the end of twenty twenty three. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, guys, but I tend to get a little
Speaker 1: nostalgic at the end of the year, and I can't
Speaker 1: help but reflect on everything that's happened this year, the
Speaker 1: memories made, all of the fascinating people that I have
Speaker 1: had the great good fortune and pleasure of meeting and
Speaker 1: speaking to, and most of all, getting to share so
Speaker 1: many of those conversations with all of you, my truly
Speaker 1: amazing listeners making this podcast. This is a highlight for
Speaker 1: me every single week, and I want to thank all
Speaker 1: of you for allowing me to keep doing it for
Speaker 1: another year. And since I'm being sentimental, guess what We're
Speaker 1: going to take a look back on this year of
Speaker 1: Off the Beat. Listen back to a few of the
Speaker 1: many insightful, informative, and at times extremely funny moments that
Speaker 1: have happened on the show. Now, this isn't a ranked list,
Speaker 1: or even moments in any particular order. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are so many more moments I wish I could have included.
Speaker 1: But if I truly wanted to put in all of
Speaker 1: my favorite moments, well then you would just have to
Speaker 1: listen back to every single episode this year. So I
Speaker 1: thought i'd save you a little time pick out just
Speaker 1: a few fantastic clips that I love, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you will too. Let's die, shall we? To start
Speaker 1: us off, let's listen to this story from the legendary
Speaker 1: Angela Gibbs sharing how she started off. And well, it
Speaker 1: wasn't as Angela Gibbs per se. You'll hear what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was very political. I was a hippie slash revolutionary.
Speaker 2: Remember my name is Angela. They were looking for Angela Davis.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I thought it was it was on me to carry on,
Speaker 2: you know, And so I went to Africa, changed my
Speaker 2: name Totamu. Don't tease me, and you know it was Tamu. Yes.
Speaker 1: And why why wait, I'm not hening to just let
Speaker 1: it go?
Speaker 2: Oh come on now?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Well you know what back then?
Speaker 1: Does that mean something?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well here's okay. This is where it gets worse.
Speaker 2: The story starts to go downhill because my name was Utamu,
Speaker 2: and that was, you know, taking on my African culture
Speaker 2: and heritage. And I wanted a new name to kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, express my connection to Africa. The problem was
Speaker 2: the friend who gave me the name. The problem was this,
Speaker 2: people would say, oh, Tamil, what does that mean right?
Speaker 2: And I said, sweetness, can you imagine I'm a young woman,
Speaker 2: not bad looking. The guys are like, yeah.
Speaker 1: I bet you are.
Speaker 2: I'm like, this has nothing to do with the revolution.
Speaker 2: I want a new names. So my son teases me,
Speaker 2: I got a name changed to Aoka, and then they
Speaker 2: call me a Yoka for a while that meant light,
Speaker 2: she comes with light. Turns out my middle name, Elaine,
Speaker 2: means the same thing. So I eventually just trapped it off.
Speaker 2: My mother knew what she was doing because I came
Speaker 2: from Africa and I said my name was Utamo, and
Speaker 2: she said I named I said, well, I'm not answering
Speaker 2: anything but Utami, and I'm a vegan terry. My mother
Speaker 2: says she has lost her mind. But I digressed. I digressed,
Speaker 2: so I came back and back then there weren't a
Speaker 2: lot of roles that we could play as black women.
Speaker 2: So I decided to go away to college, and she
Speaker 2: teases me because she's still knocking down doors. I've worked
Speaker 2: with John Foresight, I've had a pilot, I've had some things.
Speaker 2: I've been on Samford and Son, I've done the film.
Speaker 1: And I left.
Speaker 2: I left, you know, and I kind of looking back now,
Speaker 2: I used to regret it. I used to think it
Speaker 2: was a mistake because when I came back, my mother
Speaker 2: was Florence. But like, maybe I made a mistake, Maybe
Speaker 2: I should have stayed in La But I'm glad because
Speaker 2: I wanted to have a purpose even as a young woman.
Speaker 2: I wanted my life to matter. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: involved in things that made a difference in the community
Speaker 2: and ended up coming back and opening up a theater.
