Speaker 1: The Black Effect presents. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either,
Speaker 1: But the history of black people ain't rooted in slavery.
Speaker 1: Oh no is royalty, not despair. Beat out here and
Speaker 1: every day in February, I will give you a Black
Speaker 1: history fact that I didn't know, and maybe you didn't either.
Speaker 1: It's a rugged, ratchet, realistic look at history. Listen, so
Speaker 1: I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. On the Black
Speaker 1: Effect Podcast Network, our Heart radio app, Apple Podcast, or
Speaker 1: just wherever you get your podcast from, I'm Joe Piazza,
Speaker 1: host of the podcast Under the Influence. If you tuned
Speaker 1: into our last season, you know that the world of
Speaker 1: mom influencers on Instagram contains multitudes. Yes, there are pretty
Speaker 1: pictures and gorgeous kids, and yes there's lots of money
Speaker 1: behind a lot of those pictures. But there's also something
Speaker 1: much more dark and complicated going on in the background,
Speaker 1: and that speaks to everything that is wrong with how
Speaker 1: we treat women in the world. On season two, Under
Speaker 1: the Influence, we're advocating for the women who make content
Speaker 1: and the women who consume it. We're going into some
Speaker 1: of the darkest corners of the social media universe, and
Speaker 1: we might just have a plan to shut it all
Speaker 1: the hell down. Listen to season two of Under the
Speaker 1: Influence with Joe Piazza on the I Heart Radio app,
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Speaker 1: Arden Marine from Insatiable and then will you accept this
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Speaker 1: of Bridgeton And we are the hosts of Lady of
Speaker 1: the Road, a funny and inspiring podcast where we have
Speaker 1: conversations with influential women about their lives and we get
Speaker 1: self help advice because we are always looking to improve ourselves.
Speaker 1: Sure story. We talk about money, health, relationships, you name it,
Speaker 1: from inspiring women like Joan Jet, Nicole Buyer, Lauren lapiz
Speaker 1: Htta and more. Listen and subscribe to Lady of the
Speaker 1: Road on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, this is Lee Eisenberg.
Speaker 1: Playmasley on the Office, don't just as for the whole day.
Speaker 1: This is Lee Eisenberg. I was a writer producer on
Speaker 1: the Office. Hello everybody here, I am again Pam Beasley. No,
Speaker 1: Brian Baumgartner 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: except 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 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 around, let's get back
Speaker 1: on track. Here, without further ado, here is Lee Eisenberg.
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeak. I love it. Bubble and squeak on
Speaker 1: Bubble and Squeaker Cookie every month lift over from the
Speaker 1: NAT before. You just like this is like, uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's like summer camp. It's like you come back
Speaker 1: and you just like see people and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: well I know. I mean I've talked to Jenna, Rain,
Speaker 1: Angela Quapas. It's such a fucking like I haven't seen
Speaker 1: you in so long and I love you and I
Speaker 1: oh it's so stupid. Um, this is all recording now right,
Speaker 1: this is no, it's totally all recorded. I bumped into Rain,
Speaker 1: I bumped into Jenna somewhere. I haven't seen Angela and forever.
Speaker 1: I've never seen Kappas. I hadn't seen Kappas in a
Speaker 1: really long time, and I hadn't seen Randall in a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw rand Randal, and I would like grab like
Speaker 1: breakfast like once a year to kind of just like
Speaker 1: talk about work and travel. 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 threat devoted to people. Gine 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 fans events. Yes, Scott's the Scots Tats shirts, and
Speaker 1: then sometimes even the people who are wearing the Scots
Speaker 1: Tats shirts say it's the one episode I can't I
Speaker 1: can't watch, And so I started engaging about why, because
Speaker 1: to me, Dinner Party is equally as cringe e as
Speaker 1: Scott's Todts And they're like, oh, dinner Party is my favorite,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, hold on, how is that one? Okay?
Speaker 1: And there, okay, well you go ahead. My theory is
Speaker 1: that Dinner Party you're watching him destroy his life, and
Speaker 1: then in Scott Stops you're watching him destroy other people's lives. Okay.
Speaker 1: What they say is that basically in Dinner Party, he's
Speaker 1: making characters go through uncomfortable, cringing moments, but we know
Speaker 1: them and we know their relationship to Michael, whereas now
Speaker 1: there's like other people a show out to the world,
Speaker 1: thinking a show to the world. We don't have any connection.
Speaker 1: We just know it's horrible and oh gosh, so good.
Speaker 1: I would say it Scott Stops in a little bit.
Speaker 1: It is so uncomfortable. It is, it really is, and
Speaker 1: that came from your brain, which makes it even weirder.
Speaker 1: But 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 Gene was
Speaker 1: a nanny. You were writing together. Though we were writing together,
Speaker 1: we sold some ideas to Larry David for Curb and
Speaker 1: then we came up with a pilot idea that was
Speaker 1: about two codependent roommates with unisex names, and it was
Speaker 1: about me and Jean, and then we decided to make
Speaker 1: it magicians, okay, and then we and then we changed
Speaker 1: the names to Lonni and Gordo. Lonnie for League, Gordo
Speaker 1: for Gene. Yeah, are you following, I'm uh. And then
Speaker 1: that's what Greg red. That's how we got hired on
Speaker 1: the office. Okay, So you submitted this spec pilot script
Speaker 1: that you wrote, Well, we sold it to Fox. The
Speaker 1: pilot was the first thing we'd ever sold. We sold
Speaker 1: to Fox, and then it was like this crazy thing.
Speaker 1: Like the people who liked it were Greg Daniels and
Speaker 1: Harold Ramos. Those are the only two. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think other people liked it fine, but like for years
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, like Jeane was, Harold Ramos is nanny.
