Speaker 1: Hey, Lee, the listeners take here. Last season on Lethal Lit,
Speaker 1: you 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. Hey Hey, this is John
Speaker 1: hopebryant entrepreneur and a fellow builder just like you. Thanks
Speaker 1: you the help of I Heart Radio and Prudential Financial.
Speaker 1: I'd like to present to you my brand new podcast.
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Speaker 1: each season. First up, Provo Canyon School. This one is personal.
Speaker 1: Listen to Trapped in Treatment on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My name's
Speaker 1: Rain Wilson and I played Dwight Kurt Shrewd. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the office Deep Dive. I am your host
Speaker 1: Brian baum Gartner. Today you will be listening to my
Speaker 1: conversation with Rain Wilson. Now, when we started shooting the show, um, Rain,
Speaker 1: he was the only person that I knew. I met
Speaker 1: Rain back in circa nineteen all right. I was living
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis and I went to see a production at
Speaker 1: the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Now you should know this.
Speaker 1: The Guthrie is a very, very big deal. It is
Speaker 1: the largest regional theater in the country. It puts on
Speaker 1: incredible shows, world renowned, etcetera, etcetera. Well, Rain was starring
Speaker 1: uh in a production of Philadelphia. Here I come, and
Speaker 1: I went to the show. And I have said this
Speaker 1: many times. Rain's performance in that show it was the
Speaker 1: greatest performance that I ever saw on the Guthrie stage.
Speaker 1: It was brilliant. And so the show was over and
Speaker 1: I was like, I've got to meet this guy. Rain.
Speaker 1: This guy is brilliant and so we got introduced, we
Speaker 1: met and we became friends. And when I showed up
Speaker 1: to work on the first day of the office, there
Speaker 1: was Rain, and I could not have been more delighted
Speaker 1: to see him. He is. He's a special one, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. I am so excited for you to hear
Speaker 1: this interview. You're going to hear Rain in a way
Speaker 1: you have never heard him before. I love talking to him.
Speaker 1: You are going to love listening to him. So, without
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Rain Wilson, Bubble and Squeak. I
Speaker 1: love Bubble and squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cook at
Speaker 1: every month left over from the night before. Oh, there
Speaker 1: he is him, buddy, Hey man, how are you. I'm good, good,
Speaker 1: I see you? Yeah? Yeah? Are you we? Um? That
Speaker 1: felt really inappropriate? Why, um, we have some salty nuts
Speaker 1: for you. I saw just a giant, like five pounds
Speaker 1: of salty I was requested, what salty nuts? Nothing is requested?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't know? Um, all right,
Speaker 1: let's do this. Let's do it. Hi, I'm all yours
Speaker 1: for two hours? Really so exciting? Are you excited? No?
Speaker 1: Why not? It's fun? To see me. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see you. Yes, that's that's what. That's what that's that's Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a lot of it. I do things.
Speaker 1: I also a excited about talking about the Office in
Speaker 1: terms of like some stuff that you don't normally hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the the longer, more detailed stories of some of
Speaker 1: the intricacies of how stuff was arrived at and some
Speaker 1: of the choices that were made along the way and
Speaker 1: stuff like. Well, that's what my goal is with you,
Speaker 1: because you're a thoughtful person. I'm gonna try to do that.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get that from Creed. No, I know.
Speaker 1: Well I think we've scheduled him for twenty two minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's fine. Um No, but yeah, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: talk to you. What what So we're starting, we're rolling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just we're just chatting. Good. What were you doing
Speaker 1: before the Office? Um? Before the Office? Well, going way
Speaker 1: way back before. So, I did theater for about ten
Speaker 1: years in New York before I did any TV or film,
Speaker 1: so early was a theater actor. Some lot of people
Speaker 1: ask like, how were you an improv or were you
Speaker 1: and stand up or something? Like that, but I didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. I'm similar to you exactly. Yeah, theater theater
Speaker 1: person that kind of found that we were well suited
Speaker 1: to kind of comic character guys despite our ravishingly good looks.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So I came out to l a in
Speaker 1: and then started doing commercial auditions and voiceover auditions and
Speaker 1: little guest spots on TV shows. I was unlike Charmed,
Speaker 1: and yeah and c S I and I did c
Speaker 1: S I. You did see s I too. For you,
Speaker 1: I was a furry you're a guy who gets sexual
Speaker 1: gratifications out of wearing a big furry suit. I was
Speaker 1: creepy guy in supermarket. I'm not kidding, creepy guy in Supermarket.
Speaker 1: I think I was dog. I think literally that perfect.