Speaker 2: So it was meant to be. Not Brian, I didn't
Speaker 2: know it was gonna take you this long. Didn't take
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: You wanted to take a short break and a little
Speaker 1: bit locker.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. So you know, Shirley Ralph, she's
Speaker 2: singing my song when she said don't give up. You know,
Speaker 2: my saying is if you stay in line, your turn
Speaker 2: will come. So when I came back, I realized I
Speaker 2: loved this so much that hey, whether I make it
Speaker 2: or not, and you know, make it meaning and whether
Speaker 2: I make a living at it or not, I got
Speaker 2: to keep back it. And I think when I finally
Speaker 2: got there, things started to change. You know. That's my story,
Speaker 2: and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 1: Well, I for one, am very glad that she came
Speaker 1: back stateside and did what she did here. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad she's stuck with the name Angela too. In fact,
Speaker 1: there might be something special about that name, because I
Speaker 1: spoke to another extremely successful, brilliant and hilarious Angela this year,
Speaker 1: Angela Johnson Reyes. Here she is describing how she weaseled
Speaker 1: her way into a very fortuitous gig on a little
Speaker 1: show you might have heard of. You start in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: you move, your friend is helping you, and fairly quickly
Speaker 1: you get to do that thing, which is stand by
Speaker 1: a car, and you're on friends. Is this right as
Speaker 1: a regular extra for a couple of seasons. Yes, I
Speaker 1: don't remember you, but I believe you were there.
Speaker 5: Listen.
Speaker 6: I people will screenshot me and tag me on social media.
Speaker 6: Sometimes they'll be like, is this you and I'm like, yeah, girl,
Speaker 6: believe it. And my hair was so long, it was
Speaker 6: like down to my waist, like I was like young
Speaker 6: and vibrant. But yes, I remember, I thought I had
Speaker 6: made it. I was like, this is it. I'm here
Speaker 6: and living in my dreams and even the story of
Speaker 6: how that happened. I remember going to Central Casting, where
Speaker 6: you know, they cast all the extras for TV shows
Speaker 6: and movies, and my friend who said she was going
Speaker 6: to help me get started, she kept her word and
Speaker 6: she told me exactly what to do. She was like,
Speaker 6: this is what I want you to do. I want
Speaker 6: you to go to Central Casting. There's going to be
Speaker 6: a line of people waiting out the door, but don't
Speaker 6: wait in line. I want you to come with a
Speaker 6: tray of cookies and your radar at headshot, and I
Speaker 6: want you to just go to the front window and
Speaker 6: ask for Sam and then give him your head shot
Speaker 6: and the cookies. Tell him you're new to town and
Speaker 6: you want to be an extra. And I was like,
Speaker 6: this sounds real sleazy. It's just I don't know what
Speaker 6: cookies mean in Hollywood, but you listen. And so I
Speaker 6: show up to Central Casting and sure enough, there's a
Speaker 6: line of people outside waiting to sign up to be
Speaker 6: an extra on TV, and I'm like passing all these
Speaker 6: people with my sleezy cookies, like they know exactly what
Speaker 6: I'm doing. And this is probably, like I don't know,
Speaker 6: a month after the Super Bowl. This is after the
Speaker 6: readers were just in the Super Bowl. I show up
Speaker 6: and I'm waiting for this guy Sam. He comes walking
Speaker 6: out from the back offices and he's wearing a Raiders
Speaker 6: hat and I was like, oh my god, no way.
Speaker 6: He's like, hey, what's up. And I give him the
Speaker 6: cookies and my Raider at headshot and I was like,
Speaker 6: this is for you. And he sees my radar at
Speaker 6: headshot and he's like what, no way. Like clearly he's
Speaker 6: just like the biggest Raiders fan. We just came off
Speaker 6: the Super Bowl, like no freaking away Raider at Oh
Speaker 6: my gosh whatever. And he's like, yeah, here, give me
Speaker 6: your name and number. I'll call you blah blah blah whatever.
Speaker 6: So I do that and I leave. I don't even
Speaker 6: sign up, and he calls me like two days later
Speaker 6: and he's like, hey, do you want to be an extra?
Speaker 4: Friends?
Speaker 6: And I was like, you mean, like my favorite show
Speaker 6: of all time. Yes, I do want to be an extro. Friends,
Speaker 6: And so he signs me up in the system, and
Speaker 6: I don't know what I'm doing, but he gives me
Speaker 6: all my instructions. Park in this parking lot, walk to
Speaker 6: this stage, blah blah blah blah blah. And I remember
Speaker 6: my first time walking on the Warner Brothers lot and
Speaker 6: it was just magical. It was like butterflies and just
Speaker 6: goosebumps and walking by the sound stage and then you
Speaker 6: know the smell of a sound stage, like it's that
Speaker 6: paint and wood and there's just something about it. And
Speaker 6: it's just like all the things are like this is wow,
Speaker 6: this is movies, this is TV, this is I'm doing it.
