Speaker 1: Yeah, this is Lee Eisenberg played Pam Beasley on The Office. No,
Speaker 1: don't do that, just for the whole day. This is
Speaker 1: Lee Eisenberg. I was a writer producer on The Office. Hello,
Speaker 1: everybody here, I am again Pam Beasley. No, Brian Baumgartner
Speaker 1: with another enlightening episode of The Office deep Dive. Today,
Speaker 1: we are continuing our conversation with the writing staff of
Speaker 1: the Office, So you're going to hear my conversation with
Speaker 1: the hilarious Lee Eisenberg. Lee and his writing partner, Gene
Speaker 1: Stupnitsky joined the show at the beginning of season two.
Speaker 1: Lee and Jean they were basically attached at the hip,
Speaker 1: best friends. They lived together, they drove to work together
Speaker 1: every day, they lunched together, they wrote together. Everything well,
Speaker 1: accept this interview, they didn't do that together. But the
Speaker 1: Office was their first real TV writing job, and as
Speaker 1: you will hear, they were more than a little nervous
Speaker 1: to be running with the big dogs, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, it was so funny for
Speaker 1: me to hear that they felt like that, because to me,
Speaker 1: like on set, they were always just completely self assured,
Speaker 1: like these are the brilliant, twisted minds that brought you
Speaker 1: our cringe eest episodes right Dinner Party and Scott's Totts.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is who we are dealing with here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's kind of mind boggling to me. Lie
Speaker 1: and Gene, if you can hear me out there, just
Speaker 1: what I want you to do right now is I
Speaker 1: want you to look into the mirror and I want
Speaker 1: you to tell yourselves I'm good enough, I'm smart enough,
Speaker 1: and dog on it. People like me. In fact, that
Speaker 1: goes for all of you. You're all great people like you.
Speaker 1: So there you go. For me to you, there's there,
Speaker 1: there it is. Anyway, let's get let's get back on track.
Speaker 1: Here without further ado, here is Lee Eisenberg, Bubble and Squeak.
Speaker 1: I love it. Bubble and squeak on Bubble and Squeaker
Speaker 1: Cookie every month left over from the night before. You're
Speaker 1: just like this is like, uh, I think it's like
Speaker 1: summer camp. It's like you come back and you just
Speaker 1: like see people and you're like, hey, well I know.
Speaker 1: I mean I've talked to Jenna Rain Angela Quapas. It's
Speaker 1: such a fucking like I haven't seen you in so long,
Speaker 1: and I love you and I know it's so stupid. Um,
Speaker 1: this is all recording now right, this is no, it's
Speaker 1: totally all recording. I bumped into Rain, I bumped into
Speaker 1: Jenna somewhere. I haven't seen Angela and forever. I never
Speaker 1: see Kappas. I hadn't seen Kappas in a really long time.
Speaker 1: And I hadn't seen Randall in a while. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw rand Randall and I would like grab like breakfast
Speaker 1: like once a year to kind of just like talk
Speaker 1: about work and trap a nice breakfast. Who paid varied? Varied?
Speaker 1: I don't remember who paid for the last I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think who was reporting who? Yeah, like who was
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's a really good question. Whenever i'm
Speaker 1: a doubt, I always pay because then I don't want
Speaker 1: it to feel like I took you to breakfast, like
Speaker 1: like like breakfast is like not worth anything. I didn't
Speaker 1: prepare for this at all. I've never seen the office before. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's totally fine. I was so what's amazing is no joke.
Speaker 1: I watched last night The Fight, the Return, dinner Party,
Speaker 1: and Scott's tats. You know that there's a there's a
Speaker 1: Reddit thread devoted to people Gene was telling me it's
Speaker 1: like people can't watch Scotts Taughts. Yes, this is true.
Speaker 1: I know. I get this all the time because you know,
Speaker 1: we are doing colleges and meeting fans at various events,
Speaker 1: and by the way, the Scots Tats shirts are very
Speaker 1: prevalent the fans events. Yes, Scott's the other Scotts Taughts shirts.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes even the people who are wearing the
Speaker 1: Scots Tats shirts say it's the one episode I can't
Speaker 1: I can't watch. And so I started engaging about why,
Speaker 1: because to me, Dinner Party is equally as cringe e
Speaker 1: as Scott's Totts. And they're like, oh, dinner Party is
Speaker 1: my favorite, and I'm like, hold on, how is that one? Okay? Theory, Okay,
Speaker 1: well you go ahead. My theory is that Dinner Party
Speaker 1: you're watching him destroy his life, and then in Scott
Speaker 1: Stots you're watching him destroy other people's lives. Okay. What
Speaker 1: they say is that basically in Dinner Party, he's making
Speaker 1: characters go through uncomfortable, cringing moments, but we know them
Speaker 1: and we know their relationship to Michael, whereas now there's
Speaker 1: like other people show out to the world thinking a
Speaker 1: show to the world. We don't have any connection. We
Speaker 1: just know it's horrible and oh gosh, so good. I
Speaker 1: woul't see it, Scott stots in a little bit. It
Speaker 1: is so uncomfortable. It is, it really is. And that
Speaker 1: came from your brain, which makes it even weirder. But
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that in a minute. Um all right,
Speaker 1: So you what were you doing before you join the
Speaker 1: writing staff of the office. I was an assistant to
Speaker 1: directors and you know, writer's assistant, and then was a nanny.
Speaker 1: You were writing together. Though we were writing together, we
Speaker 1: sold some ideas to Larry David for Curb and then
Speaker 1: we came up with a pilot idea that was about
Speaker 1: two codependent roommates with unisex names and it was about
Speaker 1: me and Jean, and then we decided to make it magicians, okay,
Speaker 1: and then we and then we changed the names to
Speaker 1: Lonnie and Gordo. Lonnie for League, Gordo for Gene. Are
Speaker 1: you following? And then uh, and then that's what Greg red.
Speaker 1: That's how we got hired on the office. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you submitted this spec pilot script that you wrote, Well,
Speaker 1: we sold it to Fox. The pilot was the first
Speaker 1: thing we'd ever sold. We sold to Fox, and then
Speaker 1: it was like this crazy thing. Like the people who
Speaker 1: liked it were Greg Daniels and Harold Ramos. Those are
Speaker 1: the only two. I mean, I think other people liked
Speaker 1: it fine, but like for years it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: like Jean was Harold Ramos is nanny. I'm not Harold's nanny,
Speaker 1: but his kids nanny. He wasn't taking care of Harold,
Speaker 1: he wasn't taking care of ral okay. And so when
Speaker 1: you were brought on for a meeting with Greg Daniels,
Speaker 1: did you know, Well, first of all, did you know
Speaker 1: the British Office? Yeah, we knew the British Office. And
Speaker 1: they've been six episodes of the American Office, And had
Speaker 1: you watched that? Oh yeah, we're obsessed. We were big
Speaker 1: fans of the We got the British Office really early
Speaker 1: because I was working for a guy who had gotten Remember,
Speaker 1: like the DVD kind of got like passed around, so
Speaker 1: we watched it. We like couldn't believe that it existed,
Speaker 1: and it was just insane. And then when they announced
Speaker 1: the American version. My friend was Kevin Riley's assistant, so
Speaker 1: we got to see the American version early and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: these poor fuckers, and then we saw it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's really good. We were really into it. And then
Speaker 1: and again we were like g made eight thousand dollars
Speaker 1: the year before he was on the office, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't that far ahead of him, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: now of a sudden, we're sitting now with Greg Daniels.
Speaker 1: Was incredible. Yeah, and how did that meeting go? He
Speaker 1: had read your the script that you sold. He read
Speaker 1: the script and people warned us that Greg would do
Speaker 1: long meetings. We're like, okay, and Greg was very serious.