Speaker 1: I think that was my role that was perfect. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I did a lot of that stuff and some pilots,
Speaker 1: and I did some decent movie roles here and there,
Speaker 1: and um, what happened for me that really led to
Speaker 1: the office is a lot of people think I kind
Speaker 1: of waltzt into Dwight. But the big role that put
Speaker 1: me on the map was in Six ft Under. So
Speaker 1: after a lot of slogging around the casting people, Libby Goldstein. Um,
Speaker 1: they brought me in multiple times to six ft Under
Speaker 1: and finally I got the role of Arthur and I
Speaker 1: did ended up doing thirteen episodes on that right when
Speaker 1: HBO was heating up, and that was kind of revolutionizing
Speaker 1: what we think of as television. You know, Sopranos the
Speaker 1: Wire were on at the same time. It was Entourage
Speaker 1: and a lot of really amazing shows, including six ft
Speaker 1: Under and uh, all of a sudden, I popped onto
Speaker 1: people's radar. Um. It was really incredible how that happened,
Speaker 1: because that was one of those shows that everyone in
Speaker 1: l A watches. There's there are the shows that people
Speaker 1: watch all across the country. They watch n c I,
Speaker 1: S l A or something like that, and it's fifty
Speaker 1: million people will watch it, but no one in l
Speaker 1: A who are like taste makers watch it. So this
Speaker 1: six ft Under was one of those kind of shows
Speaker 1: and that's what put me on the map. And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was in kind of pretty high
Speaker 1: demand for movies and stuff. I know, you want a
Speaker 1: SAG Award for that, the Ensemble Ensemble SAG Award. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I might be the only person who has been part
Speaker 1: of winning an Ensemble SAG Award for both Drama and
Speaker 1: Comedy because I did it for six ft Under and
Speaker 1: then twice we won I think twice we won uh
Speaker 1: for The Office and now, so so you're in high demand, yeah,
Speaker 1: And were you aware of the British version of The Office?
Speaker 1: I was. I was so my friend Sam Catlin, he
Speaker 1: had heard about it and he had seen a couple
Speaker 1: episodes and somehow gotten some like British DVD or something
Speaker 1: like that, and had like even like an English DVD
Speaker 1: player or something somehow had advanced copies and like, you've
Speaker 1: got to see it. Groundbreaking, amazing, and so we went
Speaker 1: over like on a special occasional We've got to watch
Speaker 1: The Office, and we were blown away. So I was
Speaker 1: really truly one of the first bowl to see it
Speaker 1: in the United States. It might have been one of
Speaker 1: the first couple of thousand people to see it in
Speaker 1: the United States, and just we loved it. And then
Speaker 1: he would get his hands on a couple more episodes
Speaker 1: and we'd go back and have dinner and watched like
Speaker 1: two or three more episodes. So I loved it. And
Speaker 1: what happened was I got cast in a pilot with
Speaker 1: Jeanine Garofalo for ABC. Mark Marin was in it and
Speaker 1: Bob oden Kirk was in it. And this was this
Speaker 1: infamous pilot that we did the table read and they
Speaker 1: pulled the plug after the table read. So they had
Speaker 1: sets built, we had locations, we had cast, we had
Speaker 1: plane tickets. We were flying out the next day, literally
Speaker 1: the next morning after the table read starts shooting and
Speaker 1: uh did the table read? It went terribly, but I
Speaker 1: guess what, I still got paid. And that was the
Speaker 1: same pilot season as The Office. Kind of the Office
Speaker 1: didn't really follow a pilot season when it was first casting, right,
Speaker 1: So what happened was Vernon Sanders, who's one of the
Speaker 1: big executives and executives right, and I ran into him
Speaker 1: in the parking lot on the way to this infamous
Speaker 1: table read and he's like, hey, we got good news
Speaker 1: and I was like, what's that is? Like, we got
Speaker 1: the rights to make the American version of the Office,
Speaker 1: and I was like, outside, I was like, oh great,
Speaker 1: and inside I was like, motherfucker, goddamn it. That's fucking sucks.
Speaker 1: Because I love the British Office so much. I didn't
Speaker 1: have an idea of like even what the American Office
Speaker 1: would be or what role I would play or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But I was just like inside, I was
Speaker 1: just kicking myself. And then the plug gets pulled on that.
Speaker 1: And then I called my people and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: I hear about this office, and they're like, yeah, well
Speaker 1: it was a few months to go on that. So
Speaker 1: fortunately that the space was opened and the door was opened.
Speaker 1: The universe works in mysterious ways, Brian, That's right, it does,
Speaker 1: and so you eventually get a call to go in
Speaker 1: and meet correct. I was the first audition for the office.
Speaker 1: I have in my office at home, framed the audition
Speaker 1: sheet of Alison Jones the first day of the auditions
Speaker 1: for the office, and I was number one on that list.