Speaker 6: And I remember walking into the stage at the big
Speaker 6: door was open, and I just walk right in and
Speaker 6: you see like here's the guy's apartment, here's the girl's apartment,
Speaker 6: here's central perk, and here's you know, the studio audience
Speaker 6: where the audience sits. And I just remember walking in
Speaker 6: and being like a kid in a candy store, could
Speaker 6: not believe I was living my dream, like I was
Speaker 6: just here to be an extra, but that was not
Speaker 6: even what was on What I was on. My mind
Speaker 6: was like I cannot believe I made it, Like I
Speaker 6: am here. This is wild. And I ended up making
Speaker 6: friends with the ad who was very funny and I
Speaker 6: was funny, so we would just make each other laugh.
Speaker 6: And so he'd be like, Okay, I'm going to bring
Speaker 6: you back tomorrow, and I'm like, okay, cool, i'come back tomorrow.
Speaker 6: And then he's like, okay, I'll bring you back next week.
Speaker 6: And next thing you know, I'm an extra for season
Speaker 6: nine and ten, like a regular, just in the coffeehouse,
Speaker 6: and they end up inviting me to their Christmas party
Speaker 6: and I was able to have a conversation with every
Speaker 6: single one of the cast members without me being that
Speaker 6: weird extra who's just trying to talk to them.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was just an incredible experience that's still until
Speaker 6: this day, twenty years later. It's my favorite job I've
Speaker 6: ever had.
Speaker 1: Now, coming from a woman who was a former Raiderret
Speaker 1: went on to be on Mad Team and had a
Speaker 1: hugely successful stand up career, it is pretty high praise
Speaker 1: that being an extra on Friends is still her favorite job.
Speaker 1: My next guest also had a stint on Friends, well
Speaker 1: not on the show itself, but Kevin Riley was an
Speaker 1: executive at NBC during its run. There, let's hear him
Speaker 1: discuss how another enormous primetime hit came to be and
Speaker 1: one that didn't do so great. You also during that
Speaker 1: time developed Er the network, and you supervised the first
Speaker 1: season of Law and Order. I mean, these are legendary
Speaker 1: primetime television shows, both going over twenty seasons. So I
Speaker 1: guess they let you off of the Saturday morning events.
Speaker 4: They did they Yeah, then I kind of came back
Speaker 4: and did that again. Crazy. You know, the success squeaks
Speaker 4: its three through in weird ways, you know, like we
Speaker 4: went through in the office, where you know, a super
Speaker 4: impactful generational show barely squeaked its way through life. I
Speaker 4: mean that was my experience more often than not. I
Speaker 4: mean Law and Order, which is now thought of as
Speaker 4: like this insane institution. You know, for a lot of
Speaker 4: listeners were probably like, yeah, my mother's watched it forever.
Speaker 4: But at the time it was this very novel thing.
Speaker 4: Dramas were not selling into syndication because nobody wanted to
Speaker 4: buy one hour shows, so Dick Wolf literally designed it
Speaker 4: as two half hour shows originally that we're going to
Speaker 4: do the Law and the Order, but then they could
Speaker 4: be joined on the first run on television, but then
Speaker 4: they would be syndicated separately. NBC bought the show not
Speaker 4: because they wanted this this was Dick's like big show,
Speaker 4: but they wanted his hit show, which was going to
Speaker 4: be a thing called Nasty Boys, which was these guys
Speaker 4: with a souped up boat and they were a squad
Speaker 4: that came in in mass and they seized your property
Speaker 4: for drug raids and things, and when they did, they
Speaker 4: got to keep it. So they had super cool motorcycles
Speaker 4: and boats. And it was not a good show. And
Speaker 4: I'm working on I'm, you know, now, only a couple
Speaker 4: of years into my career, and they kind of gave
Speaker 4: them to me in this and I oversaw them. Everybody's like,
Speaker 4: how's Nasty Boys going. I was like, you know this
Speaker 4: thing Law and Order is like really, oh yeah, that's
Speaker 4: talk about Nasty Boys. So Nasty Boys aired, I think
Speaker 4: it like came and went in less than one season,
Speaker 4: and Law and Order was not a huge hit at
Speaker 4: the gate, but was always a very kind of groundbreaking
Speaker 4: show at the time in terms of its rhythms and
Speaker 4: the kind of the dour. It was one of the
Speaker 4: early shows that talked took policing as police was kind
Speaker 4: of talking about a job, you know, like guys would
Speaker 4: be there like, you know, talking about their donuts and
Speaker 4: sort of stepping over the body, not like the old
Speaker 4: cops who were like we just saw this case, you know,
Speaker 4: which was like the old school way, like they're like, yeah, look,
Speaker 4: we see a lot of this stuff. And you know,
Speaker 4: witnesses weren't cooperative and lawyers had to make deals and
Speaker 4: those were like kind of a step forward. And then
Speaker 4: you know, that was an institution. And then Er was
Speaker 4: a similar kind of thing where it was when it
Speaker 4: was screened. It was in the screening room from the powers.
