Speaker 1: From the creator of The Bright Sessions, comes a new
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Speaker 1: the Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm Zoia
Speaker 1: de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined by
Speaker 1: my friends and cast meates Hannah Simone and Lamar and
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Speaker 1: that was one of years things you brought back from Yeah,
Speaker 1: because all for National Past Layers. Yeah seven hoop Yeah.
Speaker 1: Listen to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio, the studio that brought you
Speaker 1: The Devil Within and The Shadow Girls, comes a new
Speaker 1: true crime podcast, The Pink Moon Murders. The local sheriff
Speaker 1: believes there may be more than one killer. They were
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. I'm Brent Forrester. I was a writer and
Speaker 1: producer at the Office. Hello every one, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining me again. This is the Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive, and as always I am your host, Brian
Speaker 1: baum Gartner. Today we are continuing our mini dive if
Speaker 1: you will, into the Writer's Room with the one and
Speaker 1: only Brent Forrester. Brent joined the writing staff in season three, which,
Speaker 1: as he talks about in this conversation, this was not
Speaker 1: an easy thing to do. I mean, there were some
Speaker 1: real heavy hitters in the writer's room at that point,
Speaker 1: so how did he survive? Well? With the help of
Speaker 1: an army survival manual. That's right, he used an army
Speaker 1: survival manual to survive the writer's room at the office,
Speaker 1: and eventually he became a real key part of the
Speaker 1: team and wrote some amazing episodes, including one that several
Speaker 1: of the other writers consider to have in it the
Speaker 1: best moment in the entire show. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: the chili scene, but but Brent did direct that scene,
Speaker 1: all of which we talked about in great detail very shortly.
Speaker 1: I am so glad I got to sit down with
Speaker 1: him because he is so smart and thoughtful, and he
Speaker 1: was super candid about the writer's room, both the good
Speaker 1: and the bad. I know, you guys are gonna absolutely
Speaker 1: love this one. So here he is, Mr Brent Forrester,
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeak. I love it. Bubble and Squeak on
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeaker Cookie, every moment left over from the
Speaker 1: nut before. Oh yeah, what's up? Oh my goodness, so
Speaker 1: good to see you. Oh my gosh, wow, you created
Speaker 1: the circumstance off Endless Office Reunion for yourself. Everybody, Yeah,
Speaker 1: from Laverne you and Kevin Riley and everybody. Everyone has
Speaker 1: been amazing, how generous people have been, and yeah, we're
Speaker 1: all hams to talk about it exactly. Ever, never underestimate
Speaker 1: the power of just untapped narcissism. I would say, how
Speaker 1: is Base Force going? Oh so fun? I mean how?
Speaker 1: It stars Steve Correll and John Malkovich as the comedy
Speaker 1: pairing at the center. Greg Daniels wrote the pilot with Steve,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know Greg's influences is all through it,
Speaker 1: as is Steve. You know, he has this interesting sensibility
Speaker 1: which is not always what you would expect, you know,
Speaker 1: the direction he went in the office with naturalism, which
Speaker 1: is so great. He also has a silly side, which
Speaker 1: is appropriate to a show like this. That's very cool.
Speaker 1: Doubt your podcasting, by the way, do you guys, are
Speaker 1: you like Mark Marin level let's get emotionally self revelatory.
Speaker 1: Are you more history of the podcast? It's definitely neither
Speaker 1: of those. Um, I mean how I'm viewing it well,
Speaker 1: I truly am actively seeking the answer to some questions
Speaker 1: that I have about what went on and how things
Speaker 1: were constructed and It's like anything with memory. Something's I
Speaker 1: firmly believe I remember, and then as I talked to people,
Speaker 1: I realized I remember incorrectly or there's different perspectives on that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I I think for me more than anything,
Speaker 1: it's just conversation. Well we should we should win then,
Speaker 1: because it's my favorite thing. Every time I've been in
Speaker 1: this kind of situation, there hasn't been enough time, and
Speaker 1: we have time. We have we have time. So, um,
Speaker 1: prior to the office, what were you doing immediately before
Speaker 1: you got brought off? Um? Well, you know, my career
Speaker 1: started way back in the in the tailing dying and
Speaker 1: of the multi caam era. I got my first job
Speaker 1: on a show called Nurses, which was a multi cam
Speaker 1: show put on by with Thomas Harris. They had done
Speaker 1: The Golden Girls, and you know, there were these factories
Speaker 1: of multicam in the late eighties and early nineties, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so I come out of there then I
Speaker 1: had been on The Simpsons is how and you Greg?
Speaker 1: But now was that Susan Susan Harris? I hear it
Speaker 1: was your first sort of mentor time. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I had actually gone to high school with her or son.
Speaker 1: And when I came out of college, I had, literally,
Speaker 1: Brian trained myself to be a short story writer, and
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize there was no money in short stories.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you take it even farther back. I
Speaker 1: was raised in a house with no television. My mom
Speaker 1: hated TV and would not allow it in the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I had no television and I picked that
Speaker 1: up as a habit, not watching television. And I continued
Speaker 1: in that habit through college. So when I got out
Speaker 1: of college, I had trained myself to be an expert
Speaker 1: in a dying art form. Nobody told me that short
Speaker 1: stories weren't popular anymore, because my mom had prevented me
Speaker 1: from having any contact with modern culture. Anyway, The relevance
Speaker 1: is that I graduated college and thought, oh man, can
Speaker 1: I be a writer of some kind? It just so happened.
Speaker 1: I only knew one person who was a professional writer.
Speaker 1: It was Susan Harris, the creator of The Golden Girls.
Speaker 1: I lucked into mentorship of sorts with one of the
Speaker 1: ratist uh natural dialogue writers ever, Susan Harris. So she
Speaker 1: helped you get the job on nurses retrainer gave it
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You know, her
Speaker 1: son had a lot of friends who wanted to be
Speaker 1: TV writers. Um, to my knowledge, I was the only
Speaker 1: one that she ever gave a job to. And I
Speaker 1: think the reason was she just told me how to
Speaker 1: write a spec script and she said, right about what
Speaker 1: is difficult for you, even painful, and trust that will
Speaker 1: come out funny. And I've never heard better advice in
Speaker 1: comedy writing. And I tried to do that in the
Speaker 1: form of a spec Blossom Awesome. That was my winning
Speaker 1: spec that got me in the industry. Blossom blowesome. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you work on Nurses, then you work on a
Speaker 1: number of other shows. Yeah, well I was. I was
Speaker 1: through with her. No, I was actually I was fired
Speaker 1: from Nurses with the entire staff. They just replaced the staff.
Speaker 1: It was it was a pretty bad show, even at
Speaker 1: the height of ad tellers, and they just said, we
Speaker 1: have to replace these writers. I'd only worked there about,
Speaker 1: you know, four months, just long enough to uh see
Speaker 1: that there was this thing that was the punch up writer,
Speaker 1: and there was this reverence for the writer who could
Speaker 1: throw jokes and comedy into a script and that rewrite process.