Speaker 1: So other people on the list, or Jenna Fisher you
Speaker 1: can find. It's on my Instagram somewhere. It might even
Speaker 1: be in my book in the in the photos included
Speaker 1: in my books, so you guys can find it. But uh,
Speaker 1: I think Adam Scott audition. I think there were, um,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of great talent that auditions. My
Speaker 1: story about that I'll share with you really quick was
Speaker 1: when Steve left, Alison Jones came to me when he
Speaker 1: had a little party, a little reception. She came and
Speaker 1: she goes, I was looking for stuff for Steve that
Speaker 1: I thought might be cool. She probably gave that to you,
Speaker 1: like when she was searching around and she hands me
Speaker 1: a sheet and it says Kevin and it says Brian
Speaker 1: baum Gartner, Eric stone Street and Jorge Garcia. No kidding.
Speaker 1: So that was like the final three. But oh fantastic.
Speaker 1: So you and although Eric's down Street is way richer
Speaker 1: than you, he is now yeah he sorry, shoot sorry,
Speaker 1: So yeah. So on that first audition, I auditioned for
Speaker 1: both Michael and Dwight, and my Michael was just terrible.
Speaker 1: It was just simply a Ricky Gervais impersonation. And I
Speaker 1: knew that I had more of an affinity for the
Speaker 1: Dwight role. Uh, And I knew that I could really
Speaker 1: deliver on that. I just felt it in my bones.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is me, this is that is
Speaker 1: exactly my kind of weird. Yeah, well that I mean,
Speaker 1: you're but you were so different also than Gareth in
Speaker 1: the British version. I mean he was much yeah weasily
Speaker 1: and and Dwight way more authoritarian and trying to derive power,
Speaker 1: whereas Gareth seemed more backstabby. Yeah, we're different in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways and similar in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And it was this incredible luxury to go, Okay, here's
Speaker 1: Mackenzie Crook, brilliant actor, really strange look dude, and he
Speaker 1: killed as Gareth and was so interesting and I get
Speaker 1: to steal all of his best stuff, and then there's
Speaker 1: maybe stuff that I can add that's more of my own,
Speaker 1: so it's win win all around. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that Dwight is most known for is saying absolutely ludicrous,
Speaker 1: preposterous stuff with a total straight face and a dead pan,
Speaker 1: without any knowledge that what he's saying is ridiculous. And really,
Speaker 1: Mackenzie did that so beautifully and I really just frankly
Speaker 1: stole that from him. Another thing I stole from him
Speaker 1: was the haircut. Um. I read an interview with him
Speaker 1: where he said he went to like just a local
Speaker 1: barber shop out in like Slough or some you know,
Speaker 1: suburb of London, and he kind of got the haircut
Speaker 1: that would be the least flattering for his head and
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous haircut. And I read that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to do that, so I spent time in
Speaker 1: the mirror figuring out what's the haircut that is going
Speaker 1: to make me look the most ridiculous. I have a
Speaker 1: huge forehead, and I was like, I'm going to frame
Speaker 1: my forehead perfectly with these little draperies of hair that
Speaker 1: will highlight the enormity of my carapace. Is that a word?
Speaker 1: I think it is a word. These guys aren't even listening. Um,
Speaker 1: and then like really short on the sides, and then
Speaker 1: in intense and then it evolved over time. But interesting now,
Speaker 1: so we're not going to talk too much more about
Speaker 1: the audition process, But at what point did you meet
Speaker 1: John and Jenna and Steve in the callback sessions? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So the callback sessions were months later, mostly for for
Speaker 1: those listeners who don't know the way pilot season used
Speaker 1: to work, at least less and less so. But all
Speaker 1: the scripts would start getting released in December January, and
Speaker 1: then all the auditions where this is called pilot season
Speaker 1: January February. They'd shoot in like March early April. Decisions
Speaker 1: would be made in late April or May about staffing
Speaker 1: up for the summer, and if something was going to
Speaker 1: be on the air in September, so it's always a
Speaker 1: very narrow kind of window. It's like this, this is
Speaker 1: how this nine month window worked. So the office was
Speaker 1: outside of those bounds a little bit. I think my
Speaker 1: first audition was like in September, October, and then the
Speaker 1: callback was like December, and then we shot in like
Speaker 1: February or something like that. So I had to wait
Speaker 1: months after that first audition, and they had a callback
Speaker 1: situation where they brought everyone and their mother and anyone
Speaker 1: they were considering for the role over a weekend, and
Speaker 1: Greg was incredibly thorough and I spent maybe I spent
Speaker 1: seven or eight hours on one of the first day there,
Speaker 1: and I met Jenna, I met John um. Steve was
Speaker 1: shooting some other stuff, but he had a little bit
Speaker 1: of time and we improvised together and did a couple
Speaker 1: of scenes together. We were given scene, oh here, tried
Speaker 1: this scene, tried this scene. Not much time to prepare
Speaker 1: stuff we've never seen and just like just just shoot it,
Speaker 1: you know, and then we'd improvise, you know, like Jim
Speaker 1: brings Dwight a glass of water, and it's like just
Speaker 1: improvised Jim bringing you a glass of water, and Dwight
Speaker 1: as immediately distrustful, like as he poisoned it or something
Speaker 1: like that, and and that was not really my gig.