Speaker 4: It'd be were like, we don't get it.
Speaker 1: Right. Talk to me a little bit. Because those two
Speaker 1: shows I consider at least differently what people refer to
Speaker 1: as procedurals. Yeah, and then there's what's the opposite of.
Speaker 4: That, Well, there were serialized shows, so two different things.
Speaker 4: So the procedural means a closed ended thing, you know,
Speaker 4: And that's one of the reasons that Law and Order
Speaker 4: had such incredible staying power. You didn't need to see
Speaker 4: season one, you didn't need to bring season five to
Speaker 4: catch up. You just you could drop into any episode
Speaker 4: a body dropped in the beginning, and the crime was solved.
Speaker 4: At the end, case closed, and they've done. I don't
Speaker 4: know at this point between the franchise of all the
Speaker 4: different iterations, I don't know how many hundreds of episodes,
Speaker 4: thousands maybe at this point. But Serial Eye show, which
Speaker 4: ER was, and many other great shows and many of
Speaker 4: the biggest shows today are you know, it's an ongoing storyline.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 4: You had procedural elements in ER, which is you know,
Speaker 4: the the medical cases would close, you know, come on,
Speaker 4: stat get on the thing coming away. Somebody's gonna lose
Speaker 4: she's gonna lose the baby. You know, oh great, at
Speaker 4: the end of the thing they saved the baby, like
Speaker 4: so all right, so that's closed. But the ongoing soap
Speaker 4: opera part of it, if you will, would go on
Speaker 4: sometimes the whole season, right, and then you had to
Speaker 4: kind of catch up, and you know, it was really weird.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a very sticky way of watching television.
Speaker 4: But you think about it now, there was no catch
Speaker 4: up or binge device. You had to just kind of
Speaker 4: watch to stay.
Speaker 1: You had to watch next time you're watching Law and
Speaker 1: Order late at night, maybe in a hotel room or
Speaker 1: wherever you happen to be flipping through the channels, be
Speaker 1: sure to thank Kevin and the Nasty Boys, of course
Speaker 1: for putting it there for you.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're back, just like I told you. And our next
Speaker 1: clip comes from the brilliant actor and comedian Maz Jobrani,
Speaker 1: who was born in Iran and raised in California. Let's
Speaker 1: hear him talk about some well shall we say, cultural
Speaker 1: differences he had to bridge between his Iranian upbringing and
Speaker 1: his American dreams coming to America.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, as a six year old and
Speaker 5: then seven and all those young ages, you don't want
Speaker 5: to be different, you know what I'm saying. It's like
Speaker 5: the last thing you want is to be different. And
Speaker 5: first coming over from Iran to America, Iran I think
Speaker 5: had some European influence, so my mom would dress me
Speaker 5: up a little more Europeany, and already in America they're like,
Speaker 5: you know, what's wrong with you? Why are you wearing
Speaker 5: those clothes? And then and then there was times when
Speaker 5: like just little minor things became big things in our grade. Right,
Speaker 5: so we had a day called Pizza Day, and Pizza
Speaker 5: Day was where every kid was going to bring some
Speaker 5: ingredient to the school. We're going to cook pizza together.
