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Speaker 1: taking you on a search, a search for love, hard
Speaker 1: working Latina. But there were other reasons. I felt like
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Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hello everybody, h oh, I am so excited
Speaker 1: today that jazz a little tune is getting me very excited.
Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the first, the absolute first
Speaker 1: premier as we call it. In the business episode of
Speaker 1: The Office Deep Dive. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner.
Speaker 1: Now where did this podcast come from? I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're aware that I had another podcast and oral
Speaker 1: history of the Office. Now, if you haven't listened to that,
Speaker 1: you should, because I mean it's absolutely genius, if if
Speaker 1: I say so myself. But what happened was we did
Speaker 1: that podcast and we had so much fun making it
Speaker 1: and getting back together with my old cast mates and
Speaker 1: crew and writers and directors. The problem was we got
Speaker 1: so much good material we could not fit all of
Speaker 1: the great stuff in. That's what she said, so we
Speaker 1: decided to make another podcast, this podcast, the one right
Speaker 1: here that you're listening to right now, And this time
Speaker 1: I am releasing all of my raw, unfiltered full length
Speaker 1: interviews for you to go even deeper. So let's dive in,
Speaker 1: shall we. Hi. I'm Greg Daniels. I was the showrunner
Speaker 1: of the Office. So how do we begin? Well, we
Speaker 1: begin at the beginning That made no sense. Uh. The
Speaker 1: thing is, there is only one way to begin a
Speaker 1: podcast about The Office, and that is with Greg Daniels. Now,
Speaker 1: as some of you Office fans undoubtedly no, Greg was
Speaker 1: the creator and showrunner of the American version of the Office.
Speaker 1: But what you may not know is that before that,
Speaker 1: Greg was the showrunner and co creator of King of
Speaker 1: the Hill. And before that he was a writer on
Speaker 1: The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live. And see what is
Speaker 1: so cool is that, as you'll hear momentarily, all of
Speaker 1: that experience totally shaped Greg's vision for The Office, which
Speaker 1: at the time was honestly revolutionary. There was nothing like
Speaker 1: The Office on American television. I truly cannot overstate how
Speaker 1: significant Greg's role was on the show. He assembled the
Speaker 1: entire team and he was responsible for everything from casting
Speaker 1: to set design, production design, the shooting style again, all
Speaker 1: of that you're gonna hear about in a minute. But
Speaker 1: the point is he is literally the reason we're all
Speaker 1: here today. Well maybe not you guys, but me. He's
Speaker 1: definitely the reason that I'm here. So I'm obviously very
Speaker 1: excited to kick things off. I'm gonna shut up now,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, for our very first interview, I am
Speaker 1: proud to present Mr Greg Daniels Bubble and Squeak. I
Speaker 1: love it, Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cooking
Speaker 1: at every moment, left over from the nut before. Oh him, fuddy,
Speaker 1: hire you so good to see you, to see you too.
Speaker 1: I love that carved I have a Gartner's chapel. I
Speaker 1: have an engraved plaque. That's fantastic. We face each other,
Speaker 1: How do you? I think we face each other. I
Speaker 1: think we're here. It kind of neat. It's a great room, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are you are they recording? Yeah, we're just having
Speaker 1: a chat. We're having a chat. I've stolen a few tricks, exactly.
Speaker 1: We just merging. Actually, that's exactly right. I learned from
Speaker 1: the best. Um. Well, thank you for fighting me. Congratulations
Speaker 1: on your podcast. Thank you so much. It's been so
Speaker 1: fun to one just see people and to to like
Speaker 1: reminisce and talk. I mean, everyone has been so generous
Speaker 1: and thoughtful and articulate, and well that's going to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of figured. So I'm not talking to you
Speaker 1: about that. I'm just gonna talk to you about King
Speaker 1: of the Hill is okay, it's fun. Um So, before
Speaker 1: the office, what were you? What were you doing immediately
Speaker 1: prior to well, Um So, I had just kind of
Speaker 1: come off a very intense, maybe eight years at King
Speaker 1: of the Hill, and this was the first show that
Speaker 1: I was the showrunner. And uh, that job is maybe
Speaker 1: not that widely known outside of Hollywood. It's like the
Speaker 1: director of the movie. It's very full time, intense, start
Speaker 1: to finish on something job. So I had come off
Speaker 1: The Simpsons, and the Simpsons was really good training in
Speaker 1: many ways, but there was a lot of things I
Speaker 1: wanted to do differently, because you know, when I got
Speaker 1: to The Simpsons, it was season the end of season
Speaker 1: four and the show was getting a little wilder kind
Speaker 1: of and for King of the Hill, I wanted to
Speaker 1: keep it contained and realistic. The whole time, and I
Speaker 1: was very much of the opinion and you have to
Speaker 1: really start slow on the show and just the value
Speaker 1: of slowness, but come up with stories like from a
Speaker 1: simple place, not a grand idea or set up. Is
Speaker 1: that what you mean? Well, like, for instance, the the
Speaker 1: pilot of King of the Hill, you of the first
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, these guys are standing around a truck
Speaker 1: just going yep, you know really and um, you know.
Speaker 1: So I had come off that and you know, I
Speaker 1: was a huge fan of Seinfeld and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get on that show. I sold them one script. I
Speaker 1: was a freelancer, but I generated a lot of stories
Speaker 1: and would pitch them and I really thought about that
Speaker 1: show a lot. And then I went on The Simpsons
Speaker 1: instead and learned a whole bunch there. But I, um,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a good student of knowing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a show runner. So I would
Speaker 1: take notes and you know, write them down, and I
Speaker 1: have all these scraps of things and I would develop
Speaker 1: a different theories. And one of the theories that I
Speaker 1: had I call stuff the sausage, and that theory is
Speaker 1: a great show like Seinfeld is wasteful of wonderful ideas,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, have a great idea
Speaker 1: and it might just turn into a couple of lines
Speaker 1: or a scene, like they don't milk it and make
Speaker 1: a whole episode out of right. So we tried to
Speaker 1: do that on the Office too, But there was a
Speaker 1: lot of that on King of the Hill, where you'd
Speaker 1: have subplots and you know, really tried to put a
Speaker 1: lot of story into an episode. What were your favorite shows, Like,
Speaker 1: what were you watching at that time? Seinfeld I loved.