Speaker 1: I didn't do, you know, upright citizens Brigade or groundlings.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really an improv guy, but I'm good at
Speaker 1: improving kind of in character. In fact, later after I
Speaker 1: was cast, Greg came to me and we had a
Speaker 1: coffee and he gave me kind of a little bit
Speaker 1: of a warning talk, and it kind of scared me. Essentially,
Speaker 1: he said, in a very diplomatic way, you improvised better
Speaker 1: than you act when you're on the script. And I
Speaker 1: was like, what, He's like, Yeah, it was more, it's
Speaker 1: more natural. It's more when you're doing scripted stuff, it
Speaker 1: feels a little heavy and a little forced. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, and this was before we were going
Speaker 1: to shoot the pilot. So I begged my manager. I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to see the audition tapes. I
Speaker 1: want to see my audition tapes. And sure enough, he
Speaker 1: was right, because somehow, when I improvised, it was just
Speaker 1: a little looser, as a little more off the cough.
Speaker 1: It was a little weirder when I was doing scripted stuff.
Speaker 1: It's I don't want to say it sounded like a
Speaker 1: theater actor or something like that, but it sounded a
Speaker 1: little more scripted. It didn't have that kind of documentary
Speaker 1: feel that the office had to have, and it was
Speaker 1: a really great learning experience, like, Oh, I need to
Speaker 1: just kind of let the script, let the script go,
Speaker 1: improvise around the script, let it be much lighter. That
Speaker 1: is fascinating. I did not know that story, but it
Speaker 1: kept me up at night. I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? I improvided a good improviser and
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Speaker 1: So I want to talk about um you creating the
Speaker 1: character of Dwight. How you went about that, Like what
Speaker 1: elements you chose that that you brought into Dwight. How
Speaker 1: did you approach that? So Um, I always say that
Speaker 1: in terms of like when people ask me about playing Dwight,
Speaker 1: I always say that I think my goal was to
Speaker 1: make Dwight very specific, you know, having you know, Dwight
Speaker 1: have a pager, stand a certain way, like drive a
Speaker 1: certain way, sitting in his chair a certain way, have
Speaker 1: certain attitudes about certain things that are very specified because
Speaker 1: no one had done like combination muscle car nerd. You know,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, there's a lot of disparate
Speaker 1: elements that go into the creation of Dwight, like heavy
Speaker 1: metal muscle car rarely equals Battlestar Galactica fan. And I
Speaker 1: do think this is true as an act. And the
Speaker 1: more specific you make your character, that made him more
Speaker 1: human and then more relatable. Um So muscle car nerd,
Speaker 1: um heavy metal, you know Amish. Of course, Greg Daniels
Speaker 1: always said that the beat farmer thing was his grandparents.
Speaker 1: I think we're beat literally beat farmers in Poland and
Speaker 1: they grew beats. Um. I think like before the Holocaust
Speaker 1: and uh so he put that in from that, I
Speaker 1: did not know that. So the beat farm was from yes,
Speaker 1: and then the glasses, which, by the way, I really
Speaker 1: do think that DWIGHTE has influenced popular culture because now
Speaker 1: all the hipsters were the DWIGHTE glasses. You were the
Speaker 1: first hipster. Yeah, I really was. I was like the
Speaker 1: hipster nerd who took those glasses. And and now everyone
Speaker 1: who goes to Intelligencia Coffee and silver Lake or Brooklyn
Speaker 1: are wearing those same glasses. Yeah. Um, free commercial for
Speaker 1: Intelligencia Coffee. Thank you, I'll take my gift card please. Um.
Speaker 1: Was there anything for you as a theater actor like myself?