Speaker 5: This is I think third grade. And so I was
Speaker 5: in charge of sausages. So I go grocery shopping with
Speaker 5: my mom and my aunt and in Persian the word
Speaker 5: for hot dog is so cise, sausage so cise. So
Speaker 5: we're there, I go, I need sausages. I go, oh,
Speaker 5: you need so cise, So give me a pack of
Speaker 5: hot dogs, which really is like, I mean, it's a
Speaker 5: small sausage. Really, I mean sausages are it is. So
Speaker 5: I show up with a city, you know, pack of
Speaker 5: hot dogs, and of course all the kids.
Speaker 8: Ah, he brought hot dogs.
Speaker 5: I go, no, these are sausages.
Speaker 4: Those are hot dogs.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like ruin my my, my whole life. And I
Speaker 5: go home and tell my mom these are not this
Speaker 5: is hot dogs, like this is so cis. Now that
Speaker 5: story comes full circle when years later I went to
Speaker 5: study abroad in Italy. When I was in college, I'd
Speaker 5: go to Pizzaiha and they have pizza with hot dogs
Speaker 5: on it.
Speaker 9: I'm like, you bastards. I was right all along. So Yeah,
Speaker 9: so I was just trying to blend in. Man, I
Speaker 9: just wanted to be American. I mean I played baseball,
Speaker 9: I you know, American culture. Like that's probably where I
Speaker 9: discovered listen.
Speaker 8: By the way.
Speaker 5: Also, my dad and I think this was just parenting
Speaker 5: of the time. I didn't play catch with me or
Speaker 5: any of that. I mean, he was a great father.
Speaker 5: He was very generous, he was giving, right, he wasn't like,
Speaker 5: let's go outside and play catch, you know. So because
Speaker 5: of that, like I was learning a lot of stuff
Speaker 5: from American television. So I'd sit there and watch hours.
Speaker 5: I'd watch Woody Woodpecker, Popeye, Leave It to Beaver, all
Speaker 5: these reruns. That's how I think I came upon comedy
Speaker 5: my first you know, like finding Eddie Murphy when I
Speaker 5: was ten years old and going, what's Saturday Night Live?
Speaker 8: I want to do this?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, I was trying to blend in.
Speaker 1: Yeah I read Eddie Murphy was one of your first loves.
Speaker 1: That sounds weird, but yeah, one of your heroes, one
Speaker 1: of your first heroes. There you go in comedy. When
Speaker 1: did you start performing? Were you in school plays or Yeah?
Speaker 5: It was basically so in the seventh grade, they had
Speaker 5: a musical. I went to Delmar Middle School in northern
Speaker 5: California and Tibron. They were doing The Boyfriend and I
Speaker 5: don't know why we all decided to do but as
Speaker 5: a handful of guys decided to do it, some girls
Speaker 5: and I go, let's try this. So I go and
Speaker 5: I auditioned, and again it was seventh and eighth, so
Speaker 5: most of the leads went to the eighth graders. Seventh
Speaker 5: graders were just background dancers. And there was a lady
Speaker 5: named Shirley Bombright. She was our director. And Shirley Bombright said,
Speaker 5: when you're doing a musical, when you're on stage, you
Speaker 5: always need to be smiling, when you're dancing, smiling and
Speaker 5: singing and radiating.
Speaker 1: Oh and she said.
Speaker 5: The other thing she said is you're part of an ensemble,
Speaker 5: so you better be here. So one day I go
Speaker 5: to the rehearsal. I go, Miss Bombright. I just got
Speaker 5: to let you know I'm a little under the weather.
Speaker 5: I got a cold, but you told me I got
Speaker 5: to be here, so I came. I'm here, and then
Speaker 5: we start the rehearsal and I'm up there, I'm singing,
Speaker 5: I'm dancing. I'm smiling, and then she stops.
Speaker 8: The whole rehearsal. Everybody stops stop.
Speaker 5: She goes look at him, look at him. You see him.
Speaker 5: He's sick. He's here, he's singing, he's smiling. You got
Speaker 5: to learn from him. And I was like, oh, that's me.
Speaker 5: So it was a moment of like positive reinforcement made
Speaker 5: me feel I can do this. And then the year later,
Speaker 5: eighth grade, I come back and I get the lead.