Speaker 1: He took a lot of pauses, and my instinct, out
Speaker 1: of like a desperate need to be liked and like
Speaker 1: fit in is like, oh, you fill in the pauses
Speaker 1: and you kind of like make jokes and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And I was like, he's obviously very funny.
Speaker 1: He's not demonstrating any he's not near funny right now,
Speaker 1: but he's obviously very funny person and he's not trying
Speaker 1: to make us laugh, and he must think that we're
Speaker 1: funny because we're here. So I was just like I
Speaker 1: went against every instinct of my that I had, and
Speaker 1: I just was quiet and just waited for his next question,
Speaker 1: and then at one point Jean said, he said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, Harold's taught us so much. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what has Harold taught us? We like smoke weed with
Speaker 1: him and he hasn't taught us anything. I love him,
Speaker 1: but he does anything. And Greg was like, what does
Speaker 1: he taught you? I was like, fun, fun, fun, fun,
Speaker 1: And then I was like, um, Harold always says to
Speaker 1: write from theme, which, by the way, Jean and I
Speaker 1: don't do. It was just the only thing that I
Speaker 1: could ever think that Harold had said. And Greg got
Speaker 1: really excited and flipped through his like UNI bomb or
Speaker 1: notebook and he held up this page on the top
Speaker 1: of the page. It's that theme is important in like
Speaker 1: block letters. And I was like, I think that was good.
Speaker 1: I think that was good. And then we met with
Speaker 1: him for two and a half hours and then our
Speaker 1: agent was like, don't read anything into that. Right has
Speaker 1: really long meetings. I was like, who the fox, It's
Speaker 1: down with people for two and a half hours and
Speaker 1: doesn't hire them. And then we got a call and
Speaker 1: just it was like crazy and we had turned down.
Speaker 1: We turned on other jobs to get the Office, and
Speaker 1: the Office was six episodes and the others were for
Speaker 1: twenty two and we were just like, let's work on
Speaker 1: something good and we had no I mean, that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense now, but at the time, we
Speaker 1: just needed money, right. I had a friend tell me
Speaker 1: as I was in Guest star Land essentially the first
Speaker 1: twelve and my friend was like, you have got to
Speaker 1: get out of there, like you cannot keep doing this,
Speaker 1: You've got it, And I was like, no, I think
Speaker 1: this is this is good. And I I've been talking
Speaker 1: a lot with people who, you know, like what was
Speaker 1: the special sauce or like what made it so special?
Speaker 1: And to me, your story fits in perfectly. The actors,
Speaker 1: Ben Greg, everybody in some way was an underdog, and
Speaker 1: everybody was just really focused on doing good work. And
Speaker 1: nobody knew any better. I mean, we've never been in
Speaker 1: the writer's room before, so we didn't know anything. And
Speaker 1: so in the writer's room, if you pitch a joke
Speaker 1: and people don't like it, they don't tell you they
Speaker 1: don't like it. It's just you're met with silence, and
Speaker 1: then you extrapolate the silence to me move on. But
Speaker 1: we didn't know that, so we thought that maybe like
Speaker 1: people couldn't hear and so like I remember Jane saying
Speaker 1: to Paul once like did you hear what I said?
Speaker 1: And that like stuff like that would happen a lot.
Speaker 1: And then I pitched. I I pitched something. And because
Speaker 1: you thought they were being rude, well I didn't. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just not the way that people interact with each other.
Speaker 1: You don't you acknowledge someone you said, like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that's right for me, But like if you did,
Speaker 1: you know, you're generating thousands of jokes a day. Like
Speaker 1: if you have every single joke and explain why it's
Speaker 1: not right, you would get anything done. That's funny, Lee,
Speaker 1: I don't think it works for this moment. No one
Speaker 1: does that. We keep going. It was just weird and
Speaker 1: we didn't know what we were doing. And then um,
Speaker 1: everyone go out to lunch together. They would all kind
Speaker 1: of like run to their cars and like five people
Speaker 1: pile into a car, and then Jeane and I would
Speaker 1: like get into like our camera. It just we felt
Speaker 1: like we were the new kids and we didn't fit in.
Speaker 1: And so I think our contract was like twenty weeks.
Speaker 1: It was ten weeks with an option for another ten
Speaker 1: weeks or something like that, and we were ten, We're
Speaker 1: getting close to the ten weeks, and we're we were nervous,
Speaker 1: but we also kind of felt like, no one's that
Speaker 1: nice to us. I think we're gonna get fired anyways,
Speaker 1: can we can we quit? And uh? And we called
Speaker 1: our agent and we said, uh. He's like, hey, so
Speaker 1: you're you're almost up. You know you're gonna you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna try getting you those other ten weeks. We said, well,
Speaker 1: what if we want to quit? They said, well, I
Speaker 1: understand where you're asking. And we said, well, like, you know,
Speaker 1: people aren't that nice to us, like we're fourth graders
Speaker 1: at the New School. And he was like, this is
Speaker 1: the stupidest question anyone's ever asked me. And he just
Speaker 1: was Mark Probozaro, who represented me and Bean and Mindy
Speaker 1: and e J. And he was like, the dumbest question
Speaker 1: I've ever been asked. And he hung up on us.
Speaker 1: And then we've stayed on the show for five more years.
Speaker 1: Were you close to being fired? Do you think? Or
Speaker 1: do you Was that just your perception because people didn't
Speaker 1: seem nice. I think that when you say people didn't
Speaker 1: seem nice, I really feel young. I think that the
Speaker 1: you know when you're acting and when you first started
Speaker 1: acting and you're like, the scene isn't about you, and
Speaker 1: you're like you want to go up to the director
Speaker 1: and be like, hey, did you like what I was doing?
Speaker 1: And you think the scenes about you even though no
Speaker 1: one cares about you because the scene isn't about you.
Speaker 1: That's the way I felt about the writer's room was
Speaker 1: I was like, they're scrutinizing us every moment and they weren't.
Speaker 1: Greg had thousand other things to worry about. Then the
Speaker 1: staff writers happiness or our contributions. We were we were contributing.
Speaker 1: But I think for us it was like Gina I
Speaker 1: would drive back and forth. We lived together, and we
Speaker 1: have like a forty five minute commute every day each way,
Speaker 1: and all we would do was just say like, hey,
Speaker 1: Paul laughed a little bit at that joke I said
Speaker 1: in the small room, did how did it go with
Speaker 1: Mike and Gen in the other room? Did bj acknowledge
Speaker 1: you today? I mean it was like we were parsing
Speaker 1: out the smallest little things. And then Greg got pneumonia
Speaker 1: season two while we were breaking the fight, so we
Speaker 1: had to outline the fight. Everyone else got to outline
Speaker 1: the episodes kind of more as a group, and for
Speaker 1: us it was like me and Jean and Paul and
Speaker 1: everyone else was off on script and then we had
Speaker 1: to go meet Greg at his house because he had
Speaker 1: walking pneumonia, and it was like, Oh, they're setting us
Speaker 1: up to fail. They gave us this episode that's like
Speaker 1: goofy and different from the rest of the show. There's
Speaker 1: like a fight in a dojo, like they don't want
Speaker 1: us to do well, and then when we handed a
Speaker 1: bad script, they'll fire us. This is what we were
Speaker 1: convinced of. I think we didn't. I think we didn't
Speaker 1: feel confident that we weren't going to be fired until
Speaker 1: three years in. I'm not kidding. Every single time, like
Speaker 1: when we wrote the Secret, we were like, they gave
Speaker 1: us a secret because there's not a lot of time,
Speaker 1: and then we won't deliver and then they'll fire us.
Speaker 1: That's how we went through the first few years where
Speaker 1: we liked everyone eventually, but we were terrified. It was
Speaker 1: like a culture of fear. It was just too insecure.