Speaker 1: It's a loaded question. Was there anything physically, any physical
Speaker 1: manifestation of Dwight within Rain? That's a great question, And
Speaker 1: yes there was. And I've never really talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I went to theater school. I was an n
Speaker 1: y U grad program, did a lot of like clowning,
Speaker 1: and did a lot of a lot of physical work
Speaker 1: and physical theater. You were involved in physical theater in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to sound pretentious at all like
Speaker 1: Mr Theater, but when you get that kind of training,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is physical, like how do you
Speaker 1: find a character in your body? You know, that's part
Speaker 1: of clown work as well. But there were certain elements
Speaker 1: of Dwight that if I needed to kind of get
Speaker 1: into character, I could just put my attention and put
Speaker 1: my focus in certain parts of my body and I
Speaker 1: would immediately be Dwight, like a really like a straight neck,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh kind of hips forward and kind
Speaker 1: of thinking about like like big hips. Like I don't
Speaker 1: know if you noticed that Dwight always stands too close
Speaker 1: to people and someone's sitting down and he's standing next
Speaker 1: to him, like his hips are like really like big
Speaker 1: next to their face kind of, and there's kind of
Speaker 1: a ramrod neck, a little bit of a swagger, and
Speaker 1: the shoulders thrown back. Those were some of the elements
Speaker 1: of Dwight that if I was ever feeling like do
Speaker 1: I really have him? Early on? You know, after you
Speaker 1: do two seasons, you can just do the character in
Speaker 1: your sleep. But but early on, there were some of
Speaker 1: those physical choices that really were like clown kind of
Speaker 1: choices that I could go to to just help me
Speaker 1: get into the world. What about you for Kevin? Did
Speaker 1: you have something for Kevin? Too. I mean too that
Speaker 1: I can articulate. I'm sure there were more. For me,
Speaker 1: it was my jaw. I knew there was a specific
Speaker 1: place that I could put my jaw. That was him.
Speaker 1: And also I imagined him for the jaw thing. You
Speaker 1: had a weird mouth. You would make like a little
Speaker 1: mouth like this, so it's like a little a little
Speaker 1: jutting it for a little bit. And your lips should
Speaker 1: be a little a little like pursed, yeah, exactly. And
Speaker 1: also I had the ideas as he moved through the space.
Speaker 1: There were two things. One is he wasn't aware of
Speaker 1: his size within the space, right, which to me was
Speaker 1: always hilarious when I would come against Angela right because
Speaker 1: I just wouldn't see her there and knock her around.
Speaker 1: And the other was that there was something about my
Speaker 1: torso that it doesn't move agilely from side to side.
Speaker 1: It's all sort of just all connected down at my hips,
Speaker 1: and that there's yeah, yeah, yeah, so the whole body
Speaker 1: turns at the same whole body and maybe even shuffle
Speaker 1: my feet to turn to one. Um, hold on one second,
Speaker 1: that is not your in that is water speak for yourself. Um,
Speaker 1: why do people love Dwight Well? We talked earlier about
Speaker 1: the specificity of Dwight, and I think that how his
Speaker 1: glasses are and how his beeper is, and that the
Speaker 1: certain colors that he wears in the car he drives,
Speaker 1: and how he sees the world old um. But you know,
Speaker 1: the thing I hate the most about comedy, and I
Speaker 1: have been known to tiptoe into this land, but the
Speaker 1: thing I hate them most about it is that when
Speaker 1: someone knows that they're being funny, And that's one of
Speaker 1: the I think keys to the comedy the Office is
Speaker 1: that none of the characters thought of themselves as being funny.
Speaker 1: I think the documentary element helped with that tremendously. And
Speaker 1: I tried to play Dwight as outrageously as possible and
Speaker 1: as grounded and realistic as possible at the same time.
Speaker 1: So look at any scene and what's happening. As matter
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it is, you can always tell there's a child,
Speaker 1: there's a big kid in there. He could do just
Speaker 1: preposterous things, but I always tried to motivate them internally
Speaker 1: with some internal drive, like this is how Dwight saw
Speaker 1: the world, This is how you always knew how Dwight felt.
Speaker 1: I guess that would be my number one answer is like,
Speaker 1: you can always tell what Dwight is feeling and what
Speaker 1: he's going through on the inside. And he thinks he's hiding,
Speaker 1: you know, people think, oh, is he you know, is
Speaker 1: he is he on the spectrum? Does he have autism
Speaker 1: or something like that, But his heart is on his sleeve.
Speaker 1: You can always see what he's feeling, you know, is
Speaker 1: even if he's being haughty or even if he's being arrogant, like,
Speaker 1: you always see what's going on in the inside. And
Speaker 1: I think that that allowed people to relate to him.
Speaker 1: So in those moments when Dwight was sad or hurt,
Speaker 1: or or put off or disappointed, like people really felt
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Speaker 1: weekly conversation that revolves around underworld, the criminals and entertainers
Speaker 1: to victims's crime and law enforcement. We cover all facets
Speaker 1: of the game. Gangster Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify from modilsit activities.
Speaker 1: We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions of these activities
Speaker 1: because at the law if you played gamester games, you
Speaker 1: are ultimately rewarded with Gangster Prizes. Our Heart Radios member
Speaker 1: one for podcast, but don't take our word for it.