Speaker 1: I'm not Harold's nanny, but his kids nanny. He wasn't
Speaker 1: taking care of Harold, he wasn't taking care of Rol okay.
Speaker 1: And so when you were brought on for a meeting
Speaker 1: with Greg Daniels, did you know, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: did you know the British Office? Yeah, we knew the
Speaker 1: British Office. And they've been six episodes of The American Office,
Speaker 1: And had you watched that? Oh, yeah, we're obsessed. We
Speaker 1: were big fans of the We got the British Office
Speaker 1: really early because I was working for a guy who
Speaker 1: had gotten Remember, like the DVD kind of got like
Speaker 1: passed around, So we watched it and we like couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that it existed, and it was just insane. And
Speaker 1: then when they announced the American version of my friend
Speaker 1: was Kevin Riley's assistant, so we got to see the
Speaker 1: American version early and we're like, oh, these poor fuckers.
Speaker 1: And then we saw it was like, oh, that's really good.
Speaker 1: We were really into it. And then and again we
Speaker 1: were like g made eight thousand dollars the year before
Speaker 1: he was on the Office, and I wasn't that far
Speaker 1: ahead of him, and so I was like, now a
Speaker 1: sudden we're sitting now with Greg Daniels was incredible. Yea,
Speaker 1: And how did that meeting go? He had read your
Speaker 1: the script that you sold. He read the script and
Speaker 1: people warned us that Greg would do long meetings. We're like, okay,
Speaker 1: and Greg was very serious. He took a out of pauses,
Speaker 1: and my instinct, out of like a desperate need to
Speaker 1: be liked and like fit in is like, oh, you
Speaker 1: fill in the pauses and you kind of like make
Speaker 1: jokes and all that kind of stuff. And I was like,
Speaker 1: he's obviously very funny. He's not demonstrating any he's not
Speaker 1: near funny right now, but he's obviously very funny person
Speaker 1: and he's not trying to make us laugh, and he
Speaker 1: must think that we're funny because we're here. So I
Speaker 1: was just like I went against every instinct of my
Speaker 1: that I had, and I just was quiet and just
Speaker 1: waited for his next question. And then at one point
Speaker 1: Jean said, he said, oh my god, Harold's taught us
Speaker 1: so much. And I was like, what has Harold taught us?
Speaker 1: We like smoke weed with him. He hasn't taught us anything.
Speaker 1: I love him, but it is anything. And Greg was like,
Speaker 1: what does 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 he flipped through his like Uni bomb
Speaker 1: Er notebook and he held up this page on the
Speaker 1: top of the page 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. Rank 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 a 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 then 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 say 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: every single joke, and explain why it's not right, you
Speaker 1: would get anything done. That's funny, Lee, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's works for this moment. No one does that keep going.
Speaker 1: It was just weird and we didn't know what we
Speaker 1: were doing. And then um, everyone go out to lunch together.
Speaker 1: They would all kind of like run to their cars
Speaker 1: and like five people pile into a car, and then
Speaker 1: Jane and I would like get into like our camera.
Speaker 1: It just we felt like we were the new kids
Speaker 1: and we didn't fit in. And so I think our
Speaker 1: contract was like twenty weeks. It was ten weeks with
Speaker 1: an option for another ten weeks or something like that,
Speaker 1: and we were ten We're getting close to the ten weeks,
Speaker 1: and we're we were nervous, but we also kind of
Speaker 1: felt like, no one's that nice to us. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna get fired anyways, can we can we quit?
Speaker 1: And uh? And we called our agent and we said, uh,
Speaker 1: He's like hey, So you're you're almost up. You know
Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, we're gonna try getting you those
Speaker 1: other ten weeks. We said, well, what if we want
Speaker 1: to quit? He said, well, I understand where you're asking.
Speaker 1: And we said, well, like, you know, people aren't that
Speaker 1: nice to us, like we're fourth graders at the New School.
Speaker 1: And he was like, this is the stupidest question anyone's
Speaker 1: ever asked me. And he just was Mark Probozaro, who
Speaker 1: represented me and Bean and Mindy and b J. And
Speaker 1: he was like, theumbest question I've ever been asked. And
Speaker 1: he hung up on us, and then we've stayed on
Speaker 1: the show for five more years. Were you close to
Speaker 1: being fired? Do you think? Or do you Was that
Speaker 1: just your perception because people didn't seem nice. I think
Speaker 1: that when you say people didn't seem nice, I really
Speaker 1: feel young. I think that the you know, when you're
Speaker 1: acting and when you first started acting and you're like,
Speaker 1: the scene isn't about you, and you're like you want
Speaker 1: to go to the director and be like, hey, did
Speaker 1: you like what I was doing? And you think the
Speaker 1: scenes about you even though no one cares about you
Speaker 1: because the scene isn't about you. That's the way I
Speaker 1: felt about the writer's room was I was like, they're
Speaker 1: scrutinizing us every moment, and they weren't. Greg had thousand
Speaker 1: other things to worry about. Then the staff writers happiness,
Speaker 1: or our contributions. We were we were contributing. But I
Speaker 1: think for us it was like Gina I would drive
Speaker 1: back and forth. We lived together, and we have like
Speaker 1: a forty five minute commute every day each way, and
Speaker 1: all we would do is just say, like, hey, Paul
Speaker 1: laughed a little bit at that joke I said in
Speaker 1: the small room, did how did it go with Mike
Speaker 1: and Jen in the other room? Did bj acknowledge you today?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like we're parsing out the smallest
Speaker 1: little things. And then Greg got pneumonia season two while
Speaker 1: we were breaking the fight, so we had to outline
Speaker 1: the fight. Everyone else got to outline the episodes kind
Speaker 1: of more as a group, and for us it was
Speaker 1: like me and Jean and Paul and everyone else was
Speaker 1: off on script. And then we had to go meet
Speaker 1: Greg at his house because he had walking pneumonia, and
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh, they're setting us up to fail.