Speaker 1: So I saved my little amount of nurses money and
Speaker 1: stretched it out for like a year and just tried
Speaker 1: to teach myself joke writing and display what I learned
Speaker 1: in the form of a spec Roseanne script. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's the writer's life is like a lot of time
Speaker 1: writing what you hope is a spectacular spec script. And
Speaker 1: I happened to get that Roseanne in the hands of
Speaker 1: a young comedian who was becoming a producer named Judd Apatow.
Speaker 1: And Apatow was twenty four. He had uh met Ben
Speaker 1: Stiller in lined on Elvis Costello concert and they the stories.
Speaker 1: They just kind of hudsput each other into, like selling
Speaker 1: a TV show. What's your name, Ben Stiller? What do
Speaker 1: you do? I'm an actor? Yeah? Who are you? Jo? Comedian?
Speaker 1: Right stuff? Oh yeah, let's so the show. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: do And they went to Fox show Wow, And so
Speaker 1: you got a job on that through the rose and
Speaker 1: inspect Yeah, and then you you end up winning an Emmy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was incredible. I mean it was really Bob Odenkirk
Speaker 1: is why we won that Emmy. You know, he was
Speaker 1: the head writer of the show. He uh also created
Speaker 1: Mr Show with Bob and Dave. You know for sure
Speaker 1: one of the greatest sketch shows ever. Um and Bob
Speaker 1: was the head writer and under his influence of a
Speaker 1: group of totally untested writers, won the Emmy for Best
Speaker 1: Comedy Writing UH that year. And you know, for me
Speaker 1: at that point, I had a Emmy and about like
Speaker 1: a year of television writing experience and then they put
Speaker 1: me on The Simpsons and that's where I met Gregg
Speaker 1: and was truly tested. So you worked on the Simpsons
Speaker 1: for what five years? No? Actually I worked two full
Speaker 1: years to full years. I had a four year contract
Speaker 1: and I bailed after two years like one of the
Speaker 1: craziest self destructive moves in a weird way. But I
Speaker 1: was young. I was in my twenties. I means there
Speaker 1: for two years, I felt like I've learned everything there
Speaker 1: is to learn about writing for the Simpsons, and so
Speaker 1: I quit and UH had a memorable like had to
Speaker 1: have a showdown with Jim Brooks where they called me
Speaker 1: into his office and and Brooks, Uh he said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I hear you're on strike. Man. Do you know Brooks
Speaker 1: at all? No? I mean I've met him, seen him,
Speaker 1: but I don't know him. No, Well, I don't think
Speaker 1: he would know me for sure, but we all worship him.
Speaker 1: He is like one of the Mount Rushmore guys of
Speaker 1: our medium, and uh, he's a genius and he's got
Speaker 1: kind of a hippie vibe. But somehow I enraged him
Speaker 1: by saying this thing that writers all knew to say,
Speaker 1: which was, hey, I don't think you'd want to have
Speaker 1: a writer in the room who doesn't want to be there.
Speaker 1: We were always told, like amongst each other, that you
Speaker 1: could get out of a contract if you just simply
Speaker 1: said that. As I said it to Brooks, he got enraged. Man.
Speaker 1: His beard was shaking, and he said, don't go down
Speaker 1: that road. Don't float that balloon. I've never heard that
Speaker 1: phrase in my life. Float that balloon, don't float that balloon.
Speaker 1: It might be like a World War two reference, like
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you meet him, please tell him
Speaker 1: I'm sorry and asking what that means. Okay, but you
Speaker 1: meet you meet Greg? Yeah, you meet Greg while you're there,
Speaker 1: and eventually you start working on King of the Hill
Speaker 1: with Greg. Yeah, that's right. So he liked you, he did,
Speaker 1: he did. Uh. Greg was like one of those um
Speaker 1: senior writers on the Simpsons, at least in my view,
Speaker 1: he was one of those Harvard guys who was clearly
Speaker 1: a genius. The whole staff was Harvard guys. When I
Speaker 1: showed up there, Uh, you know, I was sort of
Speaker 1: in the second way if there was the Harvard guys
Speaker 1: who created the show, and then after four years half
Speaker 1: of them went off to do their own thing, and
Speaker 1: so all these slots opened up, and I got in
Speaker 1: one of those slots. Now Greg was already there, and
Speaker 1: you know, Greg was obviously just a great writer of
Speaker 1: of this show. He wrote some of the best episodes ever.
Speaker 1: Bart sells his soul is still just I mean, on
Speaker 1: top of all and very greg, you know, because Greg
Speaker 1: liked that kind of telling, a yarn sort of storytelling.
Speaker 1: He was even then heading in the direction of naturalistic
Speaker 1: storytelling that you see in King of the Hill and
Speaker 1: then The Office. It's funny because my perspective is slightly different.
Speaker 1: I remember, I'm sure you and I had this conversation,
Speaker 1: especially in later seasons, where we would read a script
Speaker 1: and we would start looking at it and I would
Speaker 1: go up to the writer's room or have conversations with
Speaker 1: clusters of you saying, guys, guys, I am not a
Speaker 1: cartoon there are physical things that you are writing right
Speaker 1: now that my body is in capable of doing. So
Speaker 1: it's it's I can't go from here to here in
Speaker 1: no time like you can in a cartoon. I always Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was definitely some Homer Simpson elements. You know, you
Speaker 1: hit on a key thing that writers have as a deficit.
Speaker 1: You know, we are not out there physically acting. We're
Speaker 1: all in our little minds and you know, we're rewarded
Speaker 1: for what pops on the page, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we violate these rules whereas an actor go, how what
Speaker 1: are you thinking? We're like, we're just trying to preserve
Speaker 1: our jobs by making the other guy in the room laugh.
Speaker 1: And we you know, if it breaks reality, we just
Speaker 1: we can't be bothered. Right. And so by the time
Speaker 1: you came in in season three, were you watching um?
Speaker 1: Were you watching the Office seen? Although I continued my
Speaker 1: habit of not watching much TV until recently where I've
Speaker 1: really forced myself to become a consumer. So I was
Speaker 1: aware of it for sure, because the comedy writers were
Speaker 1: aware of it. The comedy writers and taste makers were
Speaker 1: aware of the British show, and we were aware of
Speaker 1: the American show. For sure. And then, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I knew Paul Lieberstein from King of the Hill. He
Speaker 1: was a writer on King of the Hill, and so
Speaker 1: you know, Paul and I hang out and you know,
Speaker 1: we'd go for a for a jog and he would
Speaker 1: tell me about the show he was working on. I
Speaker 1: do remember when Paul said to me, all I want
Speaker 1: in my career is for this show to go on.
Speaker 1: That was season two. He had that feeling. I've never
Speaker 1: heard him say that about anything he'd ever worked on. Wow. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you came in season three. Yeah, do you remember
Speaker 1: anything about walking into the writer's room you knew some
Speaker 1: of the people there about Oh yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: writer's rooms are very competitive, right, It's a very competitive environment.