Speaker 5: I'm little Abner and Little Abner, and you know, I've
Speaker 5: been bitten. I loved it and I just wanted to
Speaker 5: do it. And every time I tell I tell a
Speaker 5: story how like throughout my schooling, they would always be like, oh,
Speaker 5: you've got what it takes to do this. So my
Speaker 5: parents would come to the shows and the director or
Speaker 5: the teacher would say, you know, your kids got the
Speaker 5: thing for this, and my parents, oh, thank you. Thinking
Speaker 5: we get in the car, my dad would be like,
Speaker 5: that bitch is crazy. Don't listen to her. You're going
Speaker 5: to be a doctor or a lawyer.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So they didn't see the spark inside you. They were
Speaker 1: not interested in you pursuing this as a career.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that they didn't see the spark is that. I think,
Speaker 5: you know again, immigrant parents, that's all they knew, and
Speaker 5: it was a previous generation. I was just talking to
Speaker 5: somebody about how my daughter's twelve now and I'm encouraging
Speaker 5: her to become a DJ okay, and I was like,
Speaker 5: if I went to my Irani dad back then I want.
Speaker 9: To be a DJ, I'd be like a D what
Speaker 9: you know, You'd be like, what are you talking about it?
Speaker 5: But you know, we live in a different world where
Speaker 5: people are making millions on TikTok or whatever, and so
Speaker 5: back then I don't think they understood at all what
Speaker 5: this meant or how it went.
Speaker 1: I think you turned out all right, mos, and I
Speaker 1: know your daughter will make a fantastic DJ. My final
Speaker 1: guest for today is my dear old friend Rain Wilson.
Speaker 1: You know him, of course as mister Dwight k Shrewd
Speaker 1: from the office, but maybe he kind of sort of
Speaker 1: wishes you knew him for some of his other stuff too.
Speaker 7: But now my son is going off to college, can
Speaker 7: you leave it now? Walter was born Walter was born
Speaker 7: during the Hot Girl, Perse Girl episode of season one,
Speaker 7: right in a really traumatic.
Speaker 1: Berth yes you ran from set to go to the
Speaker 1: hospital because there was a medical issue. Yes, I know.
Speaker 7: And now he's going off to college, so I'm going
Speaker 7: to have more time to do theater.
Speaker 1: He he's the physical embodiment of how long we all
Speaker 1: were together. Just as he grew it was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: we've been together a long time. And now he's going
Speaker 1: off to college, which is nuts.
Speaker 8: Nuts yeah, just not nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: But once he's gone, he's our only kid, and then.
Speaker 7: I've got a little more freedom, so i can go
Speaker 7: do theater for very little money for six months here
Speaker 7: or five months there. So I'm very excited about about
Speaker 7: doing that because for me, you know, I always have
Speaker 7: a little bit of the mystical, spiritual nature in me,
Speaker 7: and for me, acting is about there is a magic
Speaker 7: about transforming into characters.
Speaker 8: Yes, and people.
Speaker 7: Always are like, you know, Dwight gets so much attention
Speaker 7: and focus about who I am as an actor and
Speaker 7: as a person, and that's great.
Speaker 8: I'm so grateful.
Speaker 7: Those nine years were magical, amazing, what a great character.
Speaker 7: The writing, the cast, the thought, the you know, the producers,
Speaker 7: everything like that, the fans, the support, it's it's it's
Speaker 7: been incredible. But people don't realize this, and a lot
Speaker 7: of people aren't. In the acting world, like, I played
Speaker 7: dozens of characters before I played Dwight, and since I've
Speaker 7: finished Dwight, I've played another couple dozen characters. So for me,
Speaker 7: it's about transforming into characters and telling stories. I played
Speaker 7: Hamlet in school. I did Eugene O'Neil at the Arena stage.
Speaker 7: I did Philadelphia Here I come at the Guthrie.
Speaker 8: I did you know?
Speaker 7: I did Shakespeare tours. I've done lots of little I
Speaker 7: played the guy in Supermarket and CSI.
Speaker 8: But they're all characters. They're just like you know.
Speaker 7: I hope that when I die, people will yes, I
Speaker 7: look at DWIGHTE but be like, wow, look at all
Speaker 7: crazy different characters this guy played, like right, this was
Speaker 7: a panopoly of a very different characters, dozens and dozens
Speaker 7: and dozens over his life.
Speaker 8: And I love that act of transformation.