Speaker 1: They gave us this episode that's like goofy and different
Speaker 1: from the rest of the show. There's like a fight
Speaker 1: in a dojo, like they don't want us to do well,
Speaker 1: and then when we handed a bad script, they'll fire us.
Speaker 1: This is what we were convinced of. I think we didn't.
Speaker 1: I think we didn't feel confident that we weren't going
Speaker 1: to be fired until three years in. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Every single time, Like when we wrote the Secret, we
Speaker 1: were like, they gave us a secret because there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of time, and then we won't deliver and
Speaker 1: then they'll fire us. That's how we went through the
Speaker 1: first few years. Wait, we liked everyone eventually, but we
Speaker 1: were terrified. It wasn't like a culture of fear. It
Speaker 1: was just too insecure. Guys were the fart worried about yourself.
Speaker 1: We're terrified. Yeah, wow, yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't surprise me. You're a bit neurotic,
Speaker 1: but but I've monetized the neuroses. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that Greg hired you and Gene.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably of some program that was That's
Speaker 1: what I think. I mean, that's why they have to
Speaker 1: hire yeah, a certain percentage of Oh it was charitable, okay.
Speaker 1: I think that he was just really good at spotting
Speaker 1: people that fit the tone that he was going for.
Speaker 1: And I think we wrote that pilot, and that pilot
Speaker 1: was about underdogs, and the jokes were very specific and unexpected,
Speaker 1: and before we even understood like how to make an
Speaker 1: act one, you know, like the way I would talk
Speaker 1: about Act one Now, I couldn't have articulated it then,
Speaker 1: but like somehow we kind of knew enough, and I
Speaker 1: think there was enough promise there that I think he
Speaker 1: I think you took a chance. Also, we're inexpensive, and
Speaker 1: we were two people for the price of one. That's
Speaker 1: really why I thought it was. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: that's not an unreasonable things like both of them probably
Speaker 1: don't actually equal one great writer, but we get to
Speaker 1: so we can at least move them around in different
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Speaker 1: What was the office writer's room, Like, how is it
Speaker 1: different from other writer's rooms. I think that it was
Speaker 1: in some ways it was looser. It's like we it
Speaker 1: would take us a long time to focus, but it's
Speaker 1: like you're writing a show about an office. You're writing
Speaker 1: a show about co workers, and we're working in an
Speaker 1: office and we're co workers. We just happened to be
Speaker 1: writing a show about the thing. So you know, we
Speaker 1: played Call of Duty a lot, and then we did
Speaker 1: an episode about Call of Duty or everything is fodder.
Speaker 1: I remember going into the editing bay one time, uh,
Speaker 1: and I was having a conversation with Dave Rogers and
Speaker 1: somebody kind of whizzed by the door and they were like,
Speaker 1: okay 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 really 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 like
Speaker 1: months or months are spent debating it. There's like there's
Speaker 1: probably amazing office outlines. There was something that, um, I
Speaker 1: don't think it was already, but we were going to write.
Speaker 1: It was called the Premonition, and it was basically that
Speaker 1: Aaron is like, I don't want to say a thing,
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, what is it? And she's like, I
Speaker 1: had a dream last night that someone died on the
Speaker 1: way home from work, and she's like, the only reason
Speaker 1: I want to say it is because I predicted something
Speaker 1: else years ago and it did come true. And so
Speaker 1: then just like some 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 was
Speaker 1: a 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 Pan 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 a on a long lost office episode,
Speaker 1: 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 for me. I read pet Day. There's another script
Speaker 1: about like a new higher, new higher. Yeah, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be like a New Higher in the office. Oh, it
Speaker 1: feels like that is the name of an episode that
Speaker 1: actually got produced. Sounds like it sounds like we probably
Speaker 1: did New Higher four times, so that's why you exactly, Yeah, 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. I she
Speaker 1: sneaks 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 is an accident, but you
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't. And then we changed it where she
Speaker 1: wrote funk on the neighbor's dog and uh yeah, so
Speaker 1: that was a change. But I think Dinner Party probably
Speaker 1: 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 is 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 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 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: like from the perspective of like interacting with everyone, we
Speaker 1: became friends from the show, and there's just other people
Speaker 1: that just kind of felt that connection with And I
Speaker 1: think b J and Mindy and Paul were also to
Speaker 1: say like, hey, it feels like we haven't done something
Speaker 1: like this. And the one thing that sucked about it
Speaker 1: was they're all credible writers and then they'd be in
Speaker 1: the background of scenes and you wouldn't have them. You know,
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people probably don't realize was
Speaker 1: it wasn't an accident that Ryan and Kelly and Toby
Speaker 1: were back in the annex, so they didn't have to
Speaker 1: be there all the time. They were able to do
Speaker 1: sort of there I guess main job as writers and
Speaker 1: up with you guys while we were down below. So
Speaker 1: you talked about showing up every day and it's feeling
Speaker 1: like it started over you launched it. What was your
Speaker 1: typical day, like, as you were um breaking stories, how
Speaker 1: did that work? How was the structure of your day?