Speaker 1: Find Against the Chronicles podcast and my Heart radio app
Speaker 1: but wherever you get your podcast. What were your initial
Speaker 1: thoughts of the pilot when you first saw it? Um,
Speaker 1: are you proud of it? I thought the pilot. I
Speaker 1: think if you look at all of our episodes, the
Speaker 1: pilots one of the weakest. I think it feels a
Speaker 1: little labored. It's not as funny as when we find
Speaker 1: our own voice. And a few episodes the healthcare and
Speaker 1: basketball episodes a few ones later on UM, I liked
Speaker 1: it a lot, But because I knew the British office
Speaker 1: so well, I just felt like, oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is feeling a little bit like a Paler imitation of
Speaker 1: the British offic I wasn't the hugest fan, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, I really knew the potential of the
Speaker 1: show that we had right UM So going back and
Speaker 1: watching some of the stuff that I want to say too,
Speaker 1: and this story has been told before, but that first season,
Speaker 1: for you listeners out there who don't understand this, like
Speaker 1: we did six episodes. That's never done. No one does
Speaker 1: six episodes of the first season, especially back in those
Speaker 1: days of network television. Network television only makes money when
Speaker 1: they hit syndications and they have to have over a
Speaker 1: hundred episodes, and they want to shoot as many as possible,
Speaker 1: So it was really weird that they like found some
Speaker 1: money in the budget to kind of shoot six under
Speaker 1: the radar episodes of the Office. But I mean, we
Speaker 1: barely hung on for the first year and a half,
Speaker 1: and and then we were you know, a moderate hit
Speaker 1: for a while, and then we were kind of fading.
Speaker 1: You're so fired? Whoever, that was so funny, right, your god,
Speaker 1: and hit you with my five pounds of mixed nuts.
Speaker 1: So who would have ever think that fifteen years after
Speaker 1: shooting the pilot, this is when we're having this conversation,
Speaker 1: the Office would be bigger than ever, two hundred episodes,
Speaker 1: you know, defining roles for for all of us. Do
Speaker 1: you remember after we shot the first six episodes of
Speaker 1: season two, you and Steve and I We're sitting in
Speaker 1: Steve's trailer and Steve said, well, at least we got
Speaker 1: to do twelve mm hmm, and we thought we were done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And wasn't the next order for like four? Two? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And then there was four and then like one, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're doing four? How they ordered one? More? Like it
Speaker 1: was like it just like just dribs and drabs, and
Speaker 1: this is just not done in that world of network
Speaker 1: television exactly. Yes, what I remember is six four, two, one, seven,
Speaker 1: and then they said, okay, you can do twenty two.
Speaker 1: And then a week later we got a third season
Speaker 1: and it was like, oh we're rolling. Yeah, we're off
Speaker 1: to the races. An NBC hung that big bulletin board
Speaker 1: up no excuse me, what's it called a billboard over
Speaker 1: by its offices with the office on it, like from
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. All of a sudden, we were like
Speaker 1: their prize new show, and we were going from like
Speaker 1: almost canceled too, because the numbers just started to shoot
Speaker 1: up dramatically and the interest in the show started to
Speaker 1: shoot up dramatically. I mean there was forty year old virgin, Yes,
Speaker 1: that certainly contributed to it. My name is Earl. We
Speaker 1: followed my name as Earl, which had much stronger numbers
Speaker 1: right out of the gate and really helped us. And
Speaker 1: I talked about this in my book, But what happened
Speaker 1: around that Christmas time was that the first video iPods
Speaker 1: came out and they were preloaded with the Office Christmas
Speaker 1: episode on it. So basically all of the you talk
Speaker 1: about like influencers. Like I view it as like who
Speaker 1: got video iPods for Christmas? The first year that came
Speaker 1: out the rich kids to all the rich kids around America,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden had an office episode and it
Speaker 1: was young people with their iPods who knew how to
Speaker 1: set up an iTunes account because their parents didn't. And
Speaker 1: that was the amazing thing. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: think that Blindside and everybody, including NBC, that we would
Speaker 1: be so popular with young people, right, um, iTunes, the
Speaker 1: video iPod technology. I mean the show were you on
Speaker 1: my Space very briefly, like for like two and a
Speaker 1: half months, because that was Jenna and myself and Angela
Speaker 1: and b J really used my Space in that first
Speaker 1: season season and a half when we were trying to
Speaker 1: cultivate viewers. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker 1: So we were the kind of the first show that
Speaker 1: when end in hand with technology and social media. Yes,
Speaker 1: and then you became kind of king of Twitter. That
Speaker 1: was later, but yeah, two thousand nine, early on in Twitter,
Speaker 1: I joined early because I was founding the company's soul
Speaker 1: pancake and they kind of insisted that I do it.