Speaker 1: Guys were just worried about yourself. We're terrified. Yeah, wow, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry to hear that. Thanks. I mean, it
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me. You're a bit neurotic, But but I've
Speaker 1: monetized the neuroses. That's all that matters. Why do you
Speaker 1: think that Greg hired you and Gene. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably some program that was That's what I think. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why they have to hire. Yeah, a certain percentage
Speaker 1: of yeah, Oh, it was charitable, okay. I think that
Speaker 1: he was just really good at spotting people that fit
Speaker 1: the tone that he was going for. And I think
Speaker 1: we wrote that pilot, and that pilot was about underdogs,
Speaker 1: and the jokes were very specific and unexpected, and before
Speaker 1: we even understood like how to make an act one,
Speaker 1: you know, like the way I would talk about Act
Speaker 1: one now. I couldn't have articulated it then, but like
Speaker 1: somehow we kind of knew enough, and I think there
Speaker 1: was enough promise there that I think he I think
Speaker 1: he took a chance. Also, we're inexpensive, and we were
Speaker 1: two people for the price of one. That's really why
Speaker 1: I thought it was. Yeah, I think that that's not
Speaker 1: an unreasonable things like both of them probably don't actually
Speaker 1: equal one great writer, but we get to yea, so
Speaker 1: we can at least move them around in different What
Speaker 1: was the office writer's room? Like, how is it different
Speaker 1: from other writer's rooms? I think that it was in
Speaker 1: some ways it was looser. It's like we it would
Speaker 1: take us a long time to focus. But it's like
Speaker 1: you're writing a show about an office. You're writing a
Speaker 1: show about coworkers, and we're working in an office and
Speaker 1: we're co workers. We just happened to be writing a
Speaker 1: show about the ing. So you know, we played Call
Speaker 1: of Duty a lot, and then we did an episode
Speaker 1: about Call of Duty or everything is fodder. I remember
Speaker 1: going into the editing bay one time, uh, and I
Speaker 1: was having a conversation with Dave Rogers and somebody kind
Speaker 1: of whizzed by the door and they were like, okay
Speaker 1: one minute, and someone else is like you ready, Dave,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what is going on? He goes It's
Speaker 1: Call of Duty time, And literally the screens from editing
Speaker 1: the show became Call of Duty, and you guys were
Speaker 1: everybody would run to their battle stations and start playing
Speaker 1: Call of Duty. No, so I think like it all
Speaker 1: turns into something, you know what I mean, Like when
Speaker 1: you're doing a show where it's just about people trying
Speaker 1: to make it through the day. Everything becomes up for grabs.
Speaker 1: So you come in and I would talk about my
Speaker 1: date from the night before, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that could be you know what I mean, like the
Speaker 1: problem with the writer's room. I mean the beauty of
Speaker 1: a writer's room and the trickiness of it is you
Speaker 1: don't know what you're doing from day to day, and
Speaker 1: as experienced as everyone is, it feels like you're starting
Speaker 1: over every single time because you want to do something
Speaker 1: that nobody else has done before. And if you're greg
Speaker 1: and you're excellent at it and you feel like you
Speaker 1: have all these great actors and writers and whatever, you
Speaker 1: just keep you just keep pushing, You just keep trying
Speaker 1: idea and idea and idea until you finally come up
Speaker 1: with hopefully the best one. But you're not. It's not
Speaker 1: like somebody says, like, what if you do an episode
Speaker 1: about a dinner party and everyone's like yes, and then
Speaker 1: you just start writing an episode of a dinner party,
Speaker 1: Like months or months are spent debating it. There's like
Speaker 1: there's probably amazing office outlines. There was something that um,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was already, but we were going
Speaker 1: to write. It was called the Premonition, and it was
Speaker 1: basically that Aaron is like, I don't want to say
Speaker 1: any thing, and everyone's like, what is it, And she's like,
Speaker 1: I had a dream last night that someone died on
Speaker 1: the way home from work, and she's like, the only
Speaker 1: reason I want to say it is because I predicted
Speaker 1: something else years ago and it did come true. And
Speaker 1: so then just like people didn't want to leave the
Speaker 1: people didn't want to leave work, and we outlined it,
Speaker 1: like g and I were in the office. I remember
Speaker 1: working on the Premonition and it was like there's a
Speaker 1: faction of people that were like it was a bullshit,
Speaker 1: a faction that didn't and Jim was on one side
Speaker 1: and Pant was on another. But we like for a
Speaker 1: day we worked on the Premonition. Their act breaks and
Speaker 1: somewhere there's notes on it on a long lost office
Speaker 1: episode and there's there's probably you know a dozen of those. Well,
Speaker 1: there there is an there is a script that was
Speaker 1: never produced. Pet Day was that before you? Pet Day
Speaker 1: was before me? I read pet Day. There's another script
Speaker 1: about like new higher, new higher. Yeah, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: like a new higher in the office. Oh, it feels
Speaker 1: like that is the name of an episode that actually
Speaker 1: got produced. Sounds like it sounds like we probably did
Speaker 1: New Higher four times. So that's why you exactly, Um,
Speaker 1: is there a moment that you remember just a great
Speaker 1: joke that got lost? Justin Spitzer Road a talking head
Speaker 1: where Dwight explains what happens when you fart is that
Speaker 1: a million tiny ship particles explode at once, but you
Speaker 1: can't see any of that. They're invisible to the eye.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, this is incredible, because what
Speaker 1: a weird, specific Dwight thing to talk about. And I
Speaker 1: have no idea what happened to it. I don't know
Speaker 1: what episode it was for that might have been NBC, right,
Speaker 1: just being like, no, if you said ship, yeah it was.
Speaker 1: That was crazy. There's a thing in Dinner Party that
Speaker 1: I think must be in the extras where Pam's trying
Speaker 1: to eat because the dinner is so late, and she
Speaker 1: sticks upstairs with Jim and she has a protein bar
Speaker 1: and she starts seeing the protein bar and we basically
Speaker 1: had jan like a horror movie. She just shows up.
Speaker 1: She just appears and she's like, really, Pam at a
Speaker 1: dinner party just like so disappointed and Jim. It was
Speaker 1: the beginning of Jim selling out Pam and he's like, Jan,
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with this, and she, you know,
Speaker 1: and then Pam's mad at Jim. And but that was
Speaker 1: that was very funny based on your recollection, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: episode came in that was changed the least? Was there
Speaker 1: an episode that you remember that it was just like
Speaker 1: it was handed in and it was okay, No, we're
Speaker 1: good with that. I mean, I don't want to I mean,
Speaker 1: Dinner Party is like that. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the work that the writers did on
Speaker 1: it in a way kind of happened before. But I
Speaker 1: think we did a really good job with it. The
Speaker 1: big big change in the original draft of Dinner Party,
Speaker 1: Jan intentionally drove over her neighbor's dog. She killed the
Speaker 1: neighbor's dog, and she claimed it was an accident, but
Speaker 1: you knew it wasn't. And then we changed it where
Speaker 1: she wrote funk on the neighbor's dog and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was a change. But I think Dinner Party
Speaker 1: probably like changed like five and so there. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's a double edged sword where if you write a
Speaker 1: very good first draft, sometimes it's like, oh, thank God,
Speaker 1: and then the room kind of works on it for
Speaker 1: a day. And if you write a terrible draft, the
Speaker 1: room was forced to work on it for a week.
Speaker 1: And then now all of a sudden you have this
Speaker 1: like collective rewriting a script from scratch, and sometimes those
Speaker 1: become the best episodes, whereas like we did Michael's Birthday,
Speaker 1: which I think is a good episode but not one
Speaker 1: of my favorites, and we handed a draft that I
Speaker 1: think was like a A B and I think the
Speaker 1: episodes of B plus. And so if you're handed a
Speaker 1: B script, it might go to A B plus And
Speaker 1: if you hand in if you hand in a C,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna shoot a C script. So now everyone
Speaker 1: has to work really hard and you work really late,
Speaker 1: and that might become an A minus or in a
Speaker 1: you know, that's fascinating. Yeah. Um, how much communication did
Speaker 1: you have, if at all, with actors about stories. I mean,
Speaker 1: every so often Jenna would come up to the writer's
Speaker 1: room and say, hey, I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: want to do like there was never never felt I've
Speaker 1: worked on shows where it feels like the actors are
Speaker 1: kind of it's a little bit more of an edict or.