Speaker 1: But part of it was when Matt came out. You know,
Speaker 1: it was very different and it was really on by
Speaker 1: the skin of its teeth, and if you picked up
Speaker 1: on it early, you had definitely this feeling of, oh
Speaker 1: my god, here's something super funny and if I don't
Speaker 1: watch it, it's gonna be extinguished. And actually I had
Speaker 1: a I had a meeting at ABC and they were talking.
Speaker 1: They said, what do you like to watch? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I love Seinfeld And they said something like the that
Speaker 1: they had Home and Movement and that they identified that
Speaker 1: Simon Feld was going to be a threat and they
Speaker 1: wanted to move Home Improvement against it and squash it
Speaker 1: in its cradle. But they couldn't because they had this
Speaker 1: long standing deal to run Sibs opposite Seinfeld, and they
Speaker 1: were watching it kind of catch hold, and they were
Speaker 1: they were like, as soon as they could, they were
Speaker 1: going to squash it with Home Improvement. And I was like,
Speaker 1: don't you dare do that? You know, Um, well that's
Speaker 1: kind of what happened to us too by the end, Right,
Speaker 1: they moved Grey's Anatomy against US and c S. I
Speaker 1: was on CBS like they were pulling all their big
Speaker 1: shows against US. Yeah. Well, I kept making I made
Speaker 1: a lot of Seinfeld comparisons in the beginning, because um,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, oh look how small that started.
Speaker 1: It's something new, it's something unique, it's funny, you know,
Speaker 1: let it grow and everything. But it turns out every
Speaker 1: single producer made Seinfeld comparisons if you had a show
Speaker 1: that was struggling, you know, no matter how good it
Speaker 1: was or how close it was to Seinfeld, they had
Speaker 1: heard that argument before. Um and when did you become aware?
Speaker 1: You were aware of the British version? Ricky Gervais and
Speaker 1: uh no, here's what happened. Um, okay, so so I
Speaker 1: do King of the Hill, Yeah, I go into an
Speaker 1: overall deal at twenty and then when that deal expired,
Speaker 1: I started to kind of look for the next thing,
Speaker 1: and my agent, our Emmanuel, sent me a VHS cassette
Speaker 1: and said the office on it, and the show was
Speaker 1: completely unknown, and I didn't watch it, and he called
Speaker 1: me like after the holidays and he said, um, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, send this to the next guy
Speaker 1: on my list if you don't watch it. So I said,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, hold on, I'll try and watch
Speaker 1: it tonight. So I popped the cassette in like at
Speaker 1: nine PM or something, and I stayed up till one
Speaker 1: watching the show. And I absolutely loved it. I thought
Speaker 1: it was amazing and I couldn't even figure out how
Speaker 1: it was done, you know it was. It didn't feel
Speaker 1: like scripted. It was so alive and cool. And you
Speaker 1: know how I said, I was like a student a
Speaker 1: bit of being a showrunner. So a lot of times
Speaker 1: I wanted to meet the people who I thought were
Speaker 1: doing the best work, whether or not I figured I
Speaker 1: would ever work with them. So it was really important
Speaker 1: for me to sell a freelance episode of Seinfeld so
Speaker 1: that I could work with Larry David and see what
Speaker 1: was up. And I identified that Ricky and Stephen had
Speaker 1: created something amazing, and I really wanted to figure it
Speaker 1: out right, but I didn't. I didn't really think that
Speaker 1: it was plausible that it would come to American TV,
Speaker 1: or that I would get the job or whatever. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to meet them and asked them about it.
Speaker 1: So I met him at Ben's office, a little bungalow
Speaker 1: on the Universal lot. Yeah, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: Number one, they loved the Simpsons. Number two, Ricky's favorite
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode was one that I had written, called Homer
Speaker 1: bad Man. So we started vibing nicely, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: and I talked to them about what I saw in
Speaker 1: the show, and you know how I would adapted, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it came from King of the Hill
Speaker 1: being kind of realistic and slow and poignant. Um. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we got along really well, and um, so they trusted
Speaker 1: me to take over and do the adaptation. And Ben
Speaker 1: had identified a few people who he thought would be
Speaker 1: really receptive, and Kevin Riley was the front runner and
Speaker 1: he was running f X, and it seemed plausible that
Speaker 1: if anybody could take the office, it would be f X,
Speaker 1: or maybe HBO. Those were like the two we were
Speaker 1: thinking about. But now Ben told me that HBO wasn't
Speaker 1: interested because they didn't want to do a remake. Correct, yes,
Speaker 1: they were out of the running, so FX looked pretty good.
Speaker 1: But what happened was, Um, Kevin Riley left f X
Speaker 1: and took over NBC, and he still wanted to do
Speaker 1: the show. And I was very skeptical because everything on
Speaker 1: NBC had was multi camera Will and Grace was their
Speaker 1: number one show, and um, it did not feel at
Speaker 1: all like The Office. So okay, so I started to
Speaker 1: convince myself maybe the point of bringing The Office, I
Speaker 1: actually thought this was, was move the ship of comedy
Speaker 1: in a direction towards something I liked more. And even
Speaker 1: if I just nudged it in that direction, maybe it
Speaker 1: would be valuable. Like flame Out to do you know,
Speaker 1: even if it failed miserably, you were doing your part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna nudge Network Comedy or the main ship
Speaker 1: of comedy. I wanted to nudge it in a different direction. Um.