Speaker 1: And young people young nerdy people that were starting out
Speaker 1: on Twitter and comedy people. Um I was like the
Speaker 1: big cheese for the first like nine months of Twitter
Speaker 1: that were hardly any bigger celebrities than me. So I
Speaker 1: immediately like had a million followers on Twitter early on.
Speaker 1: Yeah what? Um So the Cold Opens the show kind
Speaker 1: of started finding itself and also finding its form, right,
Speaker 1: Like having the cold opens that we're separate from the
Speaker 1: regular episodes, right, what do you feel like those allowed
Speaker 1: us to do well? I think they discovered early on.
Speaker 1: Greg is one of the people I've worked with the
Speaker 1: most who has this ability to ride this line of
Speaker 1: like real instinct, like he'll just throw something out like
Speaker 1: try this, I think that will be really funny and
Speaker 1: it's weird and it's out there and it's not related
Speaker 1: to anything, but also like really almost spocklike precision about
Speaker 1: like what works about characters and what works about storylines.
Speaker 1: And one of the things they realized early on is
Speaker 1: that like you know, Jim pranking Dwight, which the British
Speaker 1: show started obviously, but audiences loved that, so that was
Speaker 1: a really great way to have cold opens. They weren't
Speaker 1: all pranks, but a lot of them were pranks and
Speaker 1: the audience just love them. I still to this day,
Speaker 1: and people like, what's your favorite prank? When he did
Speaker 1: this prank, when he did that prank. Do you guys
Speaker 1: prank each other? I always get that, like do you
Speaker 1: prank each other? Back say She's like, no, we don't.
Speaker 1: It takes too much work and effort to prank someone.
Speaker 1: You have to plan it and think it through. We
Speaker 1: were just they're shooting a TV show, like what you know.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I could think was and it
Speaker 1: happened like eight times. I remember there was a period
Speaker 1: probably when the computer started working, where we had we
Speaker 1: could send I M s to each other, so it
Speaker 1: would be like what are you doing? Like what while
Speaker 1: someone was doing a scene like that's kind of the
Speaker 1: only like yeah, yeah. But so I think the cold
Speaker 1: opens really helped hook an audience in. Remember this was
Speaker 1: not streaming. You're gonna have a commercial between my name
Speaker 1: is Earl and the the office is going to start. You
Speaker 1: gotta hook him. You got that ninety seconds, two minutes.
Speaker 1: You want him to sit through the commercials that come
Speaker 1: right after that and stick with the show. So I
Speaker 1: think Greg was really canny about that too, kind of
Speaker 1: like we got to hook him in, and those things
Speaker 1: became swiftly kind of one of the strongest aspects of
Speaker 1: the show. Well, and one of the other things that happened,
Speaker 1: which was a purely business decision. Right. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember this. This was when the DVR. You
Speaker 1: would set the DVR to record from nine to nine thirty, right,
Speaker 1: and then we started showing up at eight, So if
Speaker 1: you had not set it to start earlier, right, you
Speaker 1: would miss it. So you would need to tune in earlier,
Speaker 1: which means if you were watching another channel, you'd have
Speaker 1: to turn over to NBC before nine o'clock. And that
Speaker 1: changed the whole ratings things, and then the supersized episodes
Speaker 1: and all of those things. I I you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of the length of the episodes, we did a lot
Speaker 1: of episodes that were double episodes, and we did a
Speaker 1: lot of episodes that were just longer episodes. Yes, but
Speaker 1: I always felt and I wonder if Greg would do
Speaker 1: this at some point in time. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's some vault that has all of the office material.
Speaker 1: Is that the first not the first cut, but the
Speaker 1: rough cut that would get passed around for like notes,
Speaker 1: that was too long. The six minute cuts of episodes
Speaker 1: were always way better, and I wonder if they'll ever be.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think that would be a really smart
Speaker 1: money making scheme, is to re release kind of directors
Speaker 1: cut of all the episodes and let them be four
Speaker 1: to twenty nine minutes long. But it was always just
Speaker 1: such a pain to like cut them down from like
Speaker 1: that twenty five minutes sweet spot to that twenty one
Speaker 1: minute forty second mark that they would have to be
Speaker 1: to air with the commercials. Was there any story or
Speaker 1: anything that got cut out that you specifically remember regretting.
Speaker 1: I have one that I yelled at the editors about.