Speaker 1: We are trying to impress each other that we're smart
Speaker 1: and talented, and we have a method, which is uh
Speaker 1: time to say something funny and who can do it?
Speaker 1: And so I definitely remember the first day I walked
Speaker 1: into the office writer's room, Mike sure it was there,
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, Paul Leeberstein, Jens Alata, and Uh. I
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be brutal. So I had
Speaker 1: brought in a prop. I brought in an Army Survival Manual,
Speaker 1: and I just had it with me. I thought, that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be kind of funny to call out the subtext,
Speaker 1: right like, I mean, this writer's room where nobody knows
Speaker 1: me or wants me on this show that they created,
Speaker 1: And so I'll have this Army Survival Manual and in
Speaker 1: it there's an acronym that the army has U S
Speaker 1: U R V I V A L. And each of
Speaker 1: those letters has a thing you're supposed to do s
Speaker 1: you know, to survey the situation. You understand the risks are.
Speaker 1: It's impossible in a survival situation, you would die. Just
Speaker 1: try to remember what the second V one of them
Speaker 1: is vanquished fear and panic. Okay, I mean you never
Speaker 1: say vanquished in your life. I love it though. That's amazing. Well,
Speaker 1: it was my It was my way of surviving. I figure,
Speaker 1: if it gets tighten here, I'm gonna have a whole
Speaker 1: bit I can do, right. I never busted that out,
Speaker 1: but I do remember it got contentious on the first day.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, just one of those kind of
Speaker 1: ego things. We were arguing over some plot points. Should
Speaker 1: the story go this way or shouldn't go that way,
Speaker 1: and so we just got into some disagreement and I
Speaker 1: just went into an English accent. Why would you do that?
Speaker 1: Did it help or did it hurt? Absolutely helped, I
Speaker 1: mean it diffused everything. And then on some level it
Speaker 1: kind of says we're playing a game of comedy performative cleverness,
Speaker 1: and this is just a move in that dimension. It's
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Speaker 1: house dot com backslash d c l H. That's moment
Speaker 1: house dot com slash d c l H. Do you
Speaker 1: consider Gregg a teacher? Oh for sure. Yeah. He's a
Speaker 1: friend of mine forever now. And we were in the
Speaker 1: trenches at the Simpsons ten am to ten pm every
Speaker 1: single day, so you know we're all buddies. But for sure,
Speaker 1: big time. He Uh. Someone someone told us this exercise
Speaker 1: that he had a something that if you were having
Speaker 1: trouble breaking stories, and he called it unlikely duos. And
Speaker 1: there were note cards on the wall with all the
Speaker 1: character's names and the idea was to pick two characters
Speaker 1: that you would not necessarily associate with each other together
Speaker 1: and then write a story on that. I think that's
Speaker 1: always a great method. Um Early on, back on Nurses
Speaker 1: for me, I asked one of the senior writers there
Speaker 1: what makes a story? And the guy called me into
Speaker 1: his office. His name was Bruce Ferber. He closed the blinds,
Speaker 1: shut the door, locked it, and he said, a story
Speaker 1: is usually about two people, and then he unlocked the
Speaker 1: door and made me leave. It sounds so a common place,
Speaker 1: but it's actually the key. Yeah, that's what's great is
Speaker 1: what's an unusual paring. That's how I got my first
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode was I paired Homer versus Patty and Selma.
Speaker 1: It had never been done before, so I got an episode.
Speaker 1: But for sure, on any show, you know what, two
Speaker 1: characters have never been in a story together, do that right,
Speaker 1: That's genius. It's the small attention to details. When you
Speaker 1: know the characters and how the characters would behave you
Speaker 1: almost don't need anything more than this. I was told
Speaker 1: that during the testing of the show with the Gems
Speaker 1: and the Dwightes, the direction from Greg to the actors
Speaker 1: was very simply Uh, Jim, bring Dwight a glass of water, right,
Speaker 1: and then what happens? Right? You know Dwight is going
Speaker 1: to be skeptical, right because you know, you know, he's
Speaker 1: afraid that Jim has done something to the water. And
Speaker 1: I thought, like, you guys did such a great job
Speaker 1: of of that, of studying the character's behavior and how
Speaker 1: each character would behave in a given situation. Now you're
Speaker 1: you hit it on the head. And if you notice, uh,
Speaker 1: ask Greg what his favorite television show is of all time.
Speaker 1: I remember he was being interviewed and he sat there
Speaker 1: for an hour trying to think, you know, and asking
Speaker 1: the writers what they thought. It was Larry Sanders and uh,
Speaker 1: Judd apataw. If you ask him, he'll give you the
Speaker 1: same answer. I worked with Judd on a show called
Speaker 1: Love we did for Netflix. I was the head writer there,
Speaker 1: and I remember we delivered scripts to Judd. The first
Speaker 1: four scripts. I thought they were good. They were real,
Speaker 1: clever and funny, and he was so bummed and he
Speaker 1: as he tried to articulate what it was, he said,
Speaker 1: what's the Larry Sanders show? And by the end we
Speaker 1: had a phrase, a motto, and it was behavior over banter.
Speaker 1: I never forgot it. Man. You know, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have clever wordplay if the characters are in an
Speaker 1: interesting behavior. Now, I can tell you two behaviors that
Speaker 1: are funny for actress. One is lying, always funny. The
Speaker 1: other generally is seduction. Unless the person I suppose it's
Speaker 1: really hot, it's gonna be kind of funny. So I
Speaker 1: wondered for you as a comic performer. You know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the glass of water thing, which is complex behavior.
Speaker 1: Are there other categories of behavior that are funny for
Speaker 1: you to perform? Oh, that's a very interesting question. Um.