Speaker 1: It's like we've got to indulge them. And with the office,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit more of Steve would say
Speaker 1: to Greg or you know, or we'd be on set
Speaker 1: one day and say like, oh, this thing happened. You know,
Speaker 1: I was at my hockey league and such and such happened,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, okay, great, and then you would
Speaker 1: kind of take it the thing we'd always talked about.
Speaker 1: It was also because there were writers that were actors
Speaker 1: that were in the writer's room. The coolest thing that
Speaker 1: an actor could ever do is if, like Steve would
Speaker 1: pitch like a Jim and Pam story, He's that's why
Speaker 1: he's like the all time great Number one on the
Speaker 1: call sheet. Is like he just wanted the show to
Speaker 1: be great. It wasn't about him, it was about the show.
Speaker 1: We always talked about that. That's amazing. How do you
Speaker 1: think the writer's room specifically was impacted by the fact
Speaker 1: that a number of the writers were actors on the show.
Speaker 1: I think that it all just felt the lines were blurred,
Speaker 1: I guess kind of in a good way, Like the
Speaker 1: fact that you guys were kind of stuck in that bullpen.
Speaker 1: You just kind of were interacting with everyone so much
Speaker 1: more than I think on an average show. Like on
Speaker 1: a normal show, it might be that Kevin's character would
Speaker 1: be in two days of work, which maybe would have
Speaker 1: been nice for you, you'd be a better golfer. But
Speaker 1: but like from the perspective of like interacting with everyone,
Speaker 1: we became friends from the show, and there's just other
Speaker 1: people that just kind of felt that connection with and
Speaker 1: I think b J and Mindy and Paul were also
Speaker 1: to say like, hey, it feels like we haven't done
Speaker 1: something like this. And the one thing that sucked about
Speaker 1: it was they're all credible writers and then they'd be
Speaker 1: on the background of scenes and you wouldn't have them.
Speaker 1: You know, something that a lot of people probably don't
Speaker 1: realize was it wasn't an accident that Ryan and Kelly
Speaker 1: and Toby were back in the annex, so they didn't
Speaker 1: have to be there all the time. They were able
Speaker 1: to do sort of there I guess main job as
Speaker 1: writers and be up with you guys while we were
Speaker 1: down below. So you talked about showing up every day,
Speaker 1: and it's feeling like it started over you launched it.
Speaker 1: What was your typical day like as you were um
Speaker 1: breaking stories? How did that work? How was the structure
Speaker 1: of your day? So a writer's room is so tricky,
Speaker 1: and the office of the same way is there's so
Speaker 1: many things happening at once. So theoretically, there's an episode
Speaker 1: being shot, then there's a new episode that there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a table read in five days or four days.
Speaker 1: You're probably doing a rewrite for the table read. Then
Speaker 1: there's editing happening of an episode or two episodes that
Speaker 1: were shot two weeks earlier, and then you need to
Speaker 1: get the next episode because there's a table read the
Speaker 1: following week, or maybe there's a maybe an episode changed,
Speaker 1: or you realize that this thing worked really well in editing,
Speaker 1: so you're like, you know what, let's really carry that through. Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna arc out Dwight and Angela because Dwight angel
Speaker 1: is playing so well. I know we've broken that episode already.
Speaker 1: We need a new b story because Dwight and angel
Speaker 1: is the thing that people are digging right Well, you
Speaker 1: just brought up something. It felt like the writers on
Speaker 1: the office were really keeping their pulse on what people
Speaker 1: were talking about online, what the fans or online forums.
Speaker 1: At the time, or it was so new, like it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, there was office tally And I always
Speaker 1: felt like, if these forty people that are commenting on
Speaker 1: this office tally thing, if they only knew that as
Speaker 1: soon as the episode dropped, that the entire writing staff
Speaker 1: of the office was just crowded around a computer refreshing
Speaker 1: like crazy to see if they liked the b story,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It was like they had
Speaker 1: so much power. I mean, you you have to take
Speaker 1: some of that stuff in stride and know that it's
Speaker 1: not your entire audience and that the show is being
Speaker 1: watched by millions of people. That these I literally think
Speaker 1: it was probably forty that they are that they are
Speaker 1: just they're rabid, but you're aware of it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? And you but I never I never
Speaker 1: felt like we were running towards that stuff. I always
Speaker 1: felt I always felt like the writer's room kind of
Speaker 1: had its own pulse and it's like this was making
Speaker 1: us laugh a lot, and so that's kind of what
Speaker 1: we were chasing. And I think also when you look
Speaker 1: back and you watch it, it feels like some of
Speaker 1: the choices are so confident and so like inevitable, but
Speaker 1: that inevitability. To make it feel like that takes months
Speaker 1: and months and months of like you go down all
Speaker 1: these different avenues and so when you finally make the
Speaker 1: choice and it goes through multiple rewrites and then you
Speaker 1: have these actors do it, and you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: everything comes together, it feels like, oh, that was the
Speaker 1: exact right choice. But like we debated Jim and Pam
Speaker 1: in Casino Night for weeks and weeks and weeks. There
Speaker 1: were multiple, you know, drafts of it and different versions
Speaker 1: of it and what does he say and what doesn't
Speaker 1: he say? And what does she you know, and and
Speaker 1: whatever choice we made or whatever choice Gregg made at
Speaker 1: the time, that sets off what the next season is,
Speaker 1: you know. And so it's not as simple as like, oh,
Speaker 1: we know we're leading to a kiss or we know
Speaker 1: we're leading to a slap. It's like you're trying every
Speaker 1: you're going on every path. Right. Something that is interesting
Speaker 1: to me was that when people were watching an episode
Speaker 1: of the Office, they were watching it sort of at
Speaker 1: the same time that it was happening, right, So, like
Speaker 1: all networks do this when it's Christmas, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: a Christmas episode, right, But Greg sort of took that
Speaker 1: further and to extrapolate that out that if the cameras
Speaker 1: weren't there, we weren't airing episodes. That means that we
Speaker 1: don't get to see that action that happened, and having
Speaker 1: the audience have to work to figure out what happened
Speaker 1: brought a really great active dynamic to the watching. No. Look,
Speaker 1: I think it makes people lean in when you do
Speaker 1: stuff like that because they have to catch up. I
Speaker 1: feel like the Sopranos would do that a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's cool storytelling. And I think that, uh, having
Speaker 1: a show where the love story was so compelling and
Speaker 1: then having a show where the comedy was really high,
Speaker 1: that's rare, you know, And I think that usually get
Speaker 1: one without the other. And I think the fact that
Speaker 1: so many people would watch the show, and some people
Speaker 1: would watch it for both of those reasons. And some
Speaker 1: people are like obsessed with Jim and Pam, and then
Speaker 1: there's twelve year old boys that don't care about Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam at all and are just like Dwit's crazy.