Speaker 1: Then a few things happened that were very anxiety producing
Speaker 1: for me. At some point, Uh, The Office started to
Speaker 1: air on BBC America in the United States, and it
Speaker 1: was very small rating. Um. But that also made me
Speaker 1: very anxious because I didn't think that it would ever
Speaker 1: air in the United States, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like I have the role to the office that Norman
Speaker 1: Lear had All in the Family because All the Family
Speaker 1: was an English show, but no one's ever seen the
Speaker 1: English show that All the Families based, right, so Norman
Speaker 1: Lear has no points of comparison. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about anything. It was just like, oh, what a great,
Speaker 1: great new show you got. Um. So that shared air
Speaker 1: and all the cool comedy people were really into it,
Speaker 1: you know. And this was when we had we had
Speaker 1: already shot pilot, so I'm jumping ahead a little bit.
Speaker 1: This was right before, right before we uh, right before
Speaker 1: we were going to airs, when I started to come
Speaker 1: out because they wanted to like connect it, I think
Speaker 1: to the NBC Show or something. Okay, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I I had gotten an early DVD of it too,
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I was one of the first people
Speaker 1: to get a DVR because I felt like, well, if
Speaker 1: I'm meeting on these shows, I need to see what's
Speaker 1: out there. Whether I like it or not, I should,
Speaker 1: you know, see an episode of C S I and
Speaker 1: see an episode of Will and Grace. So I just
Speaker 1: spent all my time watching and to try I got
Speaker 1: a tvo. Y. Yeah, and so I had watched I
Speaker 1: had watched it at that point. I have a funny
Speaker 1: tevo stories side bar. But yeah, so I got a
Speaker 1: TiVo too, and they had an early version of the
Speaker 1: Netflix algorithm. They were like, oh, you look, you watch
Speaker 1: this and this and this. At the time, I was
Speaker 1: watching Ken of the Hill episodes just to make sure
Speaker 1: it aired properly. Um, I love the Sopranos. So I
Speaker 1: was watching that, and then my kids were watching dragon
Speaker 1: Tails on PBS, and so they tried to triangulate off
Speaker 1: those three and uh, and they said, you know what
Speaker 1: you'd like Michale's Navy. That was the cross seconds. Kind
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Speaker 1: States Forest Service and the ad Council. So you sell
Speaker 1: the show to NBC. Yeah, you're running it, and now
Speaker 1: it's time to come up with a pilot. Now, how
Speaker 1: how did you come up with a decision to keep
Speaker 1: it so close to the British version? Yeah, well that
Speaker 1: was interesting. I had went back and forth. I had
Speaker 1: generated a bunch of stories if I was going to
Speaker 1: do a completely original story. And when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: my dad was a businessman who had a lot of
Speaker 1: performative interests like stand up and he used to do
Speaker 1: a manager's meeting every year at his company where he
Speaker 1: got karnak hat you know, the turban and his name
Speaker 1: is Aaron. He would do Aaron Ak and my first
Speaker 1: joke writing was writing jokes for his routine Aarnac. And
Speaker 1: as I became a comedy writer, some very good people
Speaker 1: like Colan O'Brien wrote for him, and you know, Mike Reist,
Speaker 1: a lot of good comedy writers wrote for Aaronnach And
Speaker 1: I used that, I think in the Dundees because I, uh,
Speaker 1: Michael has an Aaron Ach or karenak Wig and he
Speaker 1: does the exact same joke. That was the first joke
Speaker 1: that I wrote for my dad. Um. But to get
Speaker 1: back to the question of what to do, so uh
Speaker 1: so I used to do an award show at King
Speaker 1: of the Hill called the swamp Eas, named after Swampy Marsh,
Speaker 1: who was one of our designers who went on to
Speaker 1: create Phineas and Ferb and he had a big personality
Speaker 1: and so we called it the Swampys. And I got
Speaker 1: those little plastics salesman trophies that are not too hard
Speaker 1: to get, and I used to give those out at
Speaker 1: King of the Hill. So anyway, I thought, well, the
Speaker 1: Dundees Dundee Awards would be a good you know, pilot episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you'd sort of by giving awards to everybody you
Speaker 1: can enter us all these different characters or whatever. But
Speaker 1: um then I started to get worried and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to um do an original script that the NBC
Speaker 1: executives were going to start giving notes on which they
Speaker 1: would have, I believe, with an original script. And I
Speaker 1: was just really I felt like the pilot was like
Speaker 1: the challenge was, can we do something that feels like
Speaker 1: The Office and not like Will and Grace and not
Speaker 1: blow it right? I thought it was more of a
Speaker 1: producing challenge and the hiring challenge to anything else. And
Speaker 1: so ultimately I got Kevin to say I want to
Speaker 1: make The Office and said, all right, I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: you to that. The first the pilot we're gonna make
Speaker 1: is going to be very close to the English show anyway,
Speaker 1: So I made some changes to the English pilot. I
Speaker 1: added a bunch of stuff and advanced the romance a
Speaker 1: little bit so you'd know at the end of the
Speaker 1: pilot what was going on. And ultimately, in the edit room,
Speaker 1: which lasted forever, we did twenty three cuts. I ended
Speaker 1: up losing a bunch of stuff that I had added,
Speaker 1: but I did you know, there were some good things
Speaker 1: I had, Like I added that World's Greatest boss mug
Speaker 1: that he bought from Spencer Gifts and a bunch of
Speaker 1: things like that. Um anyway, but for you, it was
Speaker 1: more about creating the world and finding the team and
Speaker 1: finding the and the cast, the rhythm, the dynamic and
Speaker 1: selling that as opposed to trying to you know, write
Speaker 1: a Dundee's Award and change how the show was launched. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought it was a huge producing challenge, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I had all those theories and like the stuff
Speaker 1: to sausage and stuff, and some of the theories that
Speaker 1: I had was that the show had to be handmade,
Speaker 1: like it couldn't be a factory product. And what I
Speaker 1: didn't like about network television was how much of a
Speaker 1: factory it was. And how you know, there was a
Speaker 1: writing staff and the writers wrote jokes and the joke
Speaker 1: got passed down to the actors, and the writers and
Speaker 1: actress would always resent each other, and the writers would
Speaker 1: try and write actor proof jokes that you know, are
Speaker 1: can contain the setup in the punchline in the same line,
Speaker 1: because they didn't ever trust that the actors could get
Speaker 1: laughs on behavior. So the first thing I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do was create comedy television in a different pattern
Speaker 1: so that you could get more laughs off performance and
Speaker 1: not jokes. Right, I've heard um and people have talked
Speaker 1: about it, and you've talked about it. Um, that you
Speaker 1: were trying to create an environment that was more like
Speaker 1: S and L where the writers and the actors there
Speaker 1: wasn't so much disconnect and that and that writers were
Speaker 1: performing with the actors, and actors could pitch ideas to
Speaker 1: the writers. Um, what what I haven't heard before that
Speaker 1: you just said, which I find so interesting? That you
Speaker 1: wanted laughs to come from behavior and from actors performances
Speaker 1: and and and so you needed a writing staff that
Speaker 1: understood and had trust in the actors, which is in
Speaker 1: a way kind of the reverse of how I thought
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, well, you know what they always said
Speaker 1: it was the biggest laugh of all time was Jack
Speaker 1: Benny where he's getting mugged and the guy says your
Speaker 1: money or your life and he just like has to
Speaker 1: think about it, you know, and like, to me, that's
Speaker 1: great because that's not a joke, right, it's just like
Speaker 1: you're bringing to bear the everything you know about the character.