Speaker 1: For me, the biggest laughs that I ever remember was
Speaker 1: when Holly was told that Kevin was slow. That's that
Speaker 1: was my recollection, and people went sort of bonkers about it.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why is because it was
Speaker 1: a very simple joke that is set up by years
Speaker 1: of history and knowing the character. And as soon as
Speaker 1: you hear the setup of that, you know instantly that
Speaker 1: she will believe it and that there will be confusion
Speaker 1: between her and Kevin that could play out as long
Speaker 1: as we wanted it to. I think that when you truly,
Speaker 1: when you have the time to create a character, and
Speaker 1: there's an expectation from an audience on how that character
Speaker 1: would respond the anticipation of that and delivering that or
Speaker 1: the opposite of what the expectation is. To me, those
Speaker 1: things are very funny. Wow, that's gold. Um. You at
Speaker 1: one point said this. It has been said by wiser
Speaker 1: artists than me that the more personal you make your writing,
Speaker 1: the more personal it will become. Um, do you feel
Speaker 1: like you right? Personally? I aspire to for sure. Our
Speaker 1: medium is very interesting because it's collaborative, and I am
Speaker 1: hired to execute the vision of somebody above me. And
Speaker 1: you know, I've come think of the writer's room uh
Speaker 1: as an art project that the show runner is the
Speaker 1: artist of the show. That's the Picasso, and we're all
Speaker 1: there to sort of make his or her vision come
Speaker 1: to life. Having said that, when you get an individual
Speaker 1: episode at a certain point they sent you off and
Speaker 1: that's when the art form becomes yours and you really
Speaker 1: try to pour yourself into it. So on the Office,
Speaker 1: I always did try to find what was personal about
Speaker 1: it for me in that episode. Um. So you join
Speaker 1: in season three, We've got this uh Stanford story, Jem's Away,
Speaker 1: and your first episode that you wrote was the merger Um,
Speaker 1: which was about the branches coming together. Are really them
Speaker 1: being folded into Scranton. But nonetheless you have new people
Speaker 1: coming in. Was there anything about your personal experience entering
Speaker 1: this show or entering the writer's him that mirrors some
Speaker 1: of the Stanford people coming over? Oh? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's very common in any dynamic. Uh, if you have
Speaker 1: a workplace and somebody new comes in, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a feeling of like we're the old guard, right. Um.
Speaker 1: That was always true in every writer's room I've ever
Speaker 1: been in. I know it was true. I shouldn't say
Speaker 1: I know, but I could feel it in the actor's
Speaker 1: New actors coming into the office. Of course, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a period of almost testing. I would think, you
Speaker 1: know that that goes on subconsciously. I've never met a
Speaker 1: nicer group of people than the actors on the office,
Speaker 1: But as professionals, there's this sense of, hey, we're trying
Speaker 1: to do something at the highest level. You can you
Speaker 1: step in and do this? Um, So I wouldn't surprise
Speaker 1: me that the the new actors felt really challenged when
Speaker 1: they when they first came in. Yeah, there's a weird
Speaker 1: sort of dichotomy that existed on the show. Right, So
Speaker 1: when you think of the office, it's really about the bullpen.
Speaker 1: It's about the same group of people that exist in
Speaker 1: this same place over nine years. But of course when
Speaker 1: you just back up a little bit, it's really not true.
Speaker 1: And I feel like you guys did a great job
Speaker 1: of creating energy by infusing that stasis with new people
Speaker 1: or you know, even making Jim go away. That creates
Speaker 1: a different environment. Um, I thought that you guys did
Speaker 1: a really great job in keeping that energy while still
Speaker 1: maintaining the feeling that nothing is changing. Brilliantly said, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the lions share of the credit probably goes
Speaker 1: to Greg and his three dimensional chess that he plays
Speaker 1: with his mind. I remember Greg had figured out that
Speaker 1: TV shows should have arcs before anybody, did you know
Speaker 1: TV historically you're watching individual episodes that could literally be
Speaker 1: shuffled in syndication. They were designed to be unrelated to
Speaker 1: each other. And Greg recognized that arcing out was the
Speaker 1: new way of doing things. He was reading Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones and and Game of Thrones started airing, and he's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're benefiting from the fact that they
Speaker 1: know where they're going along term, and suddenly he was
Speaker 1: applying this very archy mentality to the show. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the other writers was talking to me about um
Speaker 1: that there were many arcs, medium arcs, and longer arcs. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like the Charles Minor storyline, for example, that was a
Speaker 1: set arcs six episodes or whatever it was, and then some,
Speaker 1: especially the relationship type arcs, there would be sort of
Speaker 1: a plan and if that wasn't creating the kind of
Speaker 1: energy you wanted, then it would just sort of go away, right,
Speaker 1: or if it was, then it would sort of pick
Speaker 1: up again. But it was always sort of intended to
Speaker 1: be at least some sort of arc. Yeah. Well, what's
Speaker 1: interesting about those romantic long term arcs. We discovered that
Speaker 1: you didn't have to advance them every episode, that they
Speaker 1: could just stick around and then six episodes later they
Speaker 1: could advance. And then, of course we had this crazy
Speaker 1: turn in season nine where we were gonna split Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam up, and the audience hated it so much
Speaker 1: we just bailed on that, uh, kept you know together, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: How much were you all influenced by what you were
Speaker 1: reading or experiencing from fans? I personally never got online.
Speaker 1: I still am not on any social media. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm catching up to television give me one medium at
Speaker 1: the time. But people did for sure, especially the early
Speaker 1: years of the Office coincided with the early years of
Speaker 1: big time internet feedback, and it first sure influenced the show.
Speaker 1: I bet somebody on this podcast has mentioned that they
Speaker 1: were reading online comments and it's skewed the Jym Pam
Speaker 1: thing massively because who writes comments online? Apparently it's disproportionately
Speaker 1: romantic lonely hearts, and that's really what they wanted to see, right. Um,
Speaker 1: the history of television primarily has existed. It has been
Speaker 1: pointed out to me as the central characters are the
Speaker 1: young lovers, right, uh, Mary Tyler Moore Show or you know,
Speaker 1: really even cheer, right, I mean, the central storyline is
Speaker 1: Sam and Diane. Most of those shows have the crazy
Speaker 1: uncle or the crazy boss in the background that comes in,
Speaker 1: gets a few laughs and leaves, whereas The Office inverted that, right,
Speaker 1: You had the crazy boss sort of out front, and
Speaker 1: the moments between the young lovers existed sometimes in a
Speaker 1: gesture or a look and talk to me about how
Speaker 1: you feel like that? That helped the gym and Pam. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting what you're pointing out. The Office is
Speaker 1: structurally quite unusual. You know, you have shows that are
Speaker 1: center and eccentrics. That's Taxi with Judd Hirsch at the
Speaker 1: center and everybody else is a character actor, and that's
Speaker 1: a that's a conventional structure. Um the Office in an
Speaker 1: odd way, it splits things totally a little bit. You
Speaker 1: have a big, powerful comedy star at the center who
Speaker 1: is not the point of view protagonist. So that's interesting.
Speaker 1: It meant that freak only we'd have a more comedy
Speaker 1: storyline in the A story with Michael and Dwight, for example,
Speaker 1: and then a more straight romantic B story with Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam. Greg used to say a thing I thought
Speaker 1: it was very interesting tonally, he said, separate out the
Speaker 1: scenes that are dramatic tone from the scenes that are
Speaker 1: comic tone. He called it the mc d lt. They
Speaker 1: had this hamburger that was served hot in half the
Speaker 1: styrofoam container, and then in the other half of the
Speaker 1: styrofolm container was cold lettuce and tomato, and the gimmick
Speaker 1: was that you buy it and then and they put
Speaker 1: it together in the hot stas hot and the cold
Speaker 1: state is cold. That was what he used to say.
Speaker 1: Keep the hot side hot and the cold side cold,
Speaker 1: the funny side funny, and the drama side dramatic. Interesting. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I talked a long time with Rain about this. I
Speaker 1: was probably too nice to him, but I think in
Speaker 1: the history of television you are hard pressed to find
Speaker 1: any comedy duo that was better than White and Michael. Um.