Speaker 1: So a writer's room is so tricky, and the office
Speaker 1: of the same way is there's so many things happening
Speaker 1: at once. So theoretically, there's an episode being shot, then
Speaker 1: there's a new episode that there's gonna be a table
Speaker 1: read in five days or four days. You're probably doing
Speaker 1: a rewrite for the table read. Then there's editing happening
Speaker 1: of an episode or two episodes that were shot two
Speaker 1: weeks earlier, and then you need to get the next
Speaker 1: episode because there's a table read the following week, or
Speaker 1: maybe there's a maybe an episode changed, or you realize
Speaker 1: that this thing worked really well in editing, so you're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's really carry that through, Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna arc out Dwight and Angela because dwighte 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 Angela
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: are 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 went out 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 a 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: they're twelve year old boys that don't care about Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam at all and are just like Dhite'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 also, which is just you know, Jimmy, I
Speaker 1: mean Pam and Michael and it's like Pam finding out
Speaker 1: that Michael is dating her mom is like just too
Speaker 1: much for her to take and it just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's that to me is some of Jenna's greatest perform
Speaker 1: and John is amazing in that episode. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just great. Yeah. I watched on one on a plane. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think I was with Gene years after the Office
Speaker 1: and I was just laughing the entire time and she
Speaker 1: was like, you're just watching, Like pe were like, what
Speaker 1: is this guy watching? And then it was our thing.
Speaker 1: I was tickled with our words. You you wrote it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's maybe this is too like weird and esoteric, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you start really looking at specific episodes.
Speaker 1: My guess is it wasn't all right, guys, we need
Speaker 1: something really cringe e here, right, But it's more like
Speaker 1: the way that you write it, the way that you
Speaker 1: approach it, it just sort of becomes that that's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me. You start to see your own personalities within it,
Speaker 1: even though it is a collaborative process. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what was so great about the show.
Speaker 1: And again, I think that it wasn't that me or
Speaker 1: Gene was only capable of writing jokes where the audience
Speaker 1: want to cover their eyes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that Mike sure only wrote jokes
Speaker 1: that were like this, But I do think that everyone's
Speaker 1: kind of coming at it from a different ace, and
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I think that Mike kind
Speaker 1: of saw the best in them, and so a lot
Speaker 1: of Mike's episodes like kind of almost add an optimism
Speaker 1: to that, yeah, which is great. And like, Mike's one
Speaker 1: of the greatest comedy writers I've ever worked with. He's
Speaker 1: amazing and I'm not saying one's bad and one's good.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that I think everyone kind of just
Speaker 1: took the same idea and maybe puts their own little
Speaker 1: spin on it. And then a lot of times it
Speaker 1: goes into a room and things get rewritten and reached,
Speaker 1: and like, we didn't come up with Scott's thoughts. I
Speaker 1: think Paul did, but we we have a large hand
Speaker 1: and what that final version is and dinner Party was
Speaker 1: not our idea. God bless you, Oh my god, God,
Speaker 1: I was trying to hold that in because you were
Speaker 1: sounding so good. Should I come back tomorrow? No? No,
Speaker 1: But so anyway, so I think like Dinner Party, there
Speaker 1: were a million jokes at the room generated and then
Speaker 1: Gene and I went off and added tons and tons
Speaker 1: of our own stuff, took things from the room, didn't
Speaker 1: take things from the room, put spins on it. We
Speaker 1: spent usually you get a week, you know, some episodes
Speaker 1: three or four days. We spent three weeks on Dinner Party.
Speaker 1: And so like we were just determined to make that great.
Speaker 1: We just loved it, and we were competitive and petty
Speaker 1: and we just and we you know, we want to
Speaker 1: hit it out of the park. And so we just
Speaker 1: spent way more time on it than we would have usually.
Speaker 1: How much were you thinking about Who's Afraid of Virginia
Speaker 1: Wolf when you were writing it? That was always the
Speaker 1: template for it, But I mean, you know, from that
Speaker 1: it was just like, okay, let's just bring this cast
Speaker 1: of characters, and also like who would Michael bring to
Speaker 1: the dinner party? And you know, how do you kind
Speaker 1: of keep ratching it up in in one location that
Speaker 1: episode unfolds in a way where you feel like something
Speaker 1: bad is going to happen, even when bad things aren't happening.
Speaker 1: Just it feels uncomfortable. You just you just know that
Speaker 1: it's not great. But Michael presents very well, like Steve
Speaker 1: is so handsome, Laura's beautiful, They look good, the condos
Speaker 1: like well decorated. And then it just slowly, slowly, slowly,
Speaker 1: you start seeing these little things well and just the
Speaker 1: time things take adds to what you're taught. You're like,
Speaker 1: you just it's that um and the shark is about
Speaker 1: to bite the ladies leg right. There's certain episodes, and
Speaker 1: comedy in general usually has a real pace to it.
Speaker 1: It's like you get to the jokes and the office
Speaker 1: existed in the in the reaction shots, like John is
Speaker 1: a brilliant reactor and that's why Jim gets tons of
Speaker 1: laughs and why he's the audience surrogate. But it's not
Speaker 1: like writing jokes for him was not the easiest part
Speaker 1: of the show in the way that writing for Dwight
Speaker 1: or writing for Michael is, because those characters are more
Speaker 1: inherently comic, but you can still get the laugh on
Speaker 1: the reaction You thought of Jim as a surrogate for
Speaker 1: the show, Well, did you think you were this errogate
Speaker 1: for the show? I didn't. You just looked at me. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think I think that whenever. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he was the everyman. He had the crush on the girl.
Speaker 1: So I feel like, at least as a guy, related
Speaker 1: to him the most. And I think John has kind
Speaker 1: of every man quality. It's almost like a little bit
Speaker 1: of like Lloyd Dobbler and say anything or something like that.