Speaker 1: I thought those were such cooler things than jokes and
Speaker 1: Um anyway, so that was like the big challenge. And
Speaker 1: then also it was that format, right, It was mockumentary,
Speaker 1: and it was very quiet, and it had its rhythm
Speaker 1: and the comedy of awkwardness, where like, you know, someone's
Speaker 1: supposed to behave a certain way and they aren't, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and then it sinks in and
Speaker 1: m That was certainly really hard to pull off at
Speaker 1: that time. Yes, I had a director that I worked
Speaker 1: with for a long time in theater before. He always
Speaker 1: talked to me about off the beat. That comedy exists
Speaker 1: off the beat. So if you have an expectation of
Speaker 1: when you should respond, you you you wait a half beat,
Speaker 1: you do something that jars people, which surprises them. And
Speaker 1: I felt like, that's what what you did so well
Speaker 1: on our show. Well, surprise is really good for comedy, right,
Speaker 1: and to me, um, anything you can do to increase
Speaker 1: surprise is good. And the problem to me with your
Speaker 1: multi camera shows in general was that the rhythms were
Speaker 1: so ingrained. You know, it's always like up, you know,
Speaker 1: and you could kind of just and it felt like
Speaker 1: like kabuki, you know, or some kind of really ritualized thing.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of really cool things about the
Speaker 1: office in terms of increasing surprise. One of them to
Speaker 1: me is you're going for poignancy half the time you're
Speaker 1: going for something emotional, So you're not aware as an audience,
Speaker 1: remember what the goal of the moment is. So you think, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, oh this is sad, this is a you know,
Speaker 1: and then it's funny and then you you're surprised or
Speaker 1: if vice verse him. So um. So the first the pilot,
Speaker 1: we had Peter Smokeler as the DP, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the hiring of the pilot for me was trying
Speaker 1: to get people who I super respected from different things
Speaker 1: that were kind of off like not the standard sitcom.
Speaker 1: So um. Alison Jones loved freaks and geeks that thought
Speaker 1: her casting was amazing, so I really wanted to get her.
Speaker 1: And then I had tried to work on Larry Sanders.
Speaker 1: I did a couple of days of punch up there.
Speaker 1: I'd identified that as something similar to to Seinfeld, like
Speaker 1: some a show that was just doing amazing stuff. And
Speaker 1: that's how we got to Ken Kuoppas Yes and um.
Speaker 1: The whole thing with Ken was wanting everybody to believe
Speaker 1: that they were working at a paper company and absorbing
Speaker 1: that and kind of taking the Hollywood out of it. Well,
Speaker 1: there were so many things that you guys did, first
Speaker 1: of all, getting a sound stage as a location and
Speaker 1: choosing to put the offices in the production offices upstairs,
Speaker 1: right because that was a real space. And Ken and
Speaker 1: his making us be all ready to go at seven
Speaker 1: am and doing thirty minutes of just work. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: that was really uh part of that notion of obstacles
Speaker 1: that like I um, we discussed that a lot as well,
Speaker 1: which is uh on the Hollywood set. And again this
Speaker 1: is like trying not to be factory, not to be Hollywood, right.
Speaker 1: So on Hollywood set, they make the walls wild able,
Speaker 1: which means any room you're in you can pull the
Speaker 1: wall off so that the camera can get back and
Speaker 1: get a great shot. And our esthetic on the office
Speaker 1: was nothing should be wilder, bowl you you should. The
Speaker 1: obstacle of a column in the way is subconsciously interpreted
Speaker 1: by the audience as another piece of evidence that this
Speaker 1: is actually happening, that's real, which makes it much more intense,
Speaker 1: right because subconsciously you're like, oh my god, they couldn't,
Speaker 1: they can't, they can't quite see what's happening, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're totally leaning forward and that zoom lends stuff and
Speaker 1: going through the blinds and going around the side and everything.
Speaker 1: And there was always a debate about how much to
Speaker 1: lean into that device, and the writers often would want
Speaker 1: to do it more than the rest of the crew.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting things of being a showrunner is,
Speaker 1: first and foremost you're had writer. You're like one of
Speaker 1: the writing staff, but you also interact with everybody else
Speaker 1: on the crew way more than the writers do. And
Speaker 1: so for instance, Phil Shay, the prop master, He's a
Speaker 1: guy that I would ask his opinion all the time.