Speaker 1: What what do you think was special about their relationships
Speaker 1: and the and the way they were written that brought
Speaker 1: such comedy gold. I remember asking Rain one time about
Speaker 1: his view of Dwight, and we came to realize that
Speaker 1: we were writing a character that was, you know, the nerd,
Speaker 1: the weirdo that you make fun of for comedy, but
Speaker 1: that the performer was doing something much bigger than that.
Speaker 1: He was not making fun of this guy. He was
Speaker 1: celebrating him, and it just seemed so obvious to him
Speaker 1: that that's what one would do. He said, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can't go around judging your character, you know. And you
Speaker 1: could see how much he loved Dwight. So he's bringing
Speaker 1: this genius that's very Rain, this adoration for the marginal guy,
Speaker 1: and I mean Steve Corrella, known in the improv community
Speaker 1: is one of the greatest of all time. So it's
Speaker 1: really those two in combination. And yeah, the dynamic between
Speaker 1: them is something extraordinary to what did what did you put?
Speaker 1: Could you put your finger on what you thought was
Speaker 1: their essential dynamic? I think that they were two characters
Speaker 1: both through the writing and the performances and their intention
Speaker 1: that were so perfect. All Michael wants is to be loved, right.
Speaker 1: Dwight loves him, and all he wants is Michael's approval
Speaker 1: and acceptance. And it's almost as though, because because that's
Speaker 1: the person that he really has, he somewhere deep inside
Speaker 1: doesn't trust him because what you know, like like not
Speaker 1: on the conscious level, but that like so he shows
Speaker 1: disdain for him for loving him, even though that's all
Speaker 1: he wants. But Michael has to play as though he
Speaker 1: doesn't care for Dwight because there's other cooler people that
Speaker 1: really he should be friends with, right. It kind of
Speaker 1: attaches to that schoolyard schoolyard I'm I'm in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties all of a sudden, but like know that like
Speaker 1: grade school thing where it's like, oh, I want to
Speaker 1: be I want the popular kid, Right, I want Ryan,
Speaker 1: I want Jim. You know that those are the cool kids.
Speaker 1: Maybe it connects to that. Oh, I think you're right,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. That's the funny irony of it is
Speaker 1: you can't accept the adoration of the one guy who
Speaker 1: worships him, right, but you, Brian, I think if any
Speaker 1: of your guests just pause to kind of analyze what
Speaker 1: was great and is great about you as a comic performance,
Speaker 1: that's unnecessary. But what is that coming? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, please go ahead if there's something you want
Speaker 1: to play. I mean I can't stop you. Sure anybody
Speaker 1: who watches you perform, you know, can see it. But
Speaker 1: I thought that you had this tremendous collection of gifts
Speaker 1: in that you're obviously able to do real acting at
Speaker 1: any time. You know, you've got the big time dramatic chops,
Speaker 1: but in addition the comic chops and the physicality, which
Speaker 1: is not easy. Um. I remember they allowed me to
Speaker 1: shoot a webisode of a little four partner that we
Speaker 1: got to do where Kevin's alone, where You're gonna sell
Speaker 1: ice cream from a truck, and it was all fantastic,
Speaker 1: But the moment that stood out for me was. We
Speaker 1: just had this bit where you had to walk out
Speaker 1: of the building holding a suitcase, a briefcase, and you know,
Speaker 1: the instruction was, can you kind of just stumble on
Speaker 1: the curb and the briefcase flaps open or something. I
Speaker 1: don't think we had it planned at all, but you did.
Speaker 1: Four takes. Each of them was just great. They were
Speaker 1: so real and the and the way you would turn
Speaker 1: back and try to close it and give up, and
Speaker 1: and I was so impressed by that, especially when later
Speaker 1: I had opportunities to try to get physical comedy from
Speaker 1: other actors, and I found most of them can't even
Speaker 1: begin to do physical comedy. Well, It's interesting because this
Speaker 1: had never occurred to me ever, ever until this moment.
Speaker 1: I remember very specifically the moment you're referencing um from
Speaker 1: Kevin's Loan, and I wonder if somewhere in the back
Speaker 1: of a writer's mind that led to Kevin spilling the
Speaker 1: children as possible. I'm glad you brought up Kevin's spilling
Speaker 1: the chili, as you recall, I directed that scene written
Speaker 1: by Aaron Sure, a great collaboration of artists there. Um boy,
Speaker 1: it's possible. It was a cold open and the joke
Speaker 1: in the cold open. Really was this contradiction between the
Speaker 1: area edition of and in in a way kind of
Speaker 1: foodie arrogance of this recipe that you're delivering, contrasting with
Speaker 1: as as you know, guttural and lowly visual as we
Speaker 1: can create. I tell you, I remember with Kevin's chili.
Speaker 1: I was so out of you, Brian that we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna build a chili treen with a fake bottom
Speaker 1: so it'll look like it's filled. But then Brian won't
Speaker 1: have to carry seventy four pounds. You said you looked
Speaker 1: at the expensive prop we created with a slanted bottom
Speaker 1: so that it seemed to be filled and wasn't, and
Speaker 1: you were like, I'm going in real, bring me the
Speaker 1: big tren. You carried that incredibly heavy chili container. That
Speaker 1: was amazing. We only got two takes, I would call
Speaker 1: because I did that in one time. It is my Yeah,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it has become the thing for which
Speaker 1: I am known. Now I own a T shirt with
Speaker 1: you carrying the carrying the fill it. Yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: It has become the thing for me for sure. And
Speaker 1: people always ask that, and I remember, um, I haven't
Speaker 1: told this story on here, but someone came to me
Speaker 1: before and we did it. Obviously at the end of
Speaker 1: the spilling part. At the end of the day, everybody
Speaker 1: else was gone. It was just all the other actors
Speaker 1: were gone. It was just me. And they had cut
Speaker 1: a piece of carpet right that extended forever, like into
Speaker 1: the hallway around reception desk over to Jim and Dwight's
Speaker 1: cluster there. Because if the chili spilled on the carpet,
Speaker 1: they would screw up the carpet forever. So they came
Speaker 1: and they were like, Brian, we have three piece of carpet.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all we can do, so we have
Speaker 1: to just to do that. But I, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was one take and I and the reason I
Speaker 1: remember so well was I think in retrospect, despite three
Speaker 1: pieces of carpet, we didn't have three of me. And
Speaker 1: how stained I was from even the first take, I
Speaker 1: don't think that I could have been reset. Moment when
Speaker 1: you chose to take like printer paper and try to
Speaker 1: mop up the chili is so brilliant. Everybody knows printer
Speaker 1: paper doesn't absorb it all. It's just this ciss of
Speaker 1: viand would effort to clean up. It's so great, bran Well.