Speaker 1: I think there was a lot more with me and
Speaker 1: Ellie doing doth RACKI early on for Game of Thrones,
Speaker 1: that was they cut that almost down to almost nothing,
Speaker 1: and I remember being pistols like that was so funny,
Speaker 1: and they're like, we gotta lose stuff, sorry, we gotta
Speaker 1: cut stuff. And because it was like the C story,
Speaker 1: so they always going to cut the C story. The
Speaker 1: A story is always going to be like Michael and
Speaker 1: Jan and something, and the B stories like Dwight and
Speaker 1: Jim battling, and then the C story is going to
Speaker 1: be like some smaller thing. And sometimes to White is
Speaker 1: in the A story, but a lot of times he's
Speaker 1: in the C story, and that's always the one that
Speaker 1: gets kind of cut to the bone, right, what was
Speaker 1: your one? Mine was um baby shower and Jan is
Speaker 1: having the baby and um, Kevin asks her where she
Speaker 1: got her sperm donated from, and Jan says, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a very very exclusive place. You wouldn't know it.
Speaker 1: And Kevin says, the one behind the eye hop. And
Speaker 1: they'll look on Steve's face and her face, and the
Speaker 1: idea that Jan's baby might have was just pure. And
Speaker 1: they were like, yeah, we're not doing anything with that
Speaker 1: or like what if that? And I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's just so funny. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: stop there now. I'm so sorry, we have to stop
Speaker 1: right in the middle. M that's what he said. I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: don't freak out because you're going to hear even more
Speaker 1: from Rain in a future episode. But I just I
Speaker 1: had to leave you with that thought, the idea that
Speaker 1: Kevin may have been the father of Jan's baby. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm quite convinced that he was uh that that that
Speaker 1: Kevin was the father of Astrid, and he would have
Speaker 1: loved the name and giggled at it, So think about
Speaker 1: that before we're back anyway, Thank you for listening. You
Speaker 1: guys are the best. I am so excited to have
Speaker 1: you with me on this journey and we'll see you
Speaker 1: next week for another episode of the Office Deep Dive.
Speaker 1: The Office Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by
Speaker 1: me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior
Speaker 1: producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate producer is Emily Carr,
Speaker 1: and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My main man
Speaker 1: in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble
Speaker 1: and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and
Speaker 1: the episode is mixed by seth Olandsky. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: the amazing production crew who recorded these interviews with us
Speaker 1: Joanna Sakalowski, Julia Smith, Benny Spi Wack Russell with Jaya,
Speaker 1: Margaret Borchard, Christian Bonaventura, Matthew Rosenfield, Alex Mobison, Lucy Savage,
Speaker 1: Judson Pickwork, Jack Walden, Jonathan Mayer, Andrew Stephen, David Lincoln,
Speaker 1: and said A Lee Hi I'm Arden Marine from Insatiable
Speaker 1: and will you accept this Rose Podcast? And I'm Julianne Robinson,
Speaker 1: an Emmy nominated director of Bridgeton And where are the
Speaker 1: hosts of Lady of the Road, a funny and inspiring
Speaker 1: podcast where we have conversations with influential women about their
Speaker 1: lives and we get self help advice because we are
Speaker 1: always looking to improve ourselves. Sure story. We talk about money, health, relationships,
Speaker 1: you name it, from inspiring women like Joan Jet, Nicole Buyer,
Speaker 1: Lauren Lopez, Raheta and more. Listen and subscribe to Lady
Speaker 1: of the Road on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What's Up, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm a Shop Balau and I am Troy Millions and
Speaker 1: we are the host of the Earnier Leisure podcast where
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Speaker 1: some of the biggest names of business, sport, and entertainment,
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Speaker 1: I mean our alumni list is expansive. Listening as our
Speaker 1: guests reveal their business models, hardships and triumphs and their
Speaker 1: respective fields. The knowledge is in death and the questions
Speaker 1: are always delivered from your standpoint. We want to know
Speaker 1: what you want to know. We talk to the legends
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Speaker 1: Earnie Alisia is a college business class mixed with pop culture.
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Speaker 1: really sure about how taxes or credit work. We got
Speaker 1: it all covered. The Earnie Leisure podcast is available now.
Speaker 1: Listen to Ernie Leisure on the Black Effect podcast Network,
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. On the latest season of The Next Question
Speaker 1: with Katie Correct podcast, Katie dives into Well Katie Here
Speaker 1: exclusive podcast only conversations between Katie and the people who
Speaker 1: made her memoir Going There Possible. Katie is a pack
Speaker 1: rod and she has basically her own archive of sorts
Speaker 1: in her basements. Plus, Katie explores some of the big
Speaker 1: news stories she's covered over the decades and the people
Speaker 1: behind them, like Anita Hill. I thought I could just
Speaker 1: get back to my life, and that was impossible. It
Speaker 1: was not going to be the same. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: Katie's signature curiosity and no holds barred interviews, along with
Speaker 1: some of her own revealing answers. We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time together around a dining room table here and
Speaker 1: in the city, and you know, it was a very
Speaker 1: intense experience. All episodes of Next Question with Katie Curic
Speaker 1: are available now. Listen on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.