Speaker 1: And when he looks to the camera when someone saying,
Speaker 1: when Michael saying saying inappropriate, you felt like, yes, this
Speaker 1: is me. No, it's it's great. I mean, so you're oh,
Speaker 1: I have an anecdote. Okay, go ahead, we want an anecdote.
Speaker 1: I want an anecdote. I love anecdotes. So we wrote
Speaker 1: dinner Party. I just thought of this when. So we
Speaker 1: wrote dinner Party and we were proud of it. And
Speaker 1: I can't remember. This is before after the right Track.
Speaker 1: I think it was before. And Greg pulled us into
Speaker 1: his office because we were getting notes from the network
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, so we read the Script's very
Speaker 1: funny and Gregg said thank you, and they said it's
Speaker 1: it's 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 Greg goes yeah, and they go just it's it's
Speaker 1: really dark. He goes yeah, and they he says is
Speaker 1: there anything 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 in this. I 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, well,
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: tried 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 right, Um, you and Jane wrote the episode that
Speaker 1: is considered the most difficult to watch in the office,
Speaker 1: which is Scott's Tots. Are you proud of that? Incredibly? Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing makes me happier. I mean other things makes 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 dance, 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 know if you remember this,
Speaker 1: And he says, Kevin, when he first came in, he
Speaker 1: was actually applying for a job in the warehouse, and
Speaker 1: that I made him an accountant, and it's just like,
Speaker 1: you are a terrible, terrible boss. And he's kind of
Speaker 1: saying 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 yeah, and
Speaker 1: then then all of a sudden, Kevin is as happless accountant.
Speaker 1: Like we love moments like that where it's just it's
Speaker 1: just like for the audience of the you know, the
Speaker 1: fans that watch every episode, it's like, so in the
Speaker 1: backstory of these two guys, there was an interview where
Speaker 1: he's like, Hey, you know what, what do you stick
Speaker 1: up here with me? Oh? That's so good. I'm Emilia
Speaker 1: on this podcast. I'm taking you on a search, a
Speaker 1: search for love. Hard working Latina seeks cool, down to
Speaker 1: earth guy Swipe Swipe side. It's hard out there for
Speaker 1: a girl to find Mr. Right. I have to meet
Speaker 1: a lot of Mr. Wrongs. He'd invite me over to
Speaker 1: have dinner with his family. I knew he didn't tell
Speaker 1: them that I was transgender. Dating as a trans woman
Speaker 1: can be complicated, but there were other reasons. I felt
Speaker 1: like I couldn't always beat myself. And he's asking me
Speaker 1: things about my family, like my mom's in prison, my
Speaker 1: grandmother was arrested for working with the Mexican drug cartel.
Speaker 1: This scrumbs my love story. It's a show about the
Speaker 1: things we set up for and the bits of ourselves
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Speaker 1: excited to be joined by my friends and cast mates
Speaker 1: Hannah Simone and Lamour and Morris to recap our hit
Speaker 1: television series, New Girl. Join us every Monday on the
Speaker 1: Welcome to Our Show podcast, where we'll share behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stories of your favorite New Girl episodes, revealed the
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Speaker 1: your burning questions like is there really a bear? In
Speaker 1: every episode of New Girl? Plus each week you'll hear
Speaker 1: hilarious stories like this at the end when he says
Speaker 1: you got some schmid on your face. I feel like
Speaker 1: I pitched that joke. I believe that I feel like
Speaker 1: I did. I'm not on a thousand percent. I want
Speaker 1: to say that was I tossed that one out. Listen
Speaker 1: to the Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: While you were writing, you mentioned it before there was
Speaker 1: a writers strike. Yeah, what was your relationship to it?
Speaker 1: Were you in support of it or how difficult was it? Well,
Speaker 1: so we had written Dinner Party, we did the table
Speaker 1: read of it, and I mean, Gina, I talked about
Speaker 1: it to this day. The opening of Dinner Party is
Speaker 1: is good, it's not great. It's basically that Michael tells
Speaker 1: everyone they have to work late, and they've clearly created
Speaker 1: this thing so that jimy Pan will have to come
Speaker 1: to his house for a dinner party. And so the
Speaker 1: cold opens pretty funny. And so we're doing the table
Speaker 1: read and it's just like it's a good table where
Speaker 1: it's not a great table where it's good. Then you
Speaker 1: get to the apartment and you start feeling something like
Speaker 1: it became explosive and like people are looking at each
Speaker 1: other and it was like it was electric in a
Speaker 1: way that I can't I'm thinking about it now and
Speaker 1: like it makes me emotional about being swept through his
Speaker 1: shirt and it was just like it was the greatest
Speaker 1: moment of our career. And then there was this writer's strike,
Speaker 1: and the studios have billions of dollars and they're always
Speaker 1: trying to roll back these things, and it can come
Speaker 1: down to health insurance, and it can come down to
Speaker 1: residuals and the way that writers are getting paid and
Speaker 1: things were changing, and it's like that's all the backstory
Speaker 1: for it. But as a writer, we're there and they
Speaker 1: started shooting Dinner Party without us, and the actors didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. And we're picketing with the other
Speaker 1: writers outside of the place that we work, that we spent,
Speaker 1: We spent all our time. You guys are all our friends.