Speaker 1: And Dave Rodgers, the editor, I completely relied on. And
Speaker 1: I would also often bring in the accountants. Remember this,
Speaker 1: I would have two different cuts downstairs, and I'd bring
Speaker 1: the accountants in. I'd play it for them because I
Speaker 1: figured they were the closest we had to ordinary people.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so like some certain key moments, the big
Speaker 1: question was how much to use that device of obstacles. Interesting, Um,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the casting just a little. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Alison Jones, how why did you choose Alison Jones? Okay, well, um,
Speaker 1: so I did. Uh. While I was at Fox, I
Speaker 1: did a pilot, uh, and it was sort of based
Speaker 1: on me growing up in New York, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: I considered it sort of of Seinfeld the Family show.
Speaker 1: It was like a Seinfeld family show. And I was
Speaker 1: casting right when Freaks and Geeks had been canceled, and
Speaker 1: I saw all of the kids, and um, a lot
Speaker 1: of them perconted tears when they went toition because they
Speaker 1: were so sad that their show got canceled. And I
Speaker 1: ended up using Sam Levine in this show. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I got I was really into Freaks and Geeks and UM,
Speaker 1: I really liked the choices, like she chose really funny people,
Speaker 1: but they were, you know, pretty character in a great way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I when I tried to think of all of
Speaker 1: the casting directors that I could try to go to,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, I was like, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to work with her. I think she's she'd be great.
Speaker 1: So we went into this really long casting process and
Speaker 1: we were off for some reason. We were off cycle.
Speaker 1: We were like going to be mid season, so we
Speaker 1: didn't have to compete with every single other show. And
Speaker 1: we started with um, you know, Jim and Pam, Michael Dwight.
Speaker 1: Those were like the ones we started with, and we
Speaker 1: saw a ton of people from Michael, and I brought
Speaker 1: in people who I had worked with were writers. I
Speaker 1: brought in one of the head writers of The Simpsons,
Speaker 1: Mike Greece, to try out, and this writer I knew
Speaker 1: named Chuck Tatham. And I remember taping myself on a
Speaker 1: video camera late at night doing the sides for Michael
Speaker 1: because I was like, I don't even know what to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, And I did it a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, and I realized that one of the keys
Speaker 1: that I thought for people trying out for Michael was
Speaker 1: that he's thinking that if he does a good job
Speaker 1: on this documentary, maybe Jennifer Anniston will watch it, and
Speaker 1: that's in the back of his head. That was well,
Speaker 1: that was like my direction that yeah, And I did
Speaker 1: that from taping myself and going, oh, that's the only
Speaker 1: thing this motivate aading me into something resembling this weird performance. Um,
Speaker 1: was there anyone that came in right away who you
Speaker 1: ultimately cast that you went that's it. Jenna. Yeah, Jenna
Speaker 1: came in and it kind of blew my mind because
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it. I was like, she doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to be acting. She appears to simply be Pam. And
Speaker 1: I had all these weird questions for her that were like, well,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't ask an actor. I was like, where where
Speaker 1: have you worked? What is that? You know? It was
Speaker 1: like it was a real interview for receptionists. There was
Speaker 1: one part of me, in trying to get an interesting
Speaker 1: love story that thought maybe it should be interracial love story,
Speaker 1: and so part of me was I had a one
Speaker 1: version of it where Craig Robinson was Roy, not Darryl.
Speaker 1: And there was a really likable actress Erica Bettina Phillips,
Speaker 1: and I was like, could she be Pam? Wow? Is
Speaker 1: that gonna work? And everything? You know, But she was
Speaker 1: a pretty easy pick. And I felt pretty much like
Speaker 1: that about John. I think too. Um, there were some
Speaker 1: other good guys for John, but not not close and
Speaker 1: was it about the two of them together? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: then well the great thing also that Ken did and
Speaker 1: it was really smart, which is he said, okay, like
Speaker 1: we are not going to try and take these people
Speaker 1: in front of NBC on a little stage and have
Speaker 1: them read in front of the executives. And I was
Speaker 1: completely on board with that because we would never be
Speaker 1: shooting like that. That's not the right style. And what
Speaker 1: that is is a filter to get more theatrical performers
Speaker 1: who are good for multi camera, who can work a room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who work a room and come alive when they're in
Speaker 1: front of a room and and project and you know,
Speaker 1: are just more theatrical. And so we got this idea
Speaker 1: to do screen tests like old fashioned screen tests, and
Speaker 1: we blocked off three days and um and we took
Speaker 1: all the different top three or four candidates for each
Speaker 1: role and we pitted him together in different improvs. And
Speaker 1: it was great for Ken too because he worked out
Speaker 1: a lot about the shooting style doing this. And it
Speaker 1: was fun for me too because I came up with
Speaker 1: lots of little improv games and could figure out things
Speaker 1: and like, for instance, one of them was between the
Speaker 1: Gym candidates and the Dwight candidates, and I had Dwight
Speaker 1: sitting at his desk and I said, like, all right,
Speaker 1: the Gym just bring a glass of water in a
Speaker 1: nice way to DWIGHTE and Dwight be super suspicious because
Speaker 1: why is Jim doing something nice. It was really nice
Speaker 1: by the way of all the actors, because a lot
Speaker 1: of the actors gave us three days shooting, so that's
Speaker 1: a long audition. But just like everything, it took time.
Speaker 1: I mean, you cast for three months, then you did
Speaker 1: multiple days. I'm super methodical. I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like, if I have time to make a decision,
Speaker 1: I'm going to chase down every option and a bee
Speaker 1: it and really try. And you know, and as you
Speaker 1: started to find the rest of the ensemble, what were
Speaker 1: you looking for there? Well, part of it was different
Speaker 1: types of people, you know, and part of it was
Speaker 1: Allison having passions for people, like we didn't have a
Speaker 1: ton of choices for Kevin, right, she was really passionate
Speaker 1: about you and came in and we could see it
Speaker 1: right away and it was like cool, that's great. And
Speaker 1: Oscar and Angela were both you know, had come from
Speaker 1: the same improv theater. They were both io guys. And
Speaker 1: Oscar has the ability like he has such a straight face.