Speaker 1: I think of any thing that will live on for
Speaker 1: me way after I'm gone, that that that meme or
Speaker 1: whatever will be at Did you know that on the
Speaker 1: day Doctor King was shot, the all black security detail
Speaker 1: normally assigned to him was called off. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who would not allow him to stay at any hotel
Speaker 1: with balconies. That security union was reassigned. I was a
Speaker 1: man there. And did you know that on the day
Speaker 1: Doctor King was shot, two black firemen stationed across the
Speaker 1: street and one black police detective who was surveiling King.
Speaker 1: We're all taken off the job. What was the emergency
Speaker 1: that caused? Usually moved around the fire sure versus Did
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Speaker 1: Greg Jen Yes, and Mike Sure Yes all told me
Speaker 1: that their favorite or the best episode of the Office
Speaker 1: was Business School. Wow. I'm humbled. Um. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just so beautiful. I have been asked about this episode before.
Speaker 1: I always say that it's one of these very lucky
Speaker 1: coming togethers of the experience of the writer and the
Speaker 1: experience of the actor in this case Jenna, and maybe
Speaker 1: of artists in general. I mean, if you think about
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do, uh, it involves dreaming big
Speaker 1: that we could be special, and inevitably we must encounter
Speaker 1: on her failure because none of us is great every time,
Speaker 1: and to get greatness you have to put so much
Speaker 1: heart into it, you know, writing spec scripts. For me,
Speaker 1: that's really what it's about. And and there are moments
Speaker 1: in everyone's career I imagine when they go, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be one of those people who
Speaker 1: tried and didn't make it, you know. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: we all have basically almost been that person, and we
Speaker 1: know the feeling. Jenni Fisher for sure. I mean she
Speaker 1: audition for seven or eight years before she was able
Speaker 1: to support herself, and so she really knows that feeling.
Speaker 1: That's what this is all a metaphor for. Is there
Speaker 1: anything personal for you? Oh yeah, oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, I really feel the relationship between um,
Speaker 1: a young aspiring artist and a father. You know, she
Speaker 1: feels like she has failed and her art has been
Speaker 1: called motel art by somebody whose tastes she might respect.
Speaker 1: And here's a guy who she doesn't respect like you
Speaker 1: do with your dad, who's saying, honey, are great and
Speaker 1: that's so beautiful and meaningful. Yeah. Um. Gregg talked about
Speaker 1: something apparently called truth and beauty and wanted to find
Speaker 1: like stark truth and reality and small moments of beauty
Speaker 1: and connection between people, like the end of business school. Sure,
Speaker 1: well that's fundamental for sure. You know what's interesting is
Speaker 1: you got to also remember it's a comedy, and I
Speaker 1: remember there were times when you could drift out of it.
Speaker 1: I specifically remember early on, when I was a new
Speaker 1: writer there, they did a screening of an episode and
Speaker 1: everybody loved it, and I remember saying the notes afterwards, guys,
Speaker 1: you have three scenes in a row where you're not
Speaker 1: even trying to be funny, and this statement was met
Speaker 1: by silence from the writers, by the way, to the
Speaker 1: point where I thought, did they not get it? And
Speaker 1: I repeated it multiple times, and then afterwards I went
Speaker 1: to Paul, I go, Paul, what happened? Did did people
Speaker 1: hear what I was saying? Because yeah, Bright, we heard
Speaker 1: it the first time. Stop pounding it into us. But
Speaker 1: they had realized I guess that, Oh yeah, ship, it's
Speaker 1: not a drama. You gotta put comedy in there as well.
Speaker 1: That balance is so interesting in this art form. Um,
Speaker 1: do you remember? So you know we have the writer's strike,
Speaker 1: we also have a huge recession that happens during the show. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna reference a few of your episodes here, but
Speaker 1: the economy started tanking. Were you writing those outside realities
Speaker 1: into um episodes of the show Business School? Obviously as
Speaker 1: an example that you specifically wrote Michael's lack of touch
Speaker 1: of business and where business was going, But there's also
Speaker 1: money where Michael takes a second job because he can't
Speaker 1: make ends meet. And there was also you know, the
Speaker 1: storyline of Saber came at a time Comcast was coming
Speaker 1: in and taking over. Was that an intentional think you
Speaker 1: just got kind of a glint in your eye. Bj
Speaker 1: Novak was very kind of aware of these trends in technology,
Speaker 1: you know. With Wolfile, I thought was so prescient. It's
Speaker 1: such a perfect takedown of the Internet startup. And Greg
Speaker 1: to you know, Greg is always way ahead of trends.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he finds the time to read
Speaker 1: the Economist or whatever he's doing, but I mean he did.
Speaker 1: We did an episode I remember at the time it
Speaker 1: was called China, but I don't know what it ever
Speaker 1: aired as that. That was one called China Okay, good good? Yeah? Uh,
Speaker 1: And that was that was you know, Greg realizing, oh ship,
Speaker 1: China is going to take over the world economy and
Speaker 1: what if Michael reads an article about this in the
Speaker 1: dentist's office. Um, but yeah, trend awareness. Some of those
Speaker 1: smart writers were all over that and Saver as an
Speaker 1: example for sure. Um do you remember Comcast taking over? No?
Speaker 1: I don't, do you remember was there? Yeah? Well, one
Speaker 1: of the things that Paul Um talked about was timing
Speaker 1: that Comcast came in and took over and there was
Speaker 1: no history with the show. You know, the ratings were declining.
Speaker 1: We know now out it just kept declining on every
Speaker 1: show everywhere because people were starting to watch streaming, but
Speaker 1: the office was declining, and so they were confronted with
Speaker 1: this new entity. Here's their biggest show, and Steve Correll
Speaker 1: is leaving, so we need to bring in another star.
Speaker 1: And that was that was pulse take on it, which
Speaker 1: I didn't know like that somebody else needed to come in.
Speaker 1: I don't know where did you net out on that
Speaker 1: as an idea moving forward? Well, what you're saying makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, because there was an obvious consensus
Speaker 1: creatively that yeah, we don't need to add anyone at all.
Speaker 1: In fact, as I recall, it was virtually unanimous that
Speaker 1: people felt Dwight should become the new uh Michael and
Speaker 1: should take over the office. Just seemed obvious to us,
Speaker 1: and the fact that that there was pushback to that
Speaker 1: was contentious creatively for us. So I do remember that
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that it was coinciding with this takeover,
Speaker 1: which makes a lot of sense. When did you find
Speaker 1: out that Steve was going to be leaving. I at
Speaker 1: that it was sort of known he had a seven
Speaker 1: year contract, and I remember early on hang with Steve
Speaker 1: and him saying, apropo of nothing, this is the greatest
Speaker 1: television show that I will ever be a part of.
Speaker 1: I remember being struck by that because he was not
Speaker 1: an old man at the end of his career. I've
Speaker 1: never met somebody who, in the midst of doing something
Speaker 1: great says this is as good as it will ever get.
Speaker 1: And he didn't mean it pessimistically. He meant it exactly
Speaker 1: the opposite. Just look how incredible this show is. So
Speaker 1: him leaving, to me always felt like he had intended
Speaker 1: to do seven seasons. That was what he had portioned
Speaker 1: his energy for, and he had made his artistic statement
Speaker 1: that he had always conceived of doing and was always
Speaker 1: going to move on. So it seemed to me like
Speaker 1: the most undramatic thing in the world, but of course,
Speaker 1: creatively for a TV show, the most challenging thing in
Speaker 1: the world. What do you do when your star leaves
Speaker 1: and you're gonna try to continue doing the show. I
Speaker 1: love the way the show responded by the way. It's
Speaker 1: such a series of lessons in uh TV making. So
Speaker 1: you weren't concerned about the show moving forward, but you
Speaker 1: were more excited about finding out what comes next. Well,
Speaker 1: I was oblivious to what was going to be the
Speaker 1: big challenges there. Greg was not. He Greg sat the
Speaker 1: writer's down at one point and said, watch what will happen?
Speaker 1: He said, criticism comes in cycles, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it starts out the Office isn't getting ratings, but look
Speaker 1: at this champ from coming from behind, and now it's great.
Speaker 1: And he goes, the next stage of the narrative will
Speaker 1: be the Office has lost its mojo. So he prepared
Speaker 1: us for that. He said, it happened on Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: And then he goes, if you stick around long enough,
Speaker 1: then the narrative becomes the Office is back, Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live is back. So it seemed like that was inevitable. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like the last season and then certainly the finale,
Speaker 1: but but really the whole last season is grossly underappreciate.
Speaker 1: I feel like one thing I'm very proud about the
Speaker 1: show is that it was a show that had a
Speaker 1: beginning and had a middle, and then it had an end,
Speaker 1: and and the reveal of documentary crew was such an
Speaker 1: important element to telling the full story and having the
Speaker 1: characters see themselves exposed in a way. Um, it was
Speaker 1: very interesting as an actor, quite brilliant in its conception.
Speaker 1: Pure Greg, he knew from the very start he came
Speaker 1: into season nine saying, here's how we're going to do
Speaker 1: the finale, um the documentary will finally air. And he
Speaker 1: also had in mind this idea that there would be
Speaker 1: a reunion show in the finale and that the word
Speaker 1: reunion would come to me in two things, as Pam
Speaker 1: and Jim would have split up and would have a
Speaker 1: reunion in that episode. As I mentioned earlier, it was
Speaker 1: so painful for the audience to explore the breakup of
Speaker 1: Jim and Pam that we put the brakes on it. Basically,
Speaker 1: you can see them getting to separation and then it
Speaker 1: just was unpleasant for everyone and we bailed on it.
Speaker 1: They come back together sort of off screen really, and
Speaker 1: they are together in the reunion. They don't have to
Speaker 1: have a reunion in that episode. Yeah, how did Jenna
Speaker 1: and John feel about them potentially splitting up, Well, they
Speaker 1: seemed very much involved and on board for everything. You know.
Speaker 1: It was really cool in season nine the way the
Speaker 1: actors were invited into the writer's room more than usual,
Speaker 1: tell us everything you've ever wanted to do on this show,
Speaker 1: because this is our last chance. And and Jenna and
Speaker 1: John my recollection is they both are EPs and season
Speaker 1: nine as well, and we're invited to have serious creative input.
Speaker 1: I remember John saying something very cool and interesting where
Speaker 1: he was like, this last season is for the fans.
Speaker 1: Imagine them as your primary audience. We don't have to
Speaker 1: build an audience. Now, this is it. Let's give them
Speaker 1: the thing they most want. And that informed a lot
Speaker 1: of creative decisions. Um. Are you happy with how the
Speaker 1: show ended? Yes? Very much so. Yeah. Uh. I remember
Speaker 1: going to the screening and the the emotions that I
Speaker 1: felt watching it with everybody who was involved were were
Speaker 1: so warm and positive. Now, just even saying that shows
Speaker 1: you how completely non objective my experience of the ending is.
Speaker 1: You may have noticed that Greg, who wrote the episode, Um,
Speaker 1: he cast into it tons of people who worked behind
Speaker 1: the scenes and you you is that your acting debut
Speaker 1: on the Office? It certainly is, uh. And you know
Speaker 1: what Greg was doing was creating a kind of yearbook
Speaker 1: for himself where he managed to photograph all these people
Speaker 1: that he cared about. So when he watches that episode,
Speaker 1: it's an emotional reunion for him too. I want to
Speaker 1: point out, Brian that before I went on camera in
Speaker 1: that finale episode, I turned to you and I said, Brian,
Speaker 1: how do you act? I have to deliver her line?
Speaker 1: What is acting? Two minutes for you to tell me
Speaker 1: how to deliver a line? And I'll never forget what
Speaker 1: you told me. Okay, here's what it was. The line
Speaker 1: I had to say. It was something like I had
Speaker 1: to say to Jim and Pam. Um, now think you've
Speaker 1: seen you got yourselves on on TV. You know what
Speaker 1: was it like after all those years watching yourself on TV?
Speaker 1: And I said, how do how do I do this?
Speaker 1: And you said okay, So Brent, so um, you know
Speaker 1: these guys have just seen themselves on TV? Right, so
Speaker 1: just asked them. That's asked them. You know what was
Speaker 1: it like to see themselves on TV? I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: and that was it. He was just you just kind
Speaker 1: of translated into just a massive's really happening. That's pretty brilliant.
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Speaker 1: the past year trying to figure out why he flipped
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Speaker 1: Cover on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. And we're live here outside
Speaker 1: the Perez family home, just waiting for them. And there
Speaker 1: they go, almost on time. This morning. Mom is coming
Speaker 1: off the front doors wrong with a double arm kid carry.
Speaker 1: Looks like dad has the bags. Daughter is bringing up
Speaker 1: the rear. Oh but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers
Speaker 1: and toys are everywhere. Oh but mom has just nailed
Speaker 1: the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now
Speaker 1: the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine or
Speaker 1: ten has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad zips
Speaker 1: the bag clothes and they're off, but looks like Mom
Speaker 1: doesn't realize her coffee cup is still on the roof
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Speaker 1: the ad Council. So when you think about The Office
Speaker 1: when a fan is watching the show, obviously the actors
Speaker 1: are the face of that show, and the actors have
Speaker 1: gone to do many things afterwards. But I started thinking
Speaker 1: about you and Jen Salada and Mike Sure and all
Speaker 1: the great writers that came out of the Writer's room,
Speaker 1: the tree of Greg Daniels. And here in the last
Speaker 1: let's say seven years, um, these are the shows that
Speaker 1: have been headed by old writers of The Office, Space Force, Love,
Speaker 1: Parks and rec The Mindy Project, Brooklyn nine nine, The
Speaker 1: Good Place, Master of None, Superstore news Room, Hello Ladies,
Speaker 1: Four Weddings in a Funeral, Q Force, Little America, SMILF,
Speaker 1: People of Earth, Bad Teacher, Trophy, Wife Champions, Guys with Kids,
Speaker 1: intral Park, Ghosted Platform, Never have I ever Champions Sunnyside
Speaker 1: and Abbey's. I mean, that is an incredible list of
Speaker 1: shows and shows really that you guys um were the
Speaker 1: all stars of of this creative ensemble. Well, Greg Daniels
Speaker 1: is really good at picking writers. I've always said the
Speaker 1: guy who's best at picking actors is Judd Apatow, and
Speaker 1: the best at picking writers is Greg. He's great at it.