Speaker 7: It's so satisfying to me to just to build and
Speaker 7: develop and play a character and then play a completely
Speaker 7: different character, you know, than the month after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel I really feel this way that for
Speaker 1: you and I I think we have a unique bond
Speaker 1: and excitement about what you just talked about like actually
Speaker 1: creating the physicality, the inner life, the external differences from
Speaker 1: ourselves and melding that with who we are. That that
Speaker 1: for me as well, that is really my favorite thing
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 8: Yeah, like just it's I keep using the word transformation.
Speaker 7: Yes, you walk different, you speak different, you think different,
Speaker 7: you see the world different, you have a different kind
Speaker 7: of energy. All of these things need to transform to
Speaker 7: create a character. Now, of course, I'm it's the basic
Speaker 7: building blocks are Rain Wilson. So I'm going to be
Speaker 7: using this big, weird, ungainly body and I'm going to
Speaker 7: always see things through a certain lens, so you're always
Speaker 7: going to see Rain Wilson in those characters. And that's
Speaker 7: also a magical thing. But that's what I love about
Speaker 7: the theater, and I think why you know, people have
Speaker 7: always loved the theater and they love to see their
Speaker 7: favorite actors transform.
Speaker 1: Do you resent that people only want to see you
Speaker 1: be Dwight?
Speaker 7: Sometimes I do, to be really honest, you know, to
Speaker 7: be perfectly frank, It's just like I'll do an independent
Speaker 7: film that I worked my ass off on and play
Speaker 7: a villain or you know, played something completely different than me,
Speaker 7: you know, unhinged, person or something you know, really funny
Speaker 7: or whatever, and I'll promote it on like social media.
Speaker 7: They'll be like, hey Dwight, yeah, yeah, right and exactly,
Speaker 7: and it's and it's it's like, guys, I get it,
Speaker 7: I got it.
Speaker 8: You love the show. I do too.
Speaker 7: It's beautiful, but also can you respect me as an
Speaker 7: artist and that I'm trying to do some other things
Speaker 7: here too. But at the end of the day, I've
Speaker 7: been really lucky because I even think, like the last
Speaker 7: ten years since I got out of the office, I've
Speaker 7: done a lot of really cool stuff. I did this
Speaker 7: show Backstrom, no one really watched it. I did the
Speaker 7: show Utopia.
Speaker 1: Backstrom is the role you stole from me.
Speaker 8: That is God.
Speaker 1: I wanted to play that role so bad and they
Speaker 1: just really wanted you. I wanted to play that role.
Speaker 1: We've discussed this. It's not in a long time, but literally,
Speaker 1: when I look at your at your at your when
Speaker 1: I looked at your sheet and I see Backstrom, I'm like,
Speaker 1: motherfucker that one. That one's still yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, there's another version of Backstrom.
Speaker 7: There's another in a lot of maybe it would have
Speaker 7: worked and been better and stayed on the air with
Speaker 7: you as.
Speaker 8: The no as the cop. No, that's true.
Speaker 7: Well, but the point I'm making is that you know
Speaker 7: this show Utopia and Amazon, I did Harry Mudd on
Speaker 7: Star Trek and a bunch of independent films and some theater,
Speaker 7: and like, I really love the actor's life that.
Speaker 8: I've had post office. Yeah, people haven't given a ship
Speaker 8: about any of it.
Speaker 7: Like, no one is like what, but it's been really Uh,
Speaker 7: it's been fun for me. And these have been some
Speaker 7: really great, satisfying characters. And then part of me has
Speaker 7: thought recently like, oh, this is the life I always wanted.
Speaker 8: Like I'm living the life I always wanted. I'm getting
Speaker 8: to play all of these cool roles. People haven't really
Speaker 8: vibed with them.
Speaker 3: That's okay, damn it.
Speaker 1: Rain. He always has something so deep and consequential to say.
Speaker 1: It's a great lesson to do what makes you happy,
Speaker 1: even if it's not always someone else's thing. I hope
Speaker 1: the upcoming new year brings all of you at least
Speaker 1: a little closer to the life you always wanted. And
Speaker 1: I'll be back next week or some more of my
Speaker 1: favorite memories from our year here at Off the Beat.
Speaker 1: Until then, happiest of holidays and have a great week off.
Speaker 1: The Beat is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 1: alongside our executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and
Speaker 1: Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and
Speaker 1: our intern is Ali Amir Sahed. Our theme song Bubble
Speaker 1: and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton