Speaker 1: I'm Stephen Merchant. I was the co creator of the
Speaker 1: British version of the Office, and I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: on the American version. Hello, dear listeners, and welcome to
Speaker 1: another installment of The Office Deep Dive. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Brian bam Gartner. Now today I am thrilled to present
Speaker 1: you with a guest from across the pond over in
Speaker 1: jolly old England, Mr Stephen Merchant. Stephen was the co
Speaker 1: creator of the original British version of the Office. He
Speaker 1: along with Ricky Gervais. Now, what the two of them
Speaker 1: did with that show was truly groundbreaking and obviously was
Speaker 1: the inspiration and basis of our show, but they have
Speaker 1: also had a huge influence on comedy in general, both
Speaker 1: here in the US and in the UK, where based
Speaker 1: on their accents I'm guessing they are from. So you know,
Speaker 1: when we were setting up these interviews, I was kind
Speaker 1: of thinking, oh, well, I might get a free trip
Speaker 1: to London out of this, right, I mean, I've I've
Speaker 1: got to meet with Ricky and Stephen in person. Of
Speaker 1: course I gotta go to London. And then a global
Speaker 1: pandemic happened, so sadly that was not going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I feel very lucky that we got to speak
Speaker 1: by phone from our respective homes. I think you guys
Speaker 1: are going to love this one. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: my tallest friend Stephen Merchant, bub I love it. Bubble
Speaker 1: and squiger, bubble and squeaker cooking every more left over
Speaker 1: from the nat popley. How are you doing? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean as well as anyone can be selected to,
Speaker 1: you know, given the crazy circumstances. Yes, you're you're in London,
Speaker 1: I mean London, and same lockdown rules apply here as
Speaker 1: they apply restaurant and yeah, just you know, porting around
Speaker 1: I mean quite as relaxed fit. I think the demarcation
Speaker 1: between my sleepwear and my day wear is very, very blurred.
Speaker 1: I know the people who get dressed up to go
Speaker 1: to work at home, I don't understand those people. I
Speaker 1: do encourage at least showering before you start working. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea and it's a good rule of thub. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably good. Um, how did you know Ricky before
Speaker 1: you guys started the office or or how did that
Speaker 1: come about? Well, so I met Ricky Gervaise at radio
Speaker 1: station here in London. I had wanted to get into radio.
Speaker 1: I always thought that being like a radio DJ seemed
Speaker 1: like a very easy job. You could do maybe two
Speaker 1: hours a day, and then you would give you a
Speaker 1: lot of free time to do other stuff, whether it
Speaker 1: was writing or stand up or whatever other aspirations I had.
Speaker 1: So I was keen to get into radio, and I
Speaker 1: am I was quite young. I was in my early twenties.
Speaker 1: And I sent my resume to various radio stations and
Speaker 1: no one cared. But a new radio station was launching
Speaker 1: in London, and one of the guys who happened to
Speaker 1: read my resume was Ricky, who was just got a
Speaker 1: job there, and he had never had any experience in radio.
Speaker 1: And it's not how sweet talked his way into a
Speaker 1: job there. As get this that the head of speech,
Speaker 1: the head of job title, the head of speech. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you've ever heard Ricky Stringer sentence together, often it's incoherent.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how he got that gig. So
Speaker 1: I he immediately decided he needed an assistance, and so
Speaker 1: I was available and keen and eager, and and so
Speaker 1: he called up for an interview and we hit it off,
Speaker 1: and you know, I started working at this radio station together. Right,
Speaker 1: he needed an assistant, but really he needed someone to
Speaker 1: actually teach him speech and also someone who, as he
Speaker 1: himself admitted during the interview, someone who will do all
Speaker 1: the work for me. Um. And I was kind of eager,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have a job, and I had done
Speaker 1: a little bit of sort of amateur radio and student radio,
Speaker 1: so I had a little bit of an understanding of it.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we we hit it off very quickly,
Speaker 1: similar sense of humor, and within a short while we
Speaker 1: were sort of actually hosting a radio show together on
Speaker 1: on the air, and just had a good, easy rapport,
Speaker 1: you know, and and a similar sensibility, and and we
Speaker 1: sort of very quickly realized we you know, we had
Speaker 1: sort of a chemistry, right. And then you obviously you
Speaker 1: you started working together. What were the influences for you
Speaker 1: at the time to create the UK office. Well, at
Speaker 1: the time in the UK, there had been a number
Speaker 1: of shows on the BBC and other networks that were
Speaker 1: fly on the wall documentaries about very everyday subjects, like
Speaker 1: there was there was one about a driving school, driving school, yes,
Speaker 1: and it was yeah, and so you know, it was
Speaker 1: just following normal people doing driving lessons and driving tests
Speaker 1: and this kind of a wave of popularity in the UK.
Speaker 1: And so when we did our version, we had those
Speaker 1: sorts of shows in our minds. And one of the
Speaker 1: unusual things about those shows was that often, particularly when
Speaker 1: they returned for like a second season, the people within
Speaker 1: them had sort of become moderate, moderately famous, right, So
Speaker 1: they were those first kind of reality TV stars, and
Speaker 1: and they started to act differently in front of the
Speaker 1: cameras or they were aware of the cameras, and so
Speaker 1: I think that was something that was always informing us,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that this documentary team were following
Speaker 1: this person in the in the case of David brent
Speaker 1: by Ricky who who was also aware that he was
Speaker 1: being filmed and so therefore was trying to give over
Speaker 1: a version of himself that he thought the world would
Speaker 1: love to see. And of course what he didn't realize
Speaker 1: was they are actually looking at him and finding an
Speaker 1: interesting different reasons than those that he intended, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. I mean, now the skips ahead like
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen years or whatever, but it's very interesting.
Speaker 1: You know. That's one of the things that Greg Daniels
Speaker 1: always said was that for the characters on the American
Speaker 1: version of the Office, if they ever saw themselves, like
Speaker 1: if it was ever released, it would change everything right Well,
Speaker 1: in the in the British version, we did because the
Speaker 1: British version had fewer seasons. We did when we returned
Speaker 1: for some Christmas specials towards the end of the run,
Speaker 1: we did actually play with the idea that the characters
Speaker 1: had seen the documentary it aired and that they had
Speaker 1: various particularly case of Ricky's character had disgruntlements about the
Speaker 1: way they've been portrayed, which is often the complaint you'd
Speaker 1: hear from real reality people, right that you know, and
Speaker 1: they kind of in a certain way they maybe look cool,
Speaker 1: And so we were playing with that idea and I
Speaker 1: guess you had it with sort of MTV is the
Speaker 1: real World? I guess did. It was one of the pioneers.
Speaker 1: And in the UK there was that show Big Brother,
Speaker 1: which I know is still on in various versions all
Speaker 1: over the world, and that just kind of hit the
Speaker 1: airwaves as well. And those people were coming out of
Speaker 1: this this house as reality TV stars, So it was
Speaker 1: a big cultural thing at the time, right. Were there
Speaker 1: specific comedies or other television that sort of informed the
Speaker 1: sensibility or the sense of humor that you were looking
Speaker 1: at at the time. Well, certainly This is Final Tap
Speaker 1: was a big influence, and the Larry Sanders Show was
Speaker 1: something that we often referenced. And there's actually been quite
Speaker 1: a few if you have fake documentaries in movies over
Speaker 1: the years, but there have been few of them on TV.
Speaker 1: It seemed to us and and you know, in a
Speaker 1: way because it sort of originated because I happened to
Speaker 1: get a job at the BBC. I was worried in
Speaker 1: my radio job with Ricky that we might end up
Speaker 1: getting fired rich I think we did. So I had
Speaker 1: jumped ship and I joined the BBC, and while I
Speaker 1: was there, I had a training exercise and they gave
Speaker 1: me a camera team for a day and they said,
Speaker 1: you want to go to film something. And I went
Speaker 1: off and went to Ricky and I said, let's film something.
Speaker 1: And what we filmed sort of became a prototype of
Speaker 1: the office. And one of the reasons we did that
Speaker 1: in a documentary style was because it was quick and easy.
Speaker 1: You know, it didn't it didn't need to have all
Speaker 1: the kind of polish and refinement that you get on
Speaker 1: a regular TV So in a way we we slightly
Speaker 1: fell into this format through circumstance, but because we pursued that,
Speaker 1: and we became very obsessive about the reality of this
Speaker 1: world and wherever the cameras being. How would the people
Speaker 1: act in front of the camera if they knew it
Speaker 1: was watching them? Would they be honest? Would Tim say
Speaker 1: to Dawn, Jim and Pan would they would they be
Speaker 1: honest with each other about their fee things for one
Speaker 1: of the well, of course not, because the cameras are
Speaker 1: in their face and they don't want to reveal their
Speaker 1: hidden secrets. And so it sort of started becoming its
Speaker 1: own thing, which I think I felt at the time
Speaker 1: quite new on TV. But it wasn't sort of like
Speaker 1: a you know, a grand design. We didn't sort of
Speaker 1: sit there and think what's fresh and new. It just
Speaker 1: all these things kept suggesting themselves to us, because we
Speaker 1: were trying to make you feel as realistic as possible,
Speaker 1: as though you could stumble on the TV network and
Speaker 1: you'd find it and you might think it was a
Speaker 1: real documentary. In fact, funny enough, after the first episode aired,
Speaker 1: I was on a train and obviously people had no idea.
Speaker 1: Who I was. I was just a writer. And these
Speaker 1: two women were talking on the train and I was
Speaker 1: sat next to them, and they said. One of them said,
Speaker 1: or did you see that documentary on TV last night
Speaker 1: about this crazy guy in this office? It was hilarious,
Speaker 1: And the other woman said, well, no, I think I
Speaker 1: think that was a new comedy. And the first woman said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't very funny. Then I didn't understand. But but
Speaker 1: what were interesting was that she had been fooled for
Speaker 1: a second into thinking it was the real thing, which
Speaker 1: was the biggest compliment that we could we could hope for, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember hearing that a lot over here.
Speaker 1: Did how was it received early on? I think it
Speaker 1: was sort of had very low viewership initially. I think
Speaker 1: there's been some good critical notices here and there, but
Speaker 1: no one was really watching. I think it went on
Speaker 1: in the summer, which is not a prime TV time
Speaker 1: in the UK. And I remember they had done it.
Speaker 1: We found this out many years later, but they had
Speaker 1: done a test screening for the general public and it
Speaker 1: had got the lowest test score ever. The only thing
Speaker 1: that beat him, that got the lowest test score was
Speaker 1: women's lawn bowls, the very specific game played by I
Speaker 1: guess women in the UK. They roll balls along the
Speaker 1: lawn and that was the only thing that I didn't
Speaker 1: even though that was on TV. But it scored lower
Speaker 1: in the Office. And yet what happened was it just
Speaker 1: started to pick up steam. It got word of mouth
Speaker 1: recommendations from people, It started to win some awards. It
Speaker 1: was rerun in the in the winter, and more people
Speaker 1: started watching it. And then there was the moment in
Speaker 1: time when DVDs were really big. I would started buying
Speaker 1: DVD players, and so I think that it started selling
Speaker 1: a lot of DVDs because I think people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can buy that guy I know in the office
Speaker 1: that show called The Office. And so solely we sold
Speaker 1: so many DVDs because it was called The Office and
Speaker 1: people have a lot of work colleagues they need to
Speaker 1: buy gifts for. It's a and then it and then
Speaker 1: it just became a kind of here in the UK.
Speaker 1: It became a little mini phenomenon. Yes, well in the
Speaker 1: States too, we were getting I remember there were DVDs
Speaker 1: coming over, but the DVDs in the UK were different
Speaker 1: than so you had to make sure you've got an
Speaker 1: America one that would play an American player, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, yes, my sister had an early one who
Speaker 1: was over there. But yeah, I, um, did you think
Speaker 1: that adapting the show when you started to first hear
Speaker 1: about this guy, Ben Silverman be wanting to adapt it
Speaker 1: for the U S, did you think that was a
Speaker 1: good idea? Well, I remember, Ricky, I was. We must
Speaker 1: have been editing something, because Ricky I remember, came in
Speaker 1: the editing for you said, I just ran into this
Speaker 1: guy called Ben Silverman or Ben Silman to track him
Speaker 1: down and called him and he had had this initial
Speaker 1: meeting about doing a version for the United States. And
Speaker 1: I remember staying at the time, oh, well, that would
Speaker 1: be great, but the chances of that working are very slim.
Speaker 1: I when I was a kid, I was a real
Speaker 1: fan of TV and Pomin read a lot about it,
Speaker 1: and I knew a lot about American comedy, and I
Speaker 1: knew that they had tried to adapt very successful British
Speaker 1: shows for America and many of them had failed for
Speaker 1: one reason or another. And so I was aware that
Speaker 1: the success rate was very low, and that and that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't get too excited about this as a sort
Speaker 1: of potential next phase of our careers because I just
Speaker 1: I just thought, well, it's probably not going to work out,
Speaker 1: even with the best will in the world, So why
Speaker 1: not let's let them do it? And you know, but
Speaker 1: to them and it would be fun. And I was
Speaker 1: a big fan and I'm a big fan of American comedy,
Speaker 1: and you know, certainly a big influence on us was
Speaker 1: like Cheers and the idea of you know, the Cheers
Speaker 1: bar is this kind of surrogut family, which is very
Speaker 1: much what the Office is, I guess in anyways, And
Speaker 1: so we were excited about the idea of it being
Speaker 1: on American TV and having an American version, but but
Speaker 1: also very realistic that it seemed unlikely it would it
Speaker 1: would succeed for whatever reason. Yes, so Ben Silverman approaches
Speaker 1: you about adapting the series for America. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you met Ben. I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: can forget the first time they meet Ben Silverman. He
Speaker 1: is a sort of as you well know, a kind
Speaker 1: of force of nature. Um. Just yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: man who has drunk, you know, fifteen espresso's just directly
Speaker 1: before the meeting, just really get himself awake, and he's
Speaker 1: often running, and he's whenever they do movies about Hollywood,
Speaker 1: they always have like a producer character. It was like
Speaker 1: a tok about a minute, you know what, we're gonna
Speaker 1: make you. We're gonna make you start kid, and he's
Speaker 1: kind of like that. You know, Benny is like the
Speaker 1: kind of Hollywood producer cliche that you see in movies.
Speaker 1: And yet listen, it works. You know, he's dynamic and
Speaker 1: he and he got the thing moving and it seemed like,
Speaker 1: you know, before we knew it, we were having meetings
Speaker 1: in the US, sitting down to talk with potential show
Speaker 1: runners and and we were off to the races. Did
Speaker 1: you so you know, you you trust this guy Ben,
Speaker 1: and you meet Greg and you feel like he understands it.
Speaker 1: Was there a certain point that you thought that it
Speaker 1: might work for American audiences or were you still being
Speaker 1: sort of realists and skeptical that it would translate. You know,
Speaker 1: we were very infused by Greg and Gregg came to
Speaker 1: London and they sat with us and we kind of
Speaker 1: dissected the British version and we tried to explain, you
Speaker 1: know what, you know, the kind of socio economics standing
Speaker 1: of all the characters. So he could kind of get
Speaker 1: his head around where they would be equivalent in the US.
Speaker 1: Where would you know, scranted replace his slough and all
Speaker 1: these other things which he had to kind of understand.
Speaker 1: And he was very sensitive and thoughtful about that stuff,
Speaker 1: which is exciting for us. But then it was obviously
Speaker 1: then he's casting and could they find the guy that
Speaker 1: would replace Ricky? And so I just remember each step
Speaker 1: of the way we were kind of not suspicious or nervous,
Speaker 1: but just thinking, oh, they will probably evaporate, right well,
Speaker 1: and the show struggled, you know, early on for you know,
Speaker 1: people didn't get it, and it was so unlike anything
Speaker 1: that was on television and in America we didn't have
Speaker 1: also the shows that you were sort of directly mocking,
Speaker 1: right there was like, you know, MTV is the real world, right,
Speaker 1: but those were all about sexy young people. There wasn't
Speaker 1: Driving School or shows like that that that you know,
Speaker 1: it was sort of directly mocking. And I heard a
Speaker 1: story as well that you know, when we came back
Speaker 1: and we were going to come back for a season
Speaker 1: two and they only offered six more episodes, and it
Speaker 1: certainly looked like they were you know, because Steve had
Speaker 1: four year old version. They were sort of keeping us
Speaker 1: on life support because they didn't want to look like idiots,
Speaker 1: but they still didn't believe in it. That NBC said, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can do six, but you have to cut the
Speaker 1: budget and everybody has to take less. And Ben went
Speaker 1: first to you and Ricky and thought you guys would
Speaker 1: say like, no, like this is this was the deal
Speaker 1: that we made, but that you, Greg, Ricky, everybody said no,
Speaker 1: let's give it a shot. I mean, do you remember
Speaker 1: was that just based on you wanting the show to
Speaker 1: go on, or did you at that point think that
Speaker 1: there was something that was brewing there. I definitely remember
Speaker 1: thinking I was very pleased with what Greg and everyone
Speaker 1: had done in that first season, but I do remember
Speaker 1: thinking that I actually wanted them to break away from
Speaker 1: the British version more. I still felt there was a
Speaker 1: little bit of a feeling of like clinging onto some
Speaker 1: of the vibes or elements, or or trying to be
Speaker 1: a little too faithful to us. And what was exciting
Speaker 1: was the more that the show was moving away from
Speaker 1: the British version. And I think whether it was a
Speaker 1: conversation with greg Or, but I suddenly felt that that
Speaker 1: was a plan that was starting to brew for the
Speaker 1: second season, and I was very keen, and I know
Speaker 1: Rickie was just to kind of you know, we we
Speaker 1: liked everybody and we wanted to show to do well
Speaker 1: and whatever we could do to help and keep it
Speaker 1: on the air was important to us. I mean. The
Speaker 1: funny thing for us, you remember, is that we were
Speaker 1: here in the UK, so this was before streaming services,
Speaker 1: so we only saw the episodes on like DVDs which
Speaker 1: they had to mail over to us, and we would
Speaker 1: watch them. And you know, what was weird to me
Speaker 1: was that when we did our version, we were so
Speaker 1: old that obviously we never got to kind of enjoy
Speaker 1: it as a viewer, you know, we only ever enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: you know, in little fragments here and there. When we
Speaker 1: got sent these DVDs from America, it was like someone
Speaker 1: had designed this show that was like on our prototype,
Speaker 1: and we were getting to enjoy it as fans, you know.
Speaker 1: We would just sit there and laugh and enjoy it,
Speaker 1: and and it was weird. It was like some kind
Speaker 1: of weird competition where you write in, hey, would you
Speaker 1: make a show about this? And they sort of mail
Speaker 1: into you every week, you know, and so we were
Speaker 1: very keen just as fans, we were keen to have
Speaker 1: it keep on the air. So you liked it? You
Speaker 1: like you like it? Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah absolutely. I
Speaker 1: thought everyone was great and honestly I was, I was
Speaker 1: all in. Yeah. In season two, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that you know was done. You talk about
Speaker 1: veering from the British show, and I think a major
Speaker 1: thing that happened there in season two was the decision
Speaker 1: to soften Michael Scott, right, to not make him exactly
Speaker 1: like David Brynn. I mean, David Brent to me is
Speaker 1: a genius character that had a shelf life right like
Speaker 1: after twelve episodes, it's hard for him to still have
Speaker 1: a job, right and to have the show, to have
Speaker 1: the show continue, you know, softening and bringing out more
Speaker 1: of the humanity of Michael Scott. Were you in support
Speaker 1: of that? Well? It's funny because I think again it
Speaker 1: goes to what the traditions are in our two countries
Speaker 1: in terms of comedy, and I think for years in
Speaker 1: the U came in particular, there's been this long tradition
Speaker 1: of TV comedies celebrating losers and sort of laughing and
Speaker 1: losers often losers who have a slightly malevolent quality or
Speaker 1: a selfishness to them. So I think back to in
Speaker 1: the in the sixties, but the biggest TV star in
Speaker 1: the UK was a guy called Tony Hancock whose character
Speaker 1: was a kind of sort of failed actor who was
Speaker 1: kind of snobbish and would happily, you know, screw someone
Speaker 1: over for an opportunity, and that was that was a
Speaker 1: show that cleared the streets when was on, you know.
Speaker 1: And then John Kesar's Basil Faulty in the seventies, the
Speaker 1: kind of sort of obnoxious hotel manager. So there's a
Speaker 1: long tradition in the UK of slightly unlikable leading characters
Speaker 1: in comedy, a plus combined with the fact that somehow
Speaker 1: in the UK we tolerated that bitter sweetness, that melancholy.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a show on that was a
Speaker 1: big show in the UK when I was growing up
Speaker 1: called Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? And it had
Speaker 1: a theme tong and the opening lyrics of the theme
Speaker 1: song of this this is a sitcom, Remember where was all?
Speaker 1: What happened to you, Whatever happened to Me? What became
Speaker 1: of the people? We used to be. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was all about failed opportunities and and mischances and lives,
Speaker 1: a life that could have been lived and thereone. So
Speaker 1: there's that sort of tradition in the UK, and I
Speaker 1: think traditionally in the US that has not been so
Speaker 1: much the case in network TV. And when you think
Speaker 1: of Friends, the Friends theme to for instances very different.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll be there for you, You'll be there
Speaker 1: from so so I think it seems sensible to me
Speaker 1: that if they could rewire the Office at all, it
Speaker 1: would just be to maybe downplay some of those more
Speaker 1: sort of syndical sour British elements and just start up
Speaker 1: a bit more of that American can do right optimism,
Speaker 1: which I felt they did without I think, losing the
Speaker 1: fundamental DNA of what makes the show work right. Mike
Speaker 1: Shure specifically talked about Greg mentioning the show in season
Speaker 1: two could exist exactly the same as as in the
Speaker 1: season one. The episode could be exactly the same, but
Speaker 1: just at you know, of just a little bit of hope,
Speaker 1: just a little bit of positivity for Michael Scott to
Speaker 1: make people at least potentially see some good in him,
Speaker 1: whether it's giving him a love interest. You know, you're
Speaker 1: finding out he's actually he's actually good at his job
Speaker 1: in a way, you know, like those kinds of things. Well,
Speaker 1: I also think what both of the characters have in common, though,
Speaker 1: is that behind all of the things which make them
Speaker 1: kind of dislikable unlikable, they're not bad people. They're sort
Speaker 1: of just a needy people, right, And that's their great
Speaker 1: weakness is that they want to be your friend, but
Speaker 1: they also want to be your boss. And that's the
Speaker 1: thing which I think is what you when you dial
Speaker 1: into that. I think what you know, Steve Corral managed
Speaker 1: to do and the writers did was kind of bring
Speaker 1: that out more, bring out that kind of that he's
Speaker 1: a little boy really in a world of adults. And
Speaker 1: once you die into that and you see that there
Speaker 1: is a kind of lonely sweetness behind it all, then
Speaker 1: I think you start to kind of really root for
Speaker 1: the character. And I think Steve in particular has such
Speaker 1: a likable quality. But the more they could being into
Speaker 1: that part of Steve than the more popular, right think
Speaker 1: the character became. Well, you you know, you co wrote
Speaker 1: the Convict, you directed Customer Survey, and in both of
Speaker 1: those episodes actually that we see a very vulnerable side
Speaker 1: to Michael Scott. And it's interesting that those two episodes
Speaker 1: were two that you worked on a lot. That in
Speaker 1: the Convict that he's upset that his employees think that
Speaker 1: prison is better than his office, and you start to feel,
Speaker 1: isn't it ironic that I mean, I know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to sort of play you know, partisan politics, but
Speaker 1: I mean I think whatever side of the political spectrum
Speaker 1: you're on, you'd have to admit that there is a
Speaker 1: great deal of that in in the current president of
Speaker 1: the United States, and you know, Trump has it's weird
Speaker 1: neediness to be loved but also feared and respected, right,
Speaker 1: And it's a very weird miss and it never leads
Speaker 1: to happiness because there's such a dark well, however much
Speaker 1: validation you get, it doesn't matter how many good reviews
Speaker 1: you get. There only obsessed about the one bad review.
Speaker 1: And I think that's sort of what Michael Scott and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump share. And you know, and I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing which always has made me find him so
Speaker 1: funny as a character, because as this never ending well
Speaker 1: of neediness, and you just keep you can keep trialing
Speaker 1: in the compliments and the praise and the laughter and
Speaker 1: it will never be enough. And for whatever reason, I
Speaker 1: just find that both adorable and hilarious at the same time.
Speaker 1: Less aforable in the case of something but point um well,
Speaker 1: I mean talking about politics, but not talking about politics.
Speaker 1: I mean the British Office itself started with the premise
Speaker 1: of redundancy, right like, it's something that's a serious issue
Speaker 1: for people, I mean, the idea of of not having
Speaker 1: a job, and you know, the American Office in the
Speaker 1: end examined that as well, but also took on serious
Speaker 1: social topics, gay issues, healthcare, race relations, small businesses, going
Speaker 1: under corporate greed. You know, by by the end of
Speaker 1: our run, looking at the financial crisis was looking at
Speaker 1: real issues. How did you feel like that played out
Speaker 1: in the American version. I think our starting point had
Speaker 1: always been just being true, making true observations about our
Speaker 1: experience of office life. And we had words and offices,
Speaker 1: so we were trying to kind of be particularly accurate
Speaker 1: about that. The way people interacted, the behaviors, the strange
Speaker 1: little training exercises you had to do, and the and
Speaker 1: the sort of bureaucracy of it, and the fact that
Speaker 1: this group of people were just arbitrarily brought together and
Speaker 1: were then forced to sort of get on. And as
Speaker 1: we said in that one of our episodes, you know,
Speaker 1: you spend more time with those people than you do
Speaker 1: your own friends and family, And so that was I
Speaker 1: think the jumping off point for us was like, could
Speaker 1: we make something that felt very truthful and people recognized
Speaker 1: their working life in the show. And I think what
Speaker 1: you guys were able to do because of the sheer
Speaker 1: run of your show was just broaden that observation out
Speaker 1: beyond the sort of parameters of the office into those
Speaker 1: bigger ideas of you know, of relationships and marriage and
Speaker 1: career and how the bigger world impacts on the smaller world.
Speaker 1: And you know, and obviously they were able to expand
Speaker 1: the repertoire of the characters, and so you know, all
Speaker 1: of the characters, including your own, we're sort of able
Speaker 1: to be explored and deepen. So it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things I've always loved about American shows
Speaker 1: is you just have so much more reading space than
Speaker 1: air times just really delve into everything. The Office, you know,
Speaker 1: as you created, might be the greatest example in television
Speaker 1: history of cringe comedy. How would you define cringe comedy.
Speaker 1: I think one of my great flaws is I it
Speaker 1: never occurred to me in a way that this this
Speaker 1: cringe comedy thing would would be a label. It was
Speaker 1: not an intention to make people squirm, it was it
Speaker 1: was just that for us, it was so much funnier
Speaker 1: when someone who was trying to be funny, for instance,
Speaker 1: said a joke and then you just heard the silence
Speaker 1: and then you just sat in the silence for as
Speaker 1: long as possible as that. I don't know why, Ricky
Speaker 1: and I just found that so funny, and like, for instance,
Speaker 1: there was a thing we was just to say, there
Speaker 1: was often if you go back to old episodes of
Speaker 1: The Simpsons, you'll see like one of the Simpson's characters
Speaker 1: will give a speech in front of the town and
Speaker 1: the speech will bomb and it will just cut to
Speaker 1: all the townsfolk, and you're just here, huh, and to
Speaker 1: what that was so funny and so are our attempt
Speaker 1: After all the kind of David Brent's bad jokes was
Speaker 1: just to sit in that uncomfortable silence, and that just
Speaker 1: made us die with laughter. And it was only when
Speaker 1: we started hearing from Paul Oh that made me feel
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable or I had to watch it through my
Speaker 1: fingers only then did it occur to us, or maybe
Speaker 1: this is not always as enjoyable for people as it
Speaker 1: is for us. And I think maybe it was like
Speaker 1: I think if you work on a horror movie, because
Speaker 1: you know the blood is fat and the knife is
Speaker 1: not real, you can just keep adding more violence and
Speaker 1: more bloodshed, right, and you this is great, and then
Speaker 1: when you watch it with an audience and it was
Speaker 1: just horrible. And I think for us it was a
Speaker 1: bit like that, like we just it was so funny
Speaker 1: to us and just keep turning the screw and making
Speaker 1: this world uncomfortable that we didn't occur to us that
Speaker 1: people would find it cringe worthy until they started telling
Speaker 1: you to. And then of course we just doubled down
Speaker 1: and then we're like, oh well, now, well now we're
Speaker 1: going to really lay it off. Well, right, like there
Speaker 1: is I mean, just calling a spade a spade, right,
Speaker 1: Like there is a difference between trying to tell a
Speaker 1: joke that bombs or the Simpsons speech and you know,
Speaker 1: like a joke I can't remember the character, but I
Speaker 1: just heard this recently. It was pull that, but like
Speaker 1: a character telling David Brent, she's going on holiday, and
Speaker 1: he says, exploring yourself like that is more than just
Speaker 1: that is I guess I guess that. I think it
Speaker 1: was just it was just stay true to the character
Speaker 1: and this kind of this neediness and this attempt to
Speaker 1: be liked in this attempt to make connections, but also
Speaker 1: like slightly lascivious or I mean, the big problem for
Speaker 1: him that the Breent character to some degree, Micha Scotts,
Speaker 1: they just didn't know when to shut up, right, or
Speaker 1: they just didn't know what to say. And they were
Speaker 1: all but they always had to be talking. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes silence is golden, but not for them. They just
Speaker 1: have to speak. And they think they are great jokes
Speaker 1: tell as. They think they're great in conversation. They think
Speaker 1: they have great personalities. They want to show off for
Speaker 1: the cameras that are filming them, and so they never
Speaker 1: shut up. And it's one of the great disparities between
Speaker 1: people who are like that. They just don't realize how
Speaker 1: they're coming across to the world. Right. So, again to
Speaker 1: go back to Trump, Trump thinks he's killing it. Every
Speaker 1: time he opens his mouth. He thinks he's crushing it.
Speaker 1: He never goes back and thinks, oh man, some of
Speaker 1: what I said there was really garbled and double the fouty,
Speaker 1: and that didn't make much sense. He's not thinking that,
Speaker 1: he's thinking, why didn't they love that? That was a
Speaker 1: great speech? What's wrong with that? And that's the weird
Speaker 1: gap between those people is that they can't see themselves
Speaker 1: as the rest of the world season So to me,
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense that those people would would say
Speaker 1: those things. And yes, it is uncomfortable, I guess because
Speaker 1: those people are on I mean, I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's that in real life we just sort of tolerate them,
Speaker 1: or we walk away or we ignore them, and and
Speaker 1: in the TV world, we just force you to sit
Speaker 1: and watch this person, right right, I mean it goes
Speaker 1: to the idea that they just that both characters are
Speaker 1: truly just misguided in their approach, and certainly, you know,
Speaker 1: Michael Scott is played by Steve krell Is. It was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite I've told people, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite jokes that we ever did on the Office was
Speaker 1: Michael Scott really trying to have a bonding moment with
Speaker 1: Oscar and really wanting to understand, you know, his way
Speaker 1: of life and and asking him what term would be
Speaker 1: less offensive than Mexican than calling him Mexican, and Oscar
Speaker 1: saying there's nothing offensive about Mexican. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, sure,
Speaker 1: but like, what's something less offensive than to call you Mexican?
Speaker 1: And to me, that is like like he truly just
Speaker 1: doesn't understand. He's not trying to be he's trying to
Speaker 1: be woke, right or PC, and he just doesn't get it.
Speaker 1: But that moment of cringe is like, oh, but I think,
Speaker 1: you know, in some ways predated this conversation that everyone
Speaker 1: has now about sort of local culture and appropriational these
Speaker 1: other things. And at the time, certainly when we began
Speaker 1: average and it was the beginning of sort of political
Speaker 1: correctness in the workplace and political it's being a very
Speaker 1: big buzzword and people there were certain terms that supposedly
Speaker 1: you weren't like to use anymore, and the you know,
Speaker 1: in schools you couldn't refer to the blackboards, you have
Speaker 1: to refer to the chalkboard, and you know, and then
Speaker 1: all these different rules that manhole cover had couldn't be
Speaker 1: called they had to be called maintenance cover, and and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of sort of reaction for that,
Speaker 1: and people saying, well, you're you're policing us, and you're
Speaker 1: policing the way we speak. And so there were a
Speaker 1: lot of people trying to be woke before they that
Speaker 1: term was existing and just not understanding and failing. And
Speaker 1: the reason they failed was because you shouldn't have to try.
Speaker 1: You should just hold someone like a person, and you
Speaker 1: shouldn't see their color or their sexuality or anything else.
Speaker 1: And that was the problem. That was why they were
Speaker 1: hung up. Is they couldn't They couldn't see them as
Speaker 1: anything other than a gay person, a Mexican person, you know,
Speaker 1: personal cold or whatever. They couldn't see beyond that that
Speaker 1: was and so they their heart may have been in
Speaker 1: the right place, but they were they were still treating
Speaker 1: people as other right, and as long as you do that,
Speaker 1: you do Yes. I heard something recently that I did
Speaker 1: not know that before Greg decided to oversee and come
Speaker 1: back for the last season, he asked you to show run.
Speaker 1: Is that true? I remember, Yes, I remember him talking
Speaker 1: to me about the idea of being involved with those
Speaker 1: latest seasons or that last season. Yes, and I and
Speaker 1: I was very flattered and that would have it would
Speaker 1: have been enormous fun. I think for me it was
Speaker 1: probably like it would have been going back to the
Speaker 1: well of something. You know, perhaps you know too late,
Speaker 1: or I moved on in my head, or for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: I think I just felt like it would it would
Speaker 1: just be weird, or I just wouldn't I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like it would be the right move for me, But
Speaker 1: my body would have been a blast. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: directing that episode of Customer Survey was one of the
Speaker 1: most fun I've had in in all of my career.
Speaker 1: I mean I was only really around for a handful
Speaker 1: of weeks, but just being in the writer's room for
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks and then on the splore
Speaker 1: with you guys, I mean it was just so much fun.
Speaker 1: I mean it really was. But in a weird way.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the kind of responsibility that you'd have
Speaker 1: if you were show running, you know, I could kind
Speaker 1: of dip in and and just be part of the
Speaker 1: fun without as much of the responsibility. How is the
Speaker 1: writer's room different than like, say, the writer's room in
Speaker 1: the UK, or or how was that experience different? Well,
Speaker 1: of course, in the UK traditionally, you know, British comedies
Speaker 1: are normally written by one or two people. There's very
Speaker 1: rarely a big writer's room. We don't do as many episodes,
Speaker 1: so there isn't the need. So the British version of
Speaker 1: the Office was just me and Ricky sitting in a
Speaker 1: room for six months, you know, hammering out the episodes,
Speaker 1: whereas you know, coming to the US, it was Graham
Speaker 1: and You've got twelve or fifteen brilliant minds, all throwing
Speaker 1: ideas around, these jokes, sort of pinging around. And I mean,
Speaker 1: to me, as a sort of fan of comedy and
Speaker 1: student of comedy, particular American comedy, just being in that
Speaker 1: environment and seeing a different way of working and it
Speaker 1: was such a thrill to me. In fact, I remember
Speaker 1: I was sharing some stories from my own experience when
Speaker 1: I first started working, and I it thought about how
Speaker 1: I worked at a call center and I've done training
Speaker 1: and the guy who was doing the training assigned us.
Speaker 1: He would send us into one room and we'd have
Speaker 1: to make tend to be a customer, and we would
Speaker 1: call one of the other trainees he was another room,
Speaker 1: and they would be the person at the call center,
Speaker 1: and we, as the fake customers, would have to try
Speaker 1: and sort of practice with them on how they could
Speaker 1: answer a call, and I remember that the guy wouldn't
Speaker 1: let me do it anymore because I was I was
Speaker 1: too nasty a customer, because I really just I just
Speaker 1: kept on improvising as just the worst person to have,
Speaker 1: because I figured, if I'm gonna do customer training, I
Speaker 1: better deal with the assholes, right, I'm gonna need that information.