Speaker 1: We're friends with the crew. The crews walking past us,
Speaker 1: some of them are kind of looking at us like
Speaker 1: fuck you because they can't afford you know, the writers
Speaker 1: are among the highest paid people. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: someone's gonna not work for three months because we're complaining
Speaker 1: about our DVD residuals and is the show going to
Speaker 1: come back? What's gonna what's gonna happen? And we're literally
Speaker 1: picking outside of the place where we work. It's a
Speaker 1: really really weird thing and so then it was like,
Speaker 1: is this episode that we wrote that we're so proud of,
Speaker 1: is it not going to happen? And then and then
Speaker 1: we ended up shooting it and we and we got
Speaker 1: a different director and Paul Fiege ended up directing it.
Speaker 1: He 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 with 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
Speaker 1: confusing and it's really hard to say what the gains
Speaker 1: are for all these things. Sometimes do you remember what
Speaker 1: the context was of us stopping production? Oh, well, there
Speaker 1: were no writers on set, and so then what happened.
Speaker 1: I think Steve. Steve was in the writer's guild and
Speaker 1: then Steve started striking, and I think when Steve said
Speaker 1: he 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, Yeah, I mean we did. The first
Speaker 1: thing we did is we did webisodes and Greg kind
Speaker 1: of said like, if you do these and do a
Speaker 1: good job with him, 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 director,
Speaker 1: and then directors deciding how to convey that to the actor,
Speaker 1: and as the show went on, like you know, the
Speaker 1: shorthand between you and me or whoever changed, and the
Speaker 1: 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 way
Speaker 1: a minute? What about no? But at every other time
Speaker 1: there's like there's endless possibility. Right, you can kind of
Speaker 1: right forever kind of, or you can edit indefinitely, but
Speaker 1: shooting is just kind of like this is what we got, Like,
Speaker 1: 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. So a
Speaker 1: 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 yes, what was your character's name? Because an
Speaker 1: actor near the show? What was your characters? Well? So
Speaker 1: you were a delivery guy. Yeah, we worked advance refrigeration.
Speaker 1: Gine and I obviously had to do everything together on
Speaker 1: the show, and so we were Leon and Gino. But
Speaker 1: we thought it would be funny. I think it was
Speaker 1: my idea. It was a terrible idea that I'd be
Speaker 1: Gino and that Gene would be Leo, and so it
Speaker 1: was incredibly confusing, and I remember me Laura hardened, having
Speaker 1: no idea. She knew that she knew that we were
Speaker 1: named Lee and Jean, but couldn't for the life of
Speaker 1: her no which one was which. And Jeane kept saying
Speaker 1: that he was gonna walk past mclaura and say, hey, Jean,
Speaker 1: are you ready for you ready to go to the
Speaker 1: writer's room, so that she would never know, and then
Speaker 1: occasionally he would say, Lee, that was the thing that
Speaker 1: we did. Oh my god. Yeah, but we were in
Speaker 1: um if you talk about cutting room floor, no characters
Speaker 1: in the history of the Office were more consistently on
Speaker 1: the cutting room floor than Leo and Gino. How many
Speaker 1: episodes did Leo and Gino do? I think I was
Speaker 1: in five. I sold Michael We, Gina sell Michael Weed
Speaker 1: in whatever that one's called. We're like Selma Regano. Um,
Speaker 1: then we're in Cafe Disco. We dance in Cafe Disco.
Speaker 1: I had a real made of my acting I really needed.
Speaker 1: I spoke at my college and I basically I said, like,
Speaker 1: my passion is acting, and then I write just so
Speaker 1: I have I can perform, which is not at all true.
Speaker 1: So I cut together like my two minute real and
Speaker 1: it has me. I mean, I've acted opposite Jack Black,
Speaker 1: I've acted opposite Cameron Diaz and Steve Carrell and then
Speaker 1: obviously you and me. You and why did I get
Speaker 1: mentioned after those three? Um? I was doing a reverse
Speaker 1: alphabetical order. And no that's not true because Jack Black
Speaker 1: ship he has Correll Bomb Gardner. That's very good, almost
Speaker 1: like on my feet. But um, yeah, it's about two
Speaker 1: minutes long. I can only remember about three lines at once,
Speaker 1: so I can never do more than that. Yeah. I'm
Speaker 1: Ja Calbern, host of deep Cover. Our new season is
Speaker 1: about a lawyer who helped the Mob run Chicago. We
Speaker 1: controlled the courts, we controlled absolutely everything. He bribed judges
Speaker 1: and even helped a hit man walk free, until one
Speaker 1: day when he started talking with the FBI and promised
Speaker 1: that he could take the mob down. I've spent the
Speaker 1: past year trying to figure out why he flipped and
Speaker 1: what he was really after. From my perspective, Bob was
Speaker 1: too good to be true. There's got to be something
Speaker 1: wrong with this. I wouldn't trust the guy. He looks
Speaker 1: like a little scum, big lawyer, stool bidging you looked
Speaker 1: like what he was or at. I can say with
Speaker 1: all certainty I think he's a hero because he didn't
Speaker 1: have to do what he did, and he did it anyway.
Speaker 1: The moment I put the wire around the first time,
Speaker 1: my life was over. If it ever got out, they
Speaker 1: would kill me in a heartbeat. Listen to deep Cover
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Hey, Dana, Goodyear hair. Have you
Speaker 1: ever wondered how a true crime podcast like Lost Hiales
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Speaker 1: house dot com slash d c l H. That's m
Speaker 1: O M E and t house dot com slash d
Speaker 1: c l h. Um, how do you think the Office
Speaker 1: has influenced who you are now as a writer? Again,
Speaker 1: it's just like that's all I know. I'm it's possible
Speaker 1: that another you know, had I worked on Jake in
Speaker 1: Progress starring John Stamos. I was on that show. By
Speaker 1: the way, we would we would have met under different circumstances. Right,
Speaker 1: we have known each other for a day. Um, I
Speaker 1: can't believe you just pulled Jake in Progress out of
Speaker 1: your head. While well, the reason I say i'm true.
Speaker 1: When Jane and I got hired on the Office, no
Speaker 1: one had any interest in us for years, and we
Speaker 1: got an offer on the Office, we got an offer
Speaker 1: on Jake in Progress, and we got an offer on
Speaker 1: American Dad. American Dad was twenty two episodes, Jake in
Speaker 1: Progress I think was thirteen or maybe it was twenty two,
Speaker 1: and the Office was six was seven backup scripts, and
Speaker 1: we chose the Office, and then we ended up writing
Speaker 1: the first of the backup scripts. So there was a
Speaker 1: version where they would have shot six episodes and then
Speaker 1: 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 Gregor like
Speaker 1: comedy engines, and like what makes a character inherently funny?
Speaker 1: And so I what is Michael Scott like at a funeral?
Speaker 1: What is 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 what, any um. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: you used to do with strange pairings, which always thought
Speaker 1: was so fun. So we have all the characters up
Speaker 1: on 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 ass tell Pam and that I remember in
Speaker 1: the break room and says, hey, like Michael, I told
Speaker 1: Michael that I stop a crush on you, and I
Speaker 1: don't anymore. And I just it was kind of the
Speaker 1: first time as a writer that I've written anything that
Speaker 1: just didn't really have any jokes in it, and it
Speaker 1: was just the way that I think everyone's been in
Speaker 1: the situation where you have a crush on someone and
Speaker 1: they find out, And it was just Jenna and John
Speaker 1: just acted it so so well. There's tiny things like
Speaker 1: Jenna like her eyebrows froud for like a nanosecond, and
Speaker 1: like every time I saw it in editing, I just
Speaker 1: I got choked up because he says, I don't like,
Speaker 1: I don't have a crush it. Don't worry, I don't
Speaker 1: have a crush on you anymore. She's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you and just it felt real in a way and
Speaker 1: I think we tried writing it that way, and like,
Speaker 1: I just was really excited about that, you know, and
Speaker 1: so I think that felt more challenging to get that
Speaker 1: right than it did to get a Dwight talking head
Speaker 1: about you know how delicious like the different parts of
Speaker 1: a postum are, which was probably written several times. Um.
Speaker 1: The show was a success, it was a hit. Why,
Speaker 1: in your mind, why has it become the number one
Speaker 1: show on television now? Why have people become so invested
Speaker 1: in it? I think that it feels I think it
Speaker 1: feels nostalgic. I think that the jokes are timeless. I
Speaker 1: think there's a really strong story. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that show is now that has that compelling love story
Speaker 1: and has the jokes like Friends or The Office. Um,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what would be the equivalent of it.
Speaker 1: So I think if that's the type of thing that
Speaker 1: that you're excited about, it's like where are you going
Speaker 1: for it? And I also think that Netflix is this
Speaker 1: thing where people just have it on NonStop. Now you
Speaker 1: can watch five episodes in a row and you start
Speaker 1: kind of getting addicted in their twenty one minutes long
Speaker 1: and you're not watching with commercials and it just feels
Speaker 1: like you can just devour it. And then the other thing,
Speaker 1: like I did that movie Good Boys. It was three
Speaker 1: twelve year old boys and one of them was obsessed
Speaker 1: with the Office, and I think like they're watching it
Speaker 1: through a totally different prison, and it's like Kevin's their
Speaker 1: favorite character, Dwights their favorite character. And I think, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, there's elements of the show that appeal
Speaker 1: to an audience that doesn't really care about Jim and Pam,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? And so I think
Speaker 1: that's the type of show also where a family of
Speaker 1: four can watch it and everyone's kind of getting something
Speaker 1: else out of it, but they all love it. And
Speaker 1: I think that the show feels lived in the texture
Speaker 1: of it. The audience appreciates the texture, even if that's
Speaker 1: not the way they would articulate it. It feels like
Speaker 1: everyone's been in that office. And then I think the
Speaker 1: other thing is, and this is again the genius of
Speaker 1: Greg and Alison Jones and everyone is I cannot think
Speaker 1: of a show, a comedy that has a roster of like,
Speaker 1: I mean, how many actors were there, fourteen or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's a crazy thing to service that many people, and
Speaker 1: so it doesn't feel like a sea of extras. It
Speaker 1: feels like wherever you turn, you're delighted by what you're
Speaker 1: gonna see. And as a writer, where you're like, oh, great,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a Stanley talking he had next perfect,
Speaker 1: we have b J coming up in a scene with
Speaker 1: Phyllis Okay, excellent, Like you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: there was no place where it was like, oh, ship
Speaker 1: years a week link, we have to write around this thing,
Speaker 1: or we can't shoot this way because you know whatever,
Speaker 1: the ensemble, in the specificity of that ensemble, in the
Speaker 1: small moments and in the big moments, was what kind
Speaker 1: of made the show the show too. Like as a writer,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm delighted about. Like I I don't write
Speaker 1: political satire. I think, like the only thing I'm good
Speaker 1: at in my life is kind of just watching people
Speaker 1: at restaurants and at dinner parties and on subways and
Speaker 1: then like I'm a student enough to like write it
Speaker 1: down in my iPhone in the notes document, and like
Speaker 1: that's how I have a career. Like I think writers
Speaker 1: approach things and I think you're just delighted by those
Speaker 1: small moments and it's it's what feels real. And I
Speaker 1: think if you can write anything where either the joke
Speaker 1: is resonant as like I've experienced this thing with my friends,
Speaker 1: or this lame, this lame thing, like I remember we
Speaker 1: did the thing where everyone you know, bumps fists and
Speaker 1: then explodes it and that was based on a friend
Speaker 1: of mine did it, and I thought it was the
Speaker 1: dumbest thing, and then for years like that's just something
Speaker 1: I did. No, I didn't do it, but I'm saying
Speaker 1: I brought it to the office the exploding hands did yeah,
Speaker 1: because like my friend did it and I thought it
Speaker 1: was really lame, and I was like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you know you should do it. Are the lame characters
Speaker 1: on my show that I work up? And you know
Speaker 1: that's what she said is like that. And I think
Speaker 1: these things like Gene came up with um Andy goes
Speaker 1: to Cornell, like he was able to tap into this
Speaker 1: weird insecurity where these really smart people go to a
Speaker 1: school that is an IVY League school, but it feels
Speaker 1: like a less than IVY League school and it said
Speaker 1: everything about a character. And I think when you can
Speaker 1: come up with those things, you know, interacting with the
Speaker 1: warehouse guys or anything like that where it's like these
Speaker 1: small moments where it's like everyone just trying to get by.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to fall in love, everyone wants to make
Speaker 1: more money, everyone wants to get the promotion at work,
Speaker 1: and everyone just wants to feel like they're connected to something.
Speaker 1: And in a weird way, all these people that in
Speaker 1: any other circumstance would not be friends, you end up
Speaker 1: having to work with them and you create these bonds.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of everything, right, It's like when all
Speaker 1: these people can kind of come together, and it's like
Speaker 1: you spend more time with the people that you work
Speaker 1: with then you do with your own family. And you know,
Speaker 1: and again, we did a show about about the thing
Speaker 1: that we were, right, So you spent more time with
Speaker 1: Angela than you did with your significant other or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I think that. I think that's cool. I think
Speaker 1: that's really worth exploring. And I do think it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And I'm a great writer. I can't remember who I
Speaker 1: was talking to somebody associated with the show the other day.
Speaker 1: Who was it, Oh, you know it was it was
Speaker 1: Ben Silverman. It controlled me to be on this podcast
Speaker 1: when I should be working on other things. Um, and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, this is gonna be for all
Speaker 1: of us. This is the kind of the thing that
Speaker 1: people will talk about in your career. And I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Like that's cool. I mean, you know, it's not doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I stopped working, and I don't want to beat it.
Speaker 1: But if at the end of my career, for five years,
Speaker 1: I worked on a show that's considered one of the
Speaker 1: best comedies of all time, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: can attribute quite a bit to it. And I met
Speaker 1: all these great people, and I remember like summer camp
Speaker 1: and summer camp you would go back every summer and
Speaker 1: like you would kind of intend to keep in touch
Speaker 1: with people over the thing, but then you kind of
Speaker 1: have your school friends and then you come back and
Speaker 1: like for those four weeks you would just be like
Speaker 1: my best friend Brian and I were doing this, and
Speaker 1: then like like we have to keep in touch, we
Speaker 1: have to keep a touch, man, And then you wouldn't
Speaker 1: and then you'd see them again the next year and
Speaker 1: it'd be the same thing. And it's like I see
Speaker 1: Greg for lunch once or twice a year. It excites
Speaker 1: me every single time I do it. I see Paul
Speaker 1: all the relationships matter to me, and it's like it
Speaker 1: kind of in a way like transcends frequency of seeing
Speaker 1: someone you just I just built. All these connections in
Speaker 1: my entire career can be traced back to Gregg reading
Speaker 1: a pilot about two codependent magicians you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and saying like, yeah, I'll pick those guys, and then
Speaker 1: everything else that's happened came from that. Awesome Um you're
Speaker 1: contribution to the show. I mean, I don't have to
Speaker 1: tell you you know how important it is, but your
Speaker 1: friendship is so important to me, and I respect you
Speaker 1: and I think you're one of the most talented people
Speaker 1: I've ever worked with. So thank you so much. This
Speaker 1: is so fun. I love that so much. It's I
Speaker 1: truly learned so much from Lee and I am so
Speaker 1: glad I got to share it with all of you.
Speaker 1: Lee 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 an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our
Speaker 1: executive producer, Lang Lee, Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer,
Speaker 1: our producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is
Speaker 1: Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is Alec Moore.
Speaker 1: Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great
Speaker 1: friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olansky. Yeah, Hey, Leeth,
Speaker 1: the listeners take here. Last season on Lethal Lit, you
Speaker 1: might remember I came to Hollow Falls on a mission. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm finding out that in this town, the dead don't
Speaker 1: keep their secrets for long, and the bodies keep piling up.
Speaker 1: The second season if Lethal Lit is available now on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. What's Up, guys, I'm a
Speaker 1: Shop Bloud and I am Troy Millions and we are
Speaker 1: the host of the Earnier Leisure podcast, where we break
Speaker 1: down business models and examine the latest trans and finance.
Speaker 1: We hold court and have exclusive interviews with some of
Speaker 1: the biggest names of business, sport, and entertainment from DJ
Speaker 1: Khaled to Mark Cuban, Rick Ross and Shaquill O'Neil. I
Speaker 1: mean our alumnilists expansive. Listen in as our guests reveal
Speaker 1: their business models, hardships and triumphs and their respective fields.
Speaker 1: The knowledge is in death and the questions are always
Speaker 1: delivered from your standpoint. We want to know what you
Speaker 1: want to know. We talked to the legends of business, sports,
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Speaker 1: the Black Effect podcast Network. I heart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or where every you get your podcasts. I'm Emilia on
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm taking you on a search, a search
Speaker 1: for love hard working Latina. But there were other reasons
Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't always beat myself my mom's
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