Speaker 1: I mean he has the ability to play it's so
Speaker 1: straight and it's so funny. Has a little Jack Benny
Speaker 1: actually you referenced him before, just yeah, yeah, And and
Speaker 1: the great thing was also the set informed a good
Speaker 1: bit because like we were all in the same room,
Speaker 1: but It was very useful to have a nook with
Speaker 1: three improv masters to have a sort of create a
Speaker 1: subplot with almost you know, you needed to cut away
Speaker 1: from what was happening in the triangle of Jim Pam
Speaker 1: dwighte desks, and the accounts were great for that. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that was great was you guys were
Speaker 1: just making your own bits up. We we were the
Speaker 1: star of our own show in the corner, which was hilarious,
Speaker 1: and you would come to me and go, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: check this out. We got this thing going. I have
Speaker 1: to tell this story. Um. We were the first season.
Speaker 1: We shoot the basketball episode, which is your first episode
Speaker 1: you wrote. And I'm trying to bond with my boss, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm a huge sports fan, big basketball fan, and
Speaker 1: so we're doing the basketball episode and I remember I said, so,
Speaker 1: Greg are you are you you're a big fan of
Speaker 1: basketball and you turned like kind of tilted your head
Speaker 1: slightly and said, I'm a fan of comedy and then
Speaker 1: turned and walked away. I was like, that went really well, Brian,
Speaker 1: a great, great job. It was just so so interesting
Speaker 1: for me that you had constructed that as being that
Speaker 1: was my That was funny. Yeah, I mean this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so sad and lame on my part. But I
Speaker 1: didn't have enough brain space for sports, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I I am marvel at people who can
Speaker 1: know all about all the teams, and it's a great
Speaker 1: thing for guys to hang out and bond with each other.
Speaker 1: It's like my dad and my son are both great
Speaker 1: at it, no matter where they go or just they
Speaker 1: can instantly have a cool conversation about basketball. Well, they
Speaker 1: just didn't have the room. Well there's a theory, right
Speaker 1: that people only have the brain space for for one
Speaker 1: of three things. One is sports, two is music, and
Speaker 1: three is useless trivia. Oh I got that that man,
Speaker 1: So it's one of three things and useless trivia because
Speaker 1: that's not Unfortunately it's not music in sports. But it
Speaker 1: does help when you write Dwight because a lot of
Speaker 1: times I would, you know, I'd be like, yes, if
Speaker 1: there's one character I'm probably the closest to, it's fucking Dwite.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. It's sometimes it felt
Speaker 1: that way. It was really easy to do all those
Speaker 1: bear runs. And like one time when that do you
Speaker 1: remember that book? What was it called? It was like
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario handbook. Remember that book, all right, So
Speaker 1: this is this was like a Christmas type you know,
Speaker 1: novelty gift book, and it was it was just how
Speaker 1: do you escape from a bear? How do you escape
Speaker 1: from a burning building? You know, worst case scenario and book?
Speaker 1: And anyway, that Christmas, I got like eight copies of
Speaker 1: that bad book from people. They were like all of
Speaker 1: them were like, this is for you, this is this
Speaker 1: is for you. So I don't know, definitely easy to write, right.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, also I identified a lot
Speaker 1: with Michael. For instance, the Halloween episode, this notion that
Speaker 1: you would have to fire someone but you'd want to
Speaker 1: stay friends with them. That comes from identifying with the
Speaker 1: boss in the situation. And normally you identify with the
Speaker 1: employee until you've had an experience of being a boss,
Speaker 1: and then you start to go, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: maybe there's somebody has a point of view there. And
Speaker 1: I was the boss of the writers, and so it
Speaker 1: was sort of funny because like a lot of times
Speaker 1: they would be you know, pulling their eyes at me
Speaker 1: and mocking me, and I was like, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: use it for the show. And Steve used to say
Speaker 1: something like if you're in a situation where there you
Speaker 1: don't see any Michael Scott, you're Michael Scott's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: On the latest season of the Next Question with Katie
Speaker 1: Correct podcast, Katie dives into Well Katie Here, exclusive podcast
Speaker 1: only conversations between Katie and the people who made her
Speaker 1: memoir Going There Possible. We spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: together around a dining room table here and in the city,
Speaker 1: and you know it was a very intense experience. All
Speaker 1: episodes of Next Question with Katie Couric are available now.
Speaker 1: Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to our show.