Speaker 1: He reads scripts and he can tell from reading a
Speaker 1: script whether a writer is good or not to a
Speaker 1: level that is unusual. And so he's brought up some
Speaker 1: really really great writers and then brought them up in
Speaker 1: a process you know that dates back a long time.
Speaker 1: We're all trained up in these rooms, and then we
Speaker 1: we bring our wisdom to new rooms. And so the
Speaker 1: office is this distillation of quite a lot of t
Speaker 1: V running wisdom. You know that that Greg brings and
Speaker 1: was shared amongst them, and then now is you know,
Speaker 1: dissipated amongst these other Yeah, it's crazy. I also heard
Speaker 1: Greg takes really long meetings. Oh yeah, oh yeah, No.
Speaker 1: The meeting with a writer for Greg, oh it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, Robert Pattnick may have been the longest
Speaker 1: writer's meeting ever. I think he was there for twelve
Speaker 1: hours or something, the kind of thing that you can
Speaker 1: only do to something in their twenties. But Greg really
Speaker 1: like to observe the writer. And Greg felt that he
Speaker 1: could not effectively observe the writer while talking to that
Speaker 1: writer face to face. So what he would do is
Speaker 1: he would call some other writer in jents, can you
Speaker 1: come up here and meet this writer, Robert Pattnick, And
Speaker 1: so Jen Selata would have a conversation with Pattick, and
Speaker 1: Greg would sit at like a forty five degree angle
Speaker 1: and just staring Robert Patnick, you know. And then you
Speaker 1: do that with eight ten writers, uh, and take it
Speaker 1: very very seriously. It's a very wrenching thing to get
Speaker 1: rid of a writer. So you want to hire one
Speaker 1: with a lot of confidence when you go in, right.
Speaker 1: You know, people talk about what the legacy of the
Speaker 1: office is. Certainly these shows and the good work that's
Speaker 1: done on so many of them is a legacy of
Speaker 1: the show. Yes, I know that Greg and others hope
Speaker 1: for more of a legacy in terms of of tone.
Speaker 1: You know, Greg thought that maybe The Office would change
Speaker 1: the tone of television a little bit more in the
Speaker 1: direction of realism, grounded acting, um unhurried, plot telling, and
Speaker 1: all of those things that we think of as the
Speaker 1: platinum qualities of the Office. But it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: have been that way. That even the next mockumentary show,
Speaker 1: Modern Family, is structured much more like a traditional show
Speaker 1: than than The Office. Why do you think the show
Speaker 1: is bigger now than it was when we were NBC
Speaker 1: top scripted show. I have my theories. One is just
Speaker 1: the quality of the show is is truly something different? Uh?
Speaker 1: For sure, the sense of family that radiates from a
Speaker 1: great TV show is the emotional attraction. A great writer
Speaker 1: named Mike Reas, original Simpsons guy, told me that the
Speaker 1: secret to every hit network TV show is subtext of family.
Speaker 1: I believe that's true, definitely true of the Office, and
Speaker 1: it's it's true of the actors of the Office as well.
Speaker 1: You can feel that love that they have for each
Speaker 1: other and the respect they have for each other is performed. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. I also think though that there
Speaker 1: are certain shows that make you feel good about liking them.
Speaker 1: People liked Frasier more than they actually liked it because
Speaker 1: it made them feel smart. Those little you know, it
Speaker 1: goes to black and you see kind of a written
Speaker 1: title for this little chapter of Frasier. Boy, am I smart?
Speaker 1: That I like? Frasier? Is the feeling that gives you,
Speaker 1: and the office has a little bit of that. You know,
Speaker 1: you can tell there's something taste making about. This has
Speaker 1: to do with behavior over banter, priority on realism, small
Speaker 1: real Uh. These were phrases that flowed through the writer's
Speaker 1: room and are the hallmarks of good taste in drama
Speaker 1: and comedy. So the young people know that they have
Speaker 1: good taste by liking it. Yeah, what are you most
Speaker 1: proud of about the show? Oh? Gosh. I watched the
Speaker 1: whole thing from beginning to end with my daughter when
Speaker 1: she was fourteen, and that gave me an emotional connection
Speaker 1: to the show that was even greater than what I
Speaker 1: had when I was there. And it makes me very
Speaker 1: proud to be part of that. It makes my daughter
Speaker 1: look up to me just a little bit, which is
Speaker 1: extremely unusual and rare. Take it. Yeah, that's nice. Um, Brent,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's been my pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: with you. I mean, you're writing, your contribution to the show,
Speaker 1: you're directing, and all of the heart and so old
Speaker 1: that you put into it, um is awesome. So thank you, Brian. Well,
Speaker 1: as you know, it was a great pleasure doing the
Speaker 1: office with you, and I can't wait to see what
Speaker 1: we do next. Exactly. Thanks buddy, Thank you. What a
Speaker 1: pleasure man. You're such a great actor. I love being
Speaker 1: around great actors. It's a pleasure. Very well. What a
Speaker 1: delight that was. Plus he called me a great actor,
Speaker 1: so there's that. But in truth, Brent, just as a
Speaker 1: way of putting a smile on your face, or at
Speaker 1: least my face, I can't see your faces, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna assume you're smiling too. Brent, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming in. I am very glad that you were
Speaker 1: able to win over the writers with your British accent
Speaker 1: end survival guides. The show would not have been the
Speaker 1: same without you. And to all of you listeners, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe, follow,
Speaker 1: leave us a review. It's so important and I so
Speaker 1: appreciate all of you who have done so so far
Speaker 1: until we meet again, which I'm guessing is next week.
Speaker 1: I hope you all have an exceptional week. The Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 1: alongside our executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Tessa Kramer, our producer is Adam Massias, our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia.
Speaker 1: My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our
Speaker 1: theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend
Speaker 1: Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by Ethical Landscape.
Speaker 1: The Black Effect presents I didn't know, maybe you didn't either,
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Speaker 1: draft diraffe? Really? Giraffe giraffe? You're not gonna get it
Speaker 1: all right. Just make sure you nail the big stuff,
Speaker 1: like making sure your kids are buckled correctly in the
Speaker 1: right seat for their agent's eyes. Get it right visits
Speaker 1: n h S a dot gov slash the Right Seat
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Speaker 1: in the ad Council