Speaker 1: And so I remembered selling that in the writer's room,
Speaker 1: and Lee and Jean, who the writers, went off and
Speaker 1: wrote a version of that and gave it to Jim
Speaker 1: and to Dwight and Michael and they put that in
Speaker 1: the show. And so that was that. I remember that
Speaker 1: being a real highlight of sort of this weird old
Speaker 1: fragment of my life suddenly being transposed onto TV. Did
Speaker 1: you like the way that the American Office ended, that
Speaker 1: the story ended, I thought I thought it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: I thought it was lovely. Yeah, I thought it was
Speaker 1: really satisfying. And you know, no one was machine gunned down,
Speaker 1: There was nothing, nothing so stressing. I also thought that,
Speaker 1: you know, when when Michael Scott left, I thought that
Speaker 1: was a beautiful episode as well. I thought there was
Speaker 1: some really fine episodes you know, when when characters were
Speaker 1: leaving or when the show was really playing on the emotions.
Speaker 1: And I think again, that's one of the things I
Speaker 1: loved about American shows was that at their best, they're
Speaker 1: like soap operas with laughs. And I don't mean soap
Speaker 1: opera disparagingly. I mean in the sense that you are
Speaker 1: so invested in these characters in this world, and you
Speaker 1: keep coming back, and you care about them, and you
Speaker 1: love them, and you want the best for them, and
Speaker 1: you have opinions about them, and and that was what
Speaker 1: you know, those nine seasons did so sweetly and so successfully,
Speaker 1: I think. And so by the time the show leaves
Speaker 1: the air, it's like these friends of yours have all
Speaker 1: moved away. I mean, it's sort of it's sad. What
Speaker 1: are your most out of in terms of its legacy? Honestly,
Speaker 1: you can't begin to understand. When I was growing up
Speaker 1: America and American TV was so remote to me, so distant,
Speaker 1: it was something I I adored. I mean, I watched
Speaker 1: shows that I loved, American shows I love religiously and
Speaker 1: particklar sitcoms like the ones I've mentioned Mash and Roseanne
Speaker 1: and Frazier and Cheers and Friends. I mean I never
Speaker 1: missed an episode, you know. I was there when the
Speaker 1: new ones started airing in the UK. I remember watching
Speaker 1: the first episode of Friends that the evening it aired
Speaker 1: in the UK. I was with it from the beginning.
Speaker 1: I watched every episode I was in, you know. And
Speaker 1: so to me who have been involved with the show,
Speaker 1: which which is that for American audiences and for worldwide
Speaker 1: audiences and is and it's taken to their heart in
Speaker 1: the same way that I took shows like that to mine.
Speaker 1: That's the biggest thrill for me. It's to be part
Speaker 1: of that family of American TV comedy, you know, and
Speaker 1: put in the lineage of those other shows. Is such
Speaker 1: an overwhelming thrill for me. That's awesome. One last question,
Speaker 1: very final thing that's said in the American version of
Speaker 1: the Office is the talking head by Pam. To paraphrase,
Speaker 1: she basically says that she thought it was weird when
Speaker 1: somebody came and wanted to do a documentary on these
Speaker 1: people who worked in a paper company. But she says,
Speaker 1: in the end, I think it was a good idea
Speaker 1: because there's beauty in ordinary things, and isn't that kind
Speaker 1: of the point And I think that. You know, Greg
Speaker 1: Daniels wrote that and to him that was the point.
Speaker 1: Do you have an idea of what was the point? Well,
Speaker 1: I I think you know, like with any good any
Speaker 1: good arts if you can call TV signals are any
Speaker 1: good comedy and any kind of art, it's about making
Speaker 1: us feel connected as people and and reminding us of
Speaker 1: the things which connects us and the and the similarities
Speaker 1: we have. And that's that's the great joy. That's the
Speaker 1: pleasure it brings that the connectivity that it eyes, and
Speaker 1: that's why people love to laugh in a group in
Speaker 1: a comedy club or in a movie theater because they
Speaker 1: want they the shared experience of laughter is unifying. So
Speaker 1: to me, that's what the show does is people they
Speaker 1: relate to the characters, or they see a version of
Speaker 1: themselves or a version of the person they could have been,
Speaker 1: or they say, that's just like my brother and all,
Speaker 1: that's just like the guy I work with. That stuff
Speaker 1: makes you feel like there's other people that think like you,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're living the world and experiencing the
Speaker 1: world like you, and it makes you feel less alone.
Speaker 1: And that's that's why I'm a fan of stuff. And
Speaker 1: I think hopefully that's why people are a fan of
Speaker 1: this show. Steven, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 1: time to talk to me for real. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope you stay safe over there and stay home,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, sometimes soon we'll go to another
Speaker 1: Clippers game. Would be great. That's all for this week, everybody.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
Speaker 1: I mean, is it just me or do British people
Speaker 1: sound way smarter than other people? I feel smarter after
Speaker 1: hearing that conversation. Anyhow, Thank you so much to Stephen
Speaker 1: for joining me. I truly appreciate it. And to the
Speaker 1: rest of you, Tune in next week to hear my
Speaker 1: conversation with the other half of this dynamic duo, this
Speaker 1: comedic genius duo, Ricky Gervais. You won't want to miss that.
Speaker 1: And if you're liking this podcast, well don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe or follow in whatever podcast app you were using.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe even leave us a review, rate
Speaker 1: us highlight if you're feeling inspired. But until next time, everybody,
Speaker 1: please have a great week. The Office. Deep Dive is
Speaker 1: hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our
Speaker 1: executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer,
Speaker 1: our producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is
Speaker 1: Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is Alec Moore.
Speaker 1: Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great
Speaker 1: friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth
Speaker 1: Olansky