Speaker 1: I'm Zoe de Channel and I'm so excited to be
Speaker 1: joined by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and
Speaker 1: Lamar and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Speaker 1: Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
Speaker 1: where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
Speaker 1: New Girl episodes, revealed the truth behind the legendary game
Speaker 1: True American, and discuss how this show got made with
Speaker 1: the writer's guest stars, and director who made the show
Speaker 1: so special. Fans have been begging us to do a
Speaker 1: New Girl recap for years, and we finally made a
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Speaker 1: Plus each week you'll hear hilarious stories like this at
Speaker 1: the end when he says you got some schmid on
Speaker 1: your face. I feel like I pitched that joke. I
Speaker 1: believe that. I feel like I did. I'm not a
Speaker 1: thousand percent I want to say that was I tossed
Speaker 1: that one out. Listen to the Welcome to Our Show
Speaker 1: podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
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Speaker 1: and you could be me for just one hour, if
Speaker 1: you could find a way to get inside each other's mind,
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Speaker 1: We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling
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Speaker 1: how it Belonging begins with us dot org, brought to
Speaker 1: you by the App Council Mountain. So after doing the pilot,
Speaker 1: we get a very anemic pickup of five episodes for
Speaker 1: a season one, and all of my seinfeld arguing rebounded
Speaker 1: against me because you know, I was dancing and trying
Speaker 1: to get get a pick up and everything, and they
Speaker 1: were like, well, if it's really like Seinfeld Seinfeld only
Speaker 1: had four episodes or whatever in the first season. Were like, um,
Speaker 1: so we get this little skinny pickup, and now I
Speaker 1: get the ability to hire writers, and so I love
Speaker 1: hiring writers. And I read hundreds of scripts, not hundreds,
Speaker 1: but at least a hundred for each time I have
Speaker 1: to hire a staff, and I meet people, and in
Speaker 1: the meetings, I'm disc riving the show because it hasn't
Speaker 1: come out right. And the more you describe it, the
Speaker 1: more your thoughts start to coalesce. And I and I
Speaker 1: realized as I was trying to like pitch the show
Speaker 1: over and over again two different writers, that this was
Speaker 1: the first um comedy version of reality show, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of the first show. And this gets maybe theoretical,
Speaker 1: but like I was saying, all right, well, sitcoms multi
Speaker 1: camera coms are a TV show for people who love
Speaker 1: theater and have done a lot of theater and go
Speaker 1: to theater. That's the idea. But now everybody has their
Speaker 1: own cam quarters, and what about a show for people
Speaker 1: who have taken video and are used to looking at
Speaker 1: the viewfinder and turning to cover one guy and then
Speaker 1: the other guy. You know, America's funniest videos like that
Speaker 1: cam quarter thing had come in hard and m and
Speaker 1: reality shows. So I was kind of developing this idea
Speaker 1: that the bones of the show wouldn't be theatrical, they'd
Speaker 1: be video. And when you think about photography and you
Speaker 1: think about the great you know, street photographers, so much
Speaker 1: is about finding a way to look at the real
Speaker 1: world and finding beauty in what you see right in
Speaker 1: front of you, by the way you compose it, or
Speaker 1: your selection of subject matter, or the decisive moment or
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like that. Well, Randall, uh, talk to
Speaker 1: me a little bit about this idea. He attributes to
Speaker 1: quote to you, which is everything that makes it harder
Speaker 1: makes it better. Yeah, that's that obstacles and the yes.
Speaker 1: And in terms of the obstacles and obviously a huge
Speaker 1: part of the aesthetic was the camera as a character.
Speaker 1: How important was that to you? Oh, I think that's huge.
Speaker 1: I mean I used to give notes very differently to
Speaker 1: camera operators then most shows. Like most shows, the note
Speaker 1: is okay, I want you to pay and over here
Speaker 1: and then on this line, I want you to, you know,
Speaker 1: do blah blah blah, push in or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: used to only give notes to them like they're actors.
Speaker 1: I would say, Okay, here's what's interesting. You've been following
Speaker 1: this story, and you know this person who's never expressed
Speaker 1: any interest in that person before, You've suddenly noticed that
Speaker 1: they're eyeing them with interest. Go for that. And some
Speaker 1: of the things we used to do with Randall. I
Speaker 1: would sometimes say, Okay, the problem with this scene is
Speaker 1: you know what you're looking for, and I would have
Speaker 1: the camera operator close their eyes and I would spin
Speaker 1: them around and I'd say, right, find it on action
Speaker 1: and we go action and the scene would start and
Speaker 1: the camera guy would open his eyes and be pointing
Speaker 1: the wrong way and he'd have to like find find
Speaker 1: what was interesting. Yeah, we had a bunch of tricks
Speaker 1: like that. What I have said is the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm the most proud of was that every single shot
Speaker 1: was purposeful in terms of the camera. Is the camera
Speaker 1: in the space. Are the characters aware that the camera
Speaker 1: is there? How does that make them behave? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I you know, the writer's offices were near the stage,
Speaker 1: and so I would often come down and look and
Speaker 1: see stuff or get called down, which was very fun
Speaker 1: but also kind of high stakes kind of deal because
Speaker 1: you show up, the whole crew is there and they're
Speaker 1: they're saying, can you look at this? This doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be funny, or I would look at the rehearsal
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't think it was funny, And then you
Speaker 1: only have a couple of minutes to figure it out.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I noticed was that camera awareness
Speaker 1: was the cause of half the times when it wasn't funny.
Speaker 1: Is that we had gotten the camera awareness wrong and
Speaker 1: we were in a situation where we should have been
Speaker 1: spying on them through blinds, but the cameras right and
Speaker 1: everybody's face, and we were expecting people to act as
Speaker 1: if they didn't know the cameras were there, right, or
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's funnier to not spy on them
Speaker 1: and to let them be embarrassed that the cameras are
Speaker 1: seeing it. Like I was just watching that one. Which
Speaker 1: one was it? I guess it was the client, remember
Speaker 1: that one and just the camera Chase Michael, he got
Speaker 1: the call being the Jane didn't want to see him
Speaker 1: while he was he was sort of bragging the camera
Speaker 1: and then he got this horrible call and he had
Speaker 1: to actually hide in the well under his desk, and
Speaker 1: the camera came around and like squeezed past kind of
Speaker 1: taught him there like a raccoon in the light next
Speaker 1: to a garbage It's added so much, the camera could
Speaker 1: add so much. Totally, did you right for the camera
Speaker 1: as though it were a character. Yeah, sometimes, for sure.
Speaker 1: I remember jen Um Salada actually doing that the most.
Speaker 1: Like she she was the first person to have the
Speaker 1: camera nod. You know, she had I forget which episode,
Speaker 1: but she had somebody looked to camera and say where
Speaker 1: do you go or something like that, and the camera
Speaker 1: kind of like gestured and that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: It was. It was really up to the line though, Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, when we had that arc of
Speaker 1: Jennet going to art school or Pam going to art school.