Speaker 1: And I like the way that Kevin talks, you know,
Speaker 1: was there a favorite kind of story that was your
Speaker 1: favorite kind of write for for the show. You know,
Speaker 1: I think different writers had different ways of approaching the show,
Speaker 1: and I think that Gene and I really liked the
Speaker 1: cringe comedy of the British one. That's a comedy engine
Speaker 1: that we really dug and trying to make it as
Speaker 1: grounded as possible, but also just like sitting in the
Speaker 1: moments for a really long time as a character just
Speaker 1: says the wrong thing and then just you can't get
Speaker 1: out of it. The other one that we wrote and
Speaker 1: we directed was The Lover, which is a real brutal
Speaker 1: half hour, which is just you know, Jimmy, I mean,
Speaker 1: Pam and Michael, and it's like Pam finding out that
Speaker 1: Michael is dating her mom is like just too much
Speaker 1: for her to take and it just I mean, it's
Speaker 1: that to me is some of Jenna's greatest perform and
Speaker 1: John is amazing in that episode. I mean, it's just great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I watched the one on a plane. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: I was with Jeene years after the office and I
Speaker 1: was just laughing the entire time, and she was like,
Speaker 1: you're just watching, like you were like, what is this
Speaker 1: guy watching? And then it was our thing. I was
Speaker 1: tickled with our words. You you wrote it. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: maybe this is too like weird and esoteric, but it's
Speaker 1: interesting when you start really looking at specific episodes, my
Speaker 1: guess is it wasn't all right, guys, we need something
Speaker 1: really cringe e here, right, But it's more like the
Speaker 1: way that you write it, the way that you approach it,
Speaker 1: it just sort of becomes that that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: You start to see your own personalities within it, even
Speaker 1: though it is a collaborative process. Yeah, I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what was so great about the show. And again,
Speaker 1: I think that it wasn't that me or Gene was
Speaker 1: only capable of writing jokes where the audience want to
Speaker 1: cover their eyes, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that Mike sure only wrote jokes that were
Speaker 1: like this, But I do think that everyone's kind of
Speaker 1: coming at it from a different place, and I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that Mike kind of saw the
Speaker 1: best in them, and so a lot of Mike's episodes
Speaker 1: like kind of almost added an optimism to that, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is great. And like, Mike's one of the greatest
Speaker 1: comedy writers I've ever worked with. He's amazing. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying one's bad or one's good. I'm just saying that.
Speaker 1: I think everyone kind of just took the same idea
Speaker 1: and maybe puts their own little spin on it. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of times it goes into a room
Speaker 1: and things get rewritten and reached, and like, we didn't
Speaker 1: come up with Scott's thoughts. I think Paul did, but
Speaker 1: we we have a large hand and what that final
Speaker 1: version is and dinner Party was not our idea. God
Speaker 1: bless you, Oh my god, God, I was trying to
Speaker 1: hold that in because you were sounding so good. Should
Speaker 1: I come back tomorrow? No? No, But so anyway, so
Speaker 1: I think like Dinner Party, there were a million jokes
Speaker 1: at the room generated and then Gene and I went
Speaker 1: off and added tons and tons of our own stuff,
Speaker 1: took things from the room, didn't take things from the room,
Speaker 1: put spins on it. We spent usually you get a week,
Speaker 1: you know, some episodes three or four days. We spent
Speaker 1: three weeks on Dinner Party. And so like we were
Speaker 1: just determined to make that great. We just loved it,
Speaker 1: and we were competitive and petty. We just we you know,
Speaker 1: we want to hit it out of the park, and
Speaker 1: so we just spent way more time on it than
Speaker 1: we would have usually how much were you thinking about
Speaker 1: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf when you were writing it?
Speaker 1: That was always the template for it, But I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, from that it was just like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: just bring this cast of characters, and also like who
Speaker 1: would Michael bring to the dinner party? And you know,
Speaker 1: how do you kind of keep ratching it up in
Speaker 1: in one location that episode unfolds in a way where
Speaker 1: you feel like something bad is going to happen, even
Speaker 1: when bad things aren't happening. Just it feels uncomfortable. You
Speaker 1: just you just know that it's not great. But Michael
Speaker 1: presents very well, like Steve is so handsome, Laura's beautiful,
Speaker 1: they look good, the condos like well decorated. And then
Speaker 1: it just slowly, slowly, slowly, you start seeing these little
Speaker 1: things well and just the time things take it adds
Speaker 1: to what you're taught. You're like, you just it's that,
Speaker 1: oh man, the shark is about to bite the ladies
Speaker 1: leg right. There's certain episodes, and comedy in general usually
Speaker 1: has a real pace to it. It's like you get
Speaker 1: to the jokes and the office existed in the in
Speaker 1: the reaction shots like John is a brilliant reactor, and
Speaker 1: that's why Jim gets tons of laughs and why he's
Speaker 1: the audience surrogate. But it's not like writing jokes for
Speaker 1: him was not the easiest part of the show in
Speaker 1: the way that writing for Dwight or writing for Michael is,
Speaker 1: because those characters are more inherently comic, but you can
Speaker 1: still get the laugh on the reaction you thought of
Speaker 1: Jim as a surrogate for the show, Well, did you
Speaker 1: think you were this errogate for the show? I didn't.
Speaker 1: You just looked at me. No, I don't think I
Speaker 1: think that whenever. Yeah, I think he was the everyman.
Speaker 1: He had the crush on the girl. So I feel like,
Speaker 1: at least as a guy, related to him the most.
Speaker 1: And I think John has kind of every man quality.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a little bit of like Lloyd Dobbler
Speaker 1: and say Anything or something like that. And when he
Speaker 1: looks to the camera when someone saying when Michael saying
Speaker 1: saying inappropriate, you felt like, yes, this is me. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's great. I mean, so you're film I have
Speaker 1: an anecdote. Okay, go ahead, we want an anecdote. I
Speaker 1: want an anecdote. I love anecdotes. So we wrote Dinner Party.
Speaker 1: I just thought of this when. So we wrote Dinner
Speaker 1: Party and we were proud of it. And I can't
Speaker 1: know if this is before after the right Track. I
Speaker 1: think it was before. And Greg pulled us into his
Speaker 1: office because we were getting notes from the network and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, so we read the scripts very funny,
Speaker 1: and Gregg said thank you, and they said it's it's
Speaker 1: really dark. And Greg goes yeah, and they you know,
Speaker 1: just the thing about it is it's it's really dark.
Speaker 1: And goes yeah, and they go just it's it's really dark.
Speaker 1: He goes yeah, and then he says is there anything
Speaker 1: else and they go no, but he goes, okay, great,
Speaker 1: thanks guys by and hung up and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that was fucking cool because it was just they were
Speaker 1: basically saying to Greg like, we can't shoot it like this.
Speaker 1: This is way too dark and depressing. And he was
Speaker 1: very polite. He said about three words and then that
Speaker 1: was it. And then I mean, Greg had so much
Speaker 1: power at that point with them, and the show was
Speaker 1: successful enough, and I don't think if that was the
Speaker 1: pile of the show that it would have would have passed,
Speaker 1: but at that moment that was it. And then we
Speaker 1: and then we didn't change this. I mean we changed
Speaker 1: things out of necessity, but we didn't change anything based
Speaker 1: on the network's notes. I always think about that though.
Speaker 1: So he just felt like such a gangster. And if
Speaker 1: you know, he's not a gangster. No, not at all,
Speaker 1: not at all, but it was a very gangster move
Speaker 1: and it was just really he had earned, he had
Speaker 1: earned the right to do that. He was he was
Speaker 1: totally polite about it, but he just he also backed
Speaker 1: us up. That's amazing. He backed up a lot of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you only know what you know. I've only
Speaker 1: worked on one show that wasn't mine. It was The Office.
Speaker 1: So the only frame of reference that I have for
Speaker 1: running a show is Greg. So the way that I
Speaker 1: try to run a show is like Greg and you
Speaker 1: empower writers and you like is solicit advice from everyone.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Greg has really strong opinions. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the show was done by committee. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't give you those responsibilities up
Speaker 1: top um. You and Jane wrote the episode that is
Speaker 1: considered the most difficult to watch in the Office, which
Speaker 1: is Scott's Todds. Are you proud of that? Incredibly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing makes me happier. I mean other things make me happier,
Speaker 1: but no one wants to watch it. You're really pleased
Speaker 1: about that? Well, I think that it's the comic premise
Speaker 1: is so strong, and then it's like, what can you
Speaker 1: do just to like keep turning the screw and just
Speaker 1: make it feel worse and worse, like when they start dancing.