Speaker 1: We had a whole thing and it was originally I
Speaker 1: think I think it was Mindy's idea or she was
Speaker 1: the biggest proponent of it, but it was the idea
Speaker 1: of the boom operator getting involved, and it was to
Speaker 1: me one of the coolest ideas. I couldn't really figure
Speaker 1: out how to work and we had a version where
Speaker 1: she got mugged on a subway and the boom operator
Speaker 1: dropped or the camerabitt dropped the camera and came and
Speaker 1: remember that. I remember that idea? Yeah, was that in
Speaker 1: a table read? Even it probably I probably was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what's really fun Now, it's like people are
Speaker 1: talking about the show all the time, and so I
Speaker 1: got asked about it. But it's ten years ago or whatever,
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, and sometimes I can't remember what made
Speaker 1: it into the show or what was like a crazy
Speaker 1: table read or what was pitched and I turned it
Speaker 1: down for obvious reasons. One other question, just about the pilot.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how the pilot tested? I'm guessing not good. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Kevin Riley told the story that how testing happens
Speaker 1: is there's certain people who are set up in different
Speaker 1: rooms and every room was bad. Yeah, and accept they
Speaker 1: got to the last room, which essentially were people who
Speaker 1: didn't count, but they were p A s and office
Speaker 1: assistants at young people and they loved it. So it
Speaker 1: was like from the very beginning, that's interesting. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: they they said to me, with the testing, they said,
Speaker 1: we're going to go out in the mall and just
Speaker 1: have a bunch of people. You can have one question
Speaker 1: to disqualify people. And so the question I had was
Speaker 1: if they were a fan of according to Jim, that
Speaker 1: TV show. They were disqualified because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want to do a sitcom, so
Speaker 1: I had to pick one. But anyway, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I I had prepared Kevin right like way before I
Speaker 1: knew this wasn't gonna test well, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I had certainly laid the ground worth Kevin for that.
Speaker 1: I was like, this thing is not going to test well.
Speaker 1: It is firmly in the pattern of Mary Tyler Moore,
Speaker 1: Cheers Seinfeld. It's classic NBC comedy, and you know it's
Speaker 1: gonna work. But don't don't worry about the testing. And
Speaker 1: I said, you know, there's a in this podcast room.
Speaker 1: You guys have this Cheers poster where you've replaced all
Speaker 1: of the Cheers characters with office heads. One of the
Speaker 1: things that's so funny I think inappropriate about that is
Speaker 1: about the theme song, because we had put a theme
Speaker 1: song on the pilot that then was grabbed by another
Speaker 1: NBC show. Yes, um, what was it, Mr Blue Skies?
Speaker 1: That was what was on the pilot, and it was
Speaker 1: all the internal screenings that that was the theme song
Speaker 1: on the pilot, And the pilot was also called The
Speaker 1: Office colon an American Workplace, which I thought was more
Speaker 1: doc you you know that. I also kind of figured
Speaker 1: it would open us up to be able to do
Speaker 1: other an American workplace like this is I mean it
Speaker 1: this didn't really apply until we got to the finale
Speaker 1: and I managed to work it in finally, But that
Speaker 1: was the that was the thinking that you could you
Speaker 1: could do another series that was something else an American
Speaker 1: workplace where that that this was just a season of
Speaker 1: a larger series called an American workplace like just to
Speaker 1: just to try and get more reality to the documentary
Speaker 1: thing because after a while, I mean we sort of
Speaker 1: pointed it out at the end, like why were you
Speaker 1: here for nine years? But um so I had really
Speaker 1: fun experience getting the theme song for King of the Hill,
Speaker 1: where we went out to bands and stuff and they
Speaker 1: all submitted stuff and we had to sort of sum
Speaker 1: up what the show was really quickly. And my line
Speaker 1: on King of the Hill was Andy Griffith's back and
Speaker 1: he's pissed. That was how I would sum up that show.
Speaker 1: But when we were looking for a theme song for
Speaker 1: the Office, I kept referencing Cheers because I was like,
Speaker 1: the Office is funny and poignant and original, and it
Speaker 1: has this sort of cheersy vibe. Right. Yeah. I always
Speaker 1: felt like our show that that was where its deepest
Speaker 1: roots was Cheers. Yeah. Um, the only difference was these
Speaker 1: were people who had to show up every day, whereas
Speaker 1: Cheers they chose to show up at this particular place.
Speaker 1: But that, um, the tone of the miliarity and constant
Speaker 1: interaction that that it had its ties there. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and and Sheers had a very
Speaker 1: it's sort of there are moments of nobility and a
Speaker 1: lot of appreciating different character people. I also used to
Speaker 1: compare it to Hogan's heroes in the beginning. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: because uh, the staff were kind of like prisoners that
Speaker 1: were all trying to like outwit the boss. Kind of
Speaker 1: that was I don't think that's the main influence at all,
Speaker 1: but interesting fun to think about it like that. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we're gonna pause there. We're not gonna stop.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna pause. Um, because there's so much more
Speaker 1: great stuff from Greg, you're gonna hear more from him,
Speaker 1: and not just one, but two future episodes. But in
Speaker 1: the meantime, you can go right now and you can
Speaker 1: listen to my interview with Rain Wilson a k a.
Speaker 1: Dwight Shrewd, which, as you just heard, Greg and Dwight
Speaker 1: kind of the same person, so it makes total sense. Now.
Speaker 1: Normally we're just gonna put out one episode a week,
Speaker 1: but I was just too excited. I was just too
Speaker 1: excited about launching the podcast. So go now, America's sweetheart.
Speaker 1: He's never been cooked that Rain Wilson. Anyway, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Episode one done check. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it, and uh yeah, we will see you
Speaker 1: next week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Speaker 1: Our senior produce Sir is Tessa Kramer, 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 is mixed by Seth Olandsky
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the amazing production crew who recorded these
Speaker 1: interviews with us Joanna Sakalowski, Julia Smith, Benny Spiwak Russell
Speaker 1: with Jaya, Margaret Borchard, Christian Bonaventura, Matthew Rosenfield, Alex Mobison,
Speaker 1: Lucy Savage, Judson Pickward, Jack Walden, Jonathan Mayer, Andrew Stephen,
Speaker 1: David Lincoln, and said to Lee. On the latest season
Speaker 1: of The Next Question with Katie, Couric Hood asked Katie
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Speaker 1: a lot of time together around a dining room table
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