Speaker 1: Michael just sitting there and he also loves performance and
Speaker 1: he loves Dan, but he also knows that like he
Speaker 1: can't get out of this. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: it was incredible. There's something else that she and I
Speaker 1: talked about a lot in our writing, which is we
Speaker 1: love jokes where you get an insight into the world,
Speaker 1: like that you're creating canon for the show that you
Speaker 1: actually don't see on camera. So the end of that episode,
Speaker 1: the kind of book ending of Scott's Taughts is Michael
Speaker 1: doesn't like Aaron. He misses Pamas as assistant and they're
Speaker 1: driving back and he says, you know, you're really good
Speaker 1: at your job or whatever. He says, I have an
Speaker 1: instinct about people. I don't if you remember this, and
Speaker 1: he says, Kevin, when he first came in, he was
Speaker 1: actually applying for a job in the warehouse, and that
Speaker 1: I made him an accountant, and it's just like, you
Speaker 1: are a terrible, terrible boss. And he's kind of saying
Speaker 1: in his way where it's like I I see people,
Speaker 1: I can kind of tap in, and it's like the
Speaker 1: idea that like, Kevin came in for a different job
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know what, I'm gonna pluck
Speaker 1: you out of the you know, the the warehouse. I
Speaker 1: see You're good with numbers, aren't you. And then then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Kevin is as happens accounting, Like,
Speaker 1: we love moments like that where it just it's just
Speaker 1: like for the audience of the you know, the fans
Speaker 1: that watch every episode, it's like, so in the backstory
Speaker 1: of these two guys, there was an interview where he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, what do you stick up here with
Speaker 1: the Oh that's so good. While you were writing, you
Speaker 1: mentioned it before there was a writer strike. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was your relationship to it? Were you in support of
Speaker 1: it or how difficult was it? Well, so we had
Speaker 1: written Dinner Party, we did the table read of it,
Speaker 1: and I mean, gine I talked about it to this day.
Speaker 1: The opening of Dinner Party is is good, it's not great.
Speaker 1: It's basically that Michael tells everyone they have to stay
Speaker 1: at work late, and they've clearly created this thing so
Speaker 1: that Jimmy Pan will have to come to his house
Speaker 1: for dinner party. And so the cold opens pretty funny.
Speaker 1: And so we're doing the table read and it's just
Speaker 1: like it's a good table where it's not a great
Speaker 1: table where it's good. Then you get to the apartment
Speaker 1: and you start feeling something like it became explosive and
Speaker 1: like people are looking at each other and it was
Speaker 1: like it was electric in a way that I can't
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it now and like it makes me
Speaker 1: emotional about being swept through his shirt, and it was
Speaker 1: just like it was the greatest moment of our career.
Speaker 1: And then there was this writer's strike and the studios
Speaker 1: have billions of dollars and they're always trying to roll
Speaker 1: back these things, and it can come down to health
Speaker 1: insurance and it can come down to residuals and the
Speaker 1: way that writers are getting paid and things were changing,
Speaker 1: and it's like that's all the backstory for it. But
Speaker 1: as a writer, we're there and they started shooting dinner
Speaker 1: Party without us, and the actors didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: And we're picketing with the other writers outside of the
Speaker 1: place that we work, that we spent, We spent all
Speaker 1: our time. You guys are all our friends. We're friends
Speaker 1: with the crew. The crews walking past us, some of
Speaker 1: them are kind of looking at us like fuck you
Speaker 1: because they can't afford you know, the writers are among
Speaker 1: the highest paid people. And all of a sudden someone's
Speaker 1: gonna not work for three months because we're complaining about
Speaker 1: our DVD residuals and is the show going to come back?
Speaker 1: What's gonna what's gonna happen? And we're literally picketing outside
Speaker 1: of the place where we work. It's a really, really
Speaker 1: weird thing. And so then it was like, is this
Speaker 1: episode that we wrote that we're so proud of, is
Speaker 1: it not going to happen? And then and then we
Speaker 1: ended up shooting it and we and we got it
Speaker 1: different director and Paul Fiege ended up directing it. He
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna directed initially, and it became what it became.
Speaker 1: But it's a really complicated thing where on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's like the writers look like assholes because they're striking,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, they're striking against the studio, so
Speaker 1: it's all it's all people that make hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars, who control billions of dollars, and it's like
Speaker 1: they're crying poverty. And then the writers, who some writers
Speaker 1: make a ton of money and some writers don't. They're
Speaker 1: crying poverty and saying, we want what's fair, you know,
Speaker 1: in the studios are saying we're we're trying to do
Speaker 1: what's fair. Every day there's negotiations. I mean, it's really confusing,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to say what the gains are
Speaker 1: for all these things. Sometimes, do you remember what the
Speaker 1: context was of us stopping production? Oh, well, there were
Speaker 1: no writers on set, and so then what happened? I
Speaker 1: think Steve Steve was in the Writer's Guild and then
Speaker 1: Steve started striking, and I think when Steve said he
Speaker 1: wouldn't act, then I think it kind of became okay,
Speaker 1: well Steve's not going to do it. Then John and
Speaker 1: Jenna wouldn't do it, then, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and everyone just kind of stopped and there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to do. If Steve didn't act, you could shoot some
Speaker 1: talking heads, but you couldn't go to the condo, and
Speaker 1: so then it just went away. Right, Um, talk about
Speaker 1: your transition to directing, how was that for you? I mean,
Speaker 1: having a new relationship with these people you've known for
Speaker 1: so long, right, right? Yeah, I mean we did. The
Speaker 1: first thing we did is we did webisodes and Greg
Speaker 1: kind of said like, if you do these and do
Speaker 1: a good job with them, then we'll give you the shot.
Speaker 1: And and you're just kind of you're just approaching a
Speaker 1: little bit differently, like you're really thinking about composition and
Speaker 1: how you're telling jokes. Visually, you're talking to the actors
Speaker 1: in a different way. And I think when you're a
Speaker 1: writer producer on the show, you say something to the
Speaker 1: director and then directors deciding how to convey that to
Speaker 1: the actor. And as the show went on, like you know,
Speaker 1: the shorthand between you and me or whoever changed, and
Speaker 1: the directors were usually the ones are kind of coming in,
Speaker 1: but the director still had like, Okay, I need to
Speaker 1: pull off this shot. I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: I get this, that we go tight here. And so
Speaker 1: they have an agenda and that agenda does include my notes,
Speaker 1: but like they also have their agenda, and as a director,
Speaker 1: it's like it's just mine and genes and so it's
Speaker 1: like you could kind of cut through it a little
Speaker 1: bit more. But it's fun I mean, and it's scary
Speaker 1: and you're like, we're like, you can't. The only person
Speaker 1: you can blame is yourself. That's exactly what I was
Speaker 1: going to say, because I you know, I directed as well,
Speaker 1: and I remember the feeling of like it's just me
Speaker 1: deciding when we've we've shot enough, and then it's good
Speaker 1: enough and the camera's off, it's like, well, what wait
Speaker 1: a minute, what about no? But at every other time
Speaker 1: there's like there's endless possibility right and kind of right
Speaker 1: forever kind of or you can edit indefinitely. But shooting
Speaker 1: is just kind of like this is what we got.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know why Brian's not funny in this scene.
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny on the page, Like what
Speaker 1: are we doing wrong to not? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And you just and you have to think on the fly,
Speaker 1: and that's scary. I remember also when we first started
Speaker 1: writing on the show and the script was finished and
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, all right, so we're gonna shoot this,
Speaker 1: and there was no fanfare. It was just like, okay.
Speaker 1: The scripts done from the writer's room, and I was
Speaker 1: always like, it can't be our script that you're just
Speaker 1: doesn't Greg, like take it for a week and make
Speaker 1: it good, Like what do you mean like that we
Speaker 1: wrote something that now is going to be shot in
Speaker 1: air because we've never done it before. It just seemed
Speaker 1: like absurd. It felt like, well, we're the professionals that
Speaker 1: are going to fix it, and then it becomes very
Speaker 1: scary when you realize that you're the professional. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the writers were actors, but none as famous.
Speaker 1: You're you. You were an actor on the show as well.
Speaker 1: I was what was your character's name because an actor
Speaker 1: near the show? Well, you were a delivery guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we worked advance refrigeration. Gine and I obviously had to
Speaker 1: do everything together on the show, and so we were
Speaker 1: Leon Gino. But we thought it would be funny. I
Speaker 1: think it was my idea. It was a terrible idea
Speaker 1: that I'd be Gino and that Gene would be Leo,
Speaker 1: and so it was incredibly confusing, and I remember me
Speaker 1: Laura hardened, having no idea. She knew that she knew
Speaker 1: that we were named Lee and Jean, but couldn't for
Speaker 1: the life of her no which one was which, And
Speaker 1: Jeane kept saying that he was gonna walk past mclaura
Speaker 1: and say, hey, Jean, are you ready? Are you ready
Speaker 1: to go to the writer's room, so that she would
Speaker 1: never know, and then occasionally he would say, Lee, that
Speaker 1: was the thing that we did. Oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we were in Um. If you talk about cutting
Speaker 1: room floor, no characters in the history of the Office
Speaker 1: were more consistently on the cutting room floor than Leo
Speaker 1: and Gino. How many episodes did Leo and Gino do?
Speaker 1: I think I was in five? I sold Michael Weed Ginea.
Speaker 1: I saw Michael Weed in whatever that one's called. We're like, Sama,
Speaker 1: I can know. Um. Then we're in Cafe Disco. We
Speaker 1: dance in Cafe Disco. I had a real made of
Speaker 1: my acting I really needed. I spoke at my college
Speaker 1: and I basically I said, like, my passion is acting,
Speaker 1: and then I write just so I have I can perform,
Speaker 1: which is not at all true. So I cut together
Speaker 1: like my two minute real and it has me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've acted opposite Jack Black, I've acted opposite Cameron Diaz
Speaker 1: and Steve Carrell and then obviously you and me. You
Speaker 1: And why did I get mentioned after those three? Um?
Speaker 1: I was doing a reverse alphabetical order. Okay, And no
Speaker 1: that's not true because Jack black Ship he has Correll
Speaker 1: Bomb Gardner. That's very good, almost like on my feet.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, it's about two minutes long. I can
Speaker 1: only remember about three lines at once, so I can
Speaker 1: never do more than that. Yeah. Um, how do you
Speaker 1: think the Office has influenced who you are now as
Speaker 1: a writer? Again, it's just like that's all I know.
Speaker 1: It's possible that another you know, had I worked on
Speaker 1: Jake in Progress starring John Stamos. I was on that show.
Speaker 1: By the way, we would have we would have met
Speaker 1: under different circumstances. We have known each other for a day. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you just pulled Jake in Progress out
Speaker 1: of your head. Well, well, the reason I say I'm
Speaker 1: true when Jane and I got hired on the Office,
Speaker 1: no one had any interest in us for years, and
Speaker 1: we got an offer on the Office, We got an
Speaker 1: offer on Jake in Progress, and we got an offer
Speaker 1: on American Daday, American Dad was twenty two episodes. Jake
Speaker 1: in Progress I think was thirteen or maybe it was
Speaker 1: twenty two, and the Office was six was seven backup scripts,
Speaker 1: and we chose the Office, and then we ended up
Speaker 1: writing the first of the backup scripts. So there was
Speaker 1: a version where they would have shot six episodes and
Speaker 1: then the fight was going to be the seventh one shot,
Speaker 1: and if they didn't decide to pick up the seven
Speaker 1: backup scripts and tournament the episodes, then we would just
Speaker 1: would have had like an office spec. Wow, yeah, crazy, No.
Speaker 1: But I think like every writer or every show runner
Speaker 1: has their like their ways of like there's this number
Speaker 1: of scenes in an act, and what every scene needs
Speaker 1: to accomplish these three things. And I think the things
Speaker 1: that I think of when I think of greg Or
Speaker 1: like comedy engines, and like what makes a character inherently funny?
Speaker 1: And so I what does Michael Scott like at a funeral?
Speaker 1: What does Michael Scott like at a wedding? What does
Speaker 1: Michael Scott like at a supermarket? Or Dwight or Kevin?
Speaker 1: And you think about these characters and clear clear comedy engines,
Speaker 1: and when you like you can say what Dwight would
Speaker 1: be like at the supermarket, it's like, because he's a
Speaker 1: fully formed character. And when you start writing your own
Speaker 1: ship and you are like, what is Edward do at
Speaker 1: the supermarket? You're like, well, he buys the groceries and
Speaker 1: maybe he argues, and you're like, why does he argue?
Speaker 1: Is he loud? You know what I mean? Like you
Speaker 1: start questioning these things, and that's how a character becomes
Speaker 1: a character and not someone who just delivers lines, because
Speaker 1: Edward is the cop that needs to solve the murder,
Speaker 1: you know, any um. And then the other thing you
Speaker 1: used to do is strange pairings, so always thought was
Speaker 1: so fun. So we have all the characters up on
Speaker 1: a board and be like, what's a Kevin Creed story?
Speaker 1: What's an Oscar Michael story? And some of those were
Speaker 1: great stories that just never went in. But like that's
Speaker 1: how you get weird stuff like Dwight spuying on Oscar
Speaker 1: in the secret and they become friends and you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like you start thinking about so it's
Speaker 1: not just like if all the stories are just the
Speaker 1: accountants together, then that feels like, oh, I know where
Speaker 1: the office is going. But if Kevin and Dwight form
Speaker 1: a band together, which is something that we talked about
Speaker 1: at one point. Then it's like, okay, well now right,
Speaker 1: Kevin's musician and Dwight's musician, and now you have a
Speaker 1: different thing going. Oh that's interesting. Was here Is there
Speaker 1: an episode that you were most proud of writing? I mean,
Speaker 1: I probably Dinner Party is the one I'm most proud of.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the best thing that you and
Speaker 1: I have ever written collectively. We wrote The Secret, and
Speaker 1: that was where Jim tells Michael he told my later
Speaker 1: crush on Pam, but Michael reveals it to everyone, and
Speaker 1: then Jim assatel Pam and that I remember in the
Speaker 1: break room and says, hey, like Michael, I told Michael
Speaker 1: that I said a crush on you, and I don't anymore.
Speaker 1: And I just it was kind of the first time
Speaker 1: as a writer that I've written anything that just didn't
Speaker 1: really have any jokes in it. And it was just
Speaker 1: the way that I think everyone's been in the situation
Speaker 1: where you have a crush on someone and they find out,
Speaker 1: And it was just Jenna and John just acted it
Speaker 1: so so well. There's tiny things like Jenna like her
Speaker 1: eyebrows froud for like a nano second and like every
Speaker 1: time I saw it in editing, I just I got
Speaker 1: choked up because he says, I don't like I don't
Speaker 1: have a crush. Don't worry, I don't have a crush
Speaker 1: on you anymore. She's like, oh, okay you, And just
Speaker 1: it felt real in a way, and I think we
Speaker 1: tried writing it that way, and like, I just was
Speaker 1: really excited about that, you know, And so I think
Speaker 1: that felt more challenging to get that right than it
Speaker 1: did to get a Dwight talking head about you know
Speaker 1: how delicious like the different parts of a possum are,
Speaker 1: which was probably written several times. Um, the show was
Speaker 1: a success, it was a hit. Why, in your mind,
Speaker 1: why has it become the number one show on television now?
Speaker 1: Why have people become so invested in it? I think
Speaker 1: that it feels I think it feels nostalgic. I think
Speaker 1: that the jokes are timeless. I think there's a really
Speaker 1: strong love story. I don't know what that show is
Speaker 1: now that has that compelling love story and has the
Speaker 1: jokes like Friends or The Office. Um, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what would be the equivalent of it. So I
Speaker 1: think if that's the type of thing that that you're
Speaker 1: excited about. It's like, where are you going for it?
Speaker 1: And I also think that Netflix is this thing where
Speaker 1: people just have it on NonStop. Now you can watch
Speaker 1: five episodes in a row and you start kind of
Speaker 1: getting addicted in the twenty one minutes long and you're
Speaker 1: not watching with commercials, and it just feels like you
Speaker 1: can just devour it. And then the other thing, like
Speaker 1: I did that movie Good Boys. It was three twelve
Speaker 1: year old boys and one of them was obsessed with
Speaker 1: the Office, and I think like they're watching it through
Speaker 1: a totally different prison, and it's like Kevin's your favorite character,
Speaker 1: it's their favorite character. And I think all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there's elements of the show that appeal to an audience
Speaker 1: that doesn't really care about Jim and Pam, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And so I think that's the
Speaker 1: type of show also where a family of four can
Speaker 1: watch it and everyone's kind of getting something else out
Speaker 1: of it, but they all love it. And I think
Speaker 1: that the show feels lived in the texture of it.
Speaker 1: The audience appreciates the texture, even if that's not the
Speaker 1: way they would articulate it. It feels like everyone's been
Speaker 1: in that office. And then I think the other thing
Speaker 1: is and this is again the genius of Greg and
Speaker 1: Alison Jones and everyone is I cannot think of a show,
Speaker 1: a comedy that has a roster of like I mean,
Speaker 1: how many actors were there, fourteen or whatever. That's a
Speaker 1: crazy thing to service that many people. And so it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like a sea of extras. It feels like
Speaker 1: wherever you turn, you're delighted by what you're gonna see.
Speaker 1: And as a writer, where you're like, oh, great, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do a Stanley talking he had next perfect, we
Speaker 1: have b J coming up in a scene with Phyllis Okay, excellent,
Speaker 1: Like you know what I mean, Like there was no
Speaker 1: place where it was like, oh ship years a week link,
Speaker 1: we have to write around this thing, or we can't
Speaker 1: shoot this way because you know whatever, the ensemble and
Speaker 1: the specificity of that ensemble in the small moments and
Speaker 1: in the big moments was what kind of made the
Speaker 1: show the show too. Like as a writer, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm delighted about, Like I I don't write political satire.
Speaker 1: I think like the only thing I'm good at in
Speaker 1: my life is kind of just watching people at restaurants
Speaker 1: and at dinner parties and on subways and then like
Speaker 1: I'm a student enough to like write it down in
Speaker 1: my iPhone in the notes document, and like that's how
Speaker 1: I have a career. Like I think writers approach things
Speaker 1: and I think you're just delighted by those small moments
Speaker 1: and it's it's what feels real. And I think if
Speaker 1: you can write anything where either the joke is resonant
Speaker 1: as like I've experienced this thing with my friends or
Speaker 1: this lame, this lame thing, like I remember we did
Speaker 1: the thing where everyone you know, bumps fists and then
Speaker 1: explodes it and that was based on a friend of
Speaker 1: mine did and I thought it was the dumbest thing,
Speaker 1: and then for years like that's just something I did. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't do it, but I'm saying I brought it
Speaker 1: to the office the exploding hands did because like my
Speaker 1: friend did it and I thought it was really lame,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, you know, you know you
Speaker 1: should do it, or the lame characters on my show
Speaker 1: that I work up, and you know that's what she said,
Speaker 1: is like that, And I think these things like Jeane
Speaker 1: came up with um Andy goes to Cornell like he
Speaker 1: was able to tap into this weird insecurity where these
Speaker 1: really smart people go to a school that is an
Speaker 1: Ivy League school, but it feels like a less than
Speaker 1: Ivy League school. And it said everything about a character,
Speaker 1: And I think when you can come up with those things,
Speaker 1: you know, interacting with the warehouse guys or anything like that,
Speaker 1: where it's like these small moments where it's like everyone
Speaker 1: just trying to get by. Everyone wants to fall in love,
Speaker 1: everyone wants to make more money, everyone wants to get
Speaker 1: the promotion at work, and everyone just wants to feel
Speaker 1: like they're connected to something. And in a weird way,
Speaker 1: all these people that in any other circumstance would not
Speaker 1: be friends, you end up having to work with them
Speaker 1: and you create these bonds. That's the beauty of everything, right,
Speaker 1: It's like when all these people can kind of come
Speaker 1: together and it's like you spend more time with the
Speaker 1: people that you work with then you do with your
Speaker 1: own family. And you know, and again, we did a
Speaker 1: show about it about the thing that we were right,
Speaker 1: so you spent more time with Angela than you did
Speaker 1: with your significant other or whatever. And I think that
Speaker 1: I think that's cool. I think that's really worth exploring.
Speaker 1: I do think it's beautiful and I'm a great writer.
Speaker 1: I can't remember who I was talking to somebody associated
Speaker 1: with the show the other day. Who was it, Oh,
Speaker 1: you know it was It was Ben Silverman. It controlled
Speaker 1: me to be on this podcast when I should be
Speaker 1: working out other things. Um, and he said, you know
Speaker 1: this is gonna be for all of us. This is
Speaker 1: the kind of the thing that people will talk about
Speaker 1: in your career. And it was like, okay, Like that's cool.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's not doesn't mean I stopped
Speaker 1: working and I don't want to beat it, but if
Speaker 1: at the end of my career, for five years, I
Speaker 1: worked on a show that's considered one of the best
Speaker 1: comedies of all time, and I feel like I contributed
Speaker 1: quite a bit too it and I met all these
Speaker 1: great people, and I remember like summer camp and summer
Speaker 1: camp you would go back every summer and like you
Speaker 1: would kind of intend to keep in touch with people
Speaker 1: over the thing, but then you kind of have your
Speaker 1: school friends. Then you come back and like for those
Speaker 1: four weeks you would just be like my best friend
Speaker 1: Brian and I were doing this and then and then
Speaker 1: like like we have to keep in touch. We have
Speaker 1: to keep a touch, man, and then you wouldn't, and
Speaker 1: then you'd see them again the next year. It'd be
Speaker 1: the same thing. And it's like I see Greg for
Speaker 1: lunch once or twice a year. It excites me every
Speaker 1: single time I do it. I see Paul. All the
Speaker 1: relationships matter to me, and it's like it kind of
Speaker 1: in a way like transcends frequency of seeing someone. You
Speaker 1: just I just built. All these connections in my entire
Speaker 1: career can be traced back to Gregg reading a pilot
Speaker 1: about two codependent magicians, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: saying like, yeah, I'll pick those guys, and then everything
Speaker 1: else that's happened came from that awesome Um You're contribution
Speaker 1: to the show. I mean, I don't have to tell
Speaker 1: you you know how important it is. But your friendship
Speaker 1: is so wort to me, and I respect you and
Speaker 1: I think you're one of the most talented people I've
Speaker 1: ever worked with. So thank you so much. Thank you, dude.
Speaker 1: This is so fun. I love that so much. It's
Speaker 1: I truly learned so much from Lee and I am
Speaker 1: so glad I got to share it with all of you. Lee,
Speaker 1: my friend, you can buy me breakfast any time, Okay,
Speaker 1: any time uh. And to all of you listeners, thank you.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week with another hilarious, strange
Speaker 1: and brilliant mind from our writer's room. It's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: I don't know who it's going to be, but it
Speaker 1: is going to be great. In the meantime, all of
Speaker 1: you have a fantastic week. The Office. Deep Dive is
Speaker 1: hosted and executive produced by me Brian bum Gartner, alongside
Speaker 1: our 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 Olansky.