by Rainn Wilson
Other early writers who helped shape the show were Larry Wilmore, who played Mr. Brown in “Diversity Day” and eventually would become an incredible Daily Show correspondent, and the amazing and incredibly bighearted Lester Lewis. (He passed away recently and is terribly missed by everyone he ever worked with. Rest in peace, Lester. Thanks for the laughter.)
Later we would be joined by even more writing and directing talent, like Jen Celotta, Brent Forrester, Danny Chun, Justin Spitzer, and the team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg,
Paul Feig, the great, dapper director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, was a director on staff and did many (fourteen!) of our very best episodes in those first couple of years, including “Halloween” and “Office Olympics.”
A lot of press and attention was given to the fact that so many writers on the show were also actors in the cast. This was another simple stroke of brilliance by Greg Daniels that once again filled a very practical need. We required bodies. It was an office we were creating, after all. Besides the five lead actors, we had six or so supporting cast members in that first season. Later these amazing players (Angela, Kevin, Stanley, et al. . . . .) would become series regulars and their characters would become further fleshed out and absolutely integral to the show. But an office has a lot more people in it than ten! Greg knew he could get interesting writers with a natural penchant for acting and since he had them under contract in the writers’ room, he could send them over to the set and have them add memorably to the population and life of Dunder Mifflin. Like many great innovations, this was undertaken as a way to save money and fill a very practical requirement of a workplace mockumentary.
Again, the future of The Office was a rough road. After the traumatic birth of our son, Walter, during the “Hot Girl” episode, the stakes were quite high for Holiday and me as we had a baby mouth to feed and the future was a complete unknown. After not hearing anything for several more months, all of us being sure because of our low ratings and scathing reviews that the show would be canceled, we were shocked when again at the last minute NBC picked up another partial order of six more episodes for the fall. Our second season!
The chairman of General Electric, Bob Wright, had a teenage son who LOVED The Office. GE owned NBC at the time and the Wright family apparently watched all the pilots and shows. Bob became very interested in us after his kid told him how much he and his friends loved us. This literally may have been the deciding factor that pushed NBC away from canceling us after that failed first batch of episodes. Our hero, the Wright family teenager: tastemaker, game changer, Office fan, and bazillionaire.
We went back to work in August 2005, eventually making some of The Office’s very best episodes, including “The Dundies,” “Halloween,” “Booze Cruise,” and, perhaps the greatest of all episodes, “The Injury,” written by She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named.
Every week the episodes aired we would check the ratings the next day with actual bated breath. Our first several episodes seemed to be doing all right, with much higher viewership than our brief first season but lower than many other comedies in the same time period. But we still weren’t getting a full pickup of shows from NBC. We were terrified of cancellation. We shot each week with great passion as well as pins and needles. I was certain that we would have a fate similar to some of my other favorite shows, Arrested Development and Freaks and Geeks—do a couple of handfuls of shows and be well regarded and cherished over time on DVD and in cable reruns.
Suddenly NBC called at the last minute again and ordered two more episodes just as we were finishing up our first batch. Our ratings continued to inch up very slowly. It was excruciating. Then they ordered two more episodes from us. Then one more. Then three more. And then?
We exploded.
Several important things were happening all at the same time. My Name Is Earl was a big hit right out of the gate and we rode on its coattails for quite some time. Our shows matched up well together and, along with Scrubs (and later 30 Rock and Parks and Rec), NBC started making some great inroads with single-camera comedies.
Young audiences, tired of all the hackneyed, broad, unrealistic multicamera sitcoms, were turning toward single-camera shows for a different kind of comedy experience. And this was the strangest thing about our audience: THEY WERE SO GOSH-DARNED YOUNG! Now, don’t get me wrong, we loved that fact (and so did the advertisers), but we were all a bit surprised. We were doing a show about an average American workplace, after all. We expected an audience of people who had interacted with a similar environment or experience at some point in their lives. Perhaps even people who didn’t work in an actual office but had to deal with crazy bosses and workmates. But junior high and high school students? That just didn’t make sense. To this day I meet preteens who are devouring the show and older fans who started watching it as a young adolescent. Many teens grew up watching the show, starting in high school and finishing the series by the time they were graduating from college. Our show had ushered them into adulthood. They grew up with us.
One of the things I’m most grateful for is that families could and would watch The Office together. Kids and teens and parents. I can’t tell you how many times I would hear from fans who would say something to the effect of “The only time all week our family would sit down with one another and laugh together was on Thursday nights when The Office was on.” This is both an incredible compliment and a terrible indictment of the modern American family. But I’m grateful nonetheless.
And then there was iTunes. Apple started—get this—to sell television shows on a music website! Then they started selling iPods with a SCREEN on them that would PLAY VIDEOS! Remember those?! The first batch of video iPods went on the market in October of that year and, true story, the top-of-the-line ones were preloaded with The Office’s “Christmas Party” episode on them. That meant that all the rich kids of America who got a video iPod for Christmas in 2005 had an immediate hookup to our show. They would pass their iPods around, listen to a little Kelly Clarkson and Rob Thomas, and then watch the episode with their little rich-kid friends. Our show started to spread throughout high schools like a mild STD.
In those first years of The Office episodes’ being available on the iTunes store, very often our show would take up five of the top ten positions on the sales chart. Young folks who were downloading shows were watching The Office more than any other program.
I remember staring at those iTunes charts in complete joyous disbelief. We were POPULAR! A show I was a LEAD on was actually SUCCESSFUL!
Then, all of a sudden, NBC put a giant billboard of us in front of their Burbank offices. Someone on the crew had taken a photo of that billboard while driving past and I, John, Jenna, and Steve huddled around looking at it, laughing ecstatically. After about a hundred elated high fives we settled back down to do the scene at hand, giggling secretly. A photo of that billboard was hung on the wall just outside of our set and stayed there for the duration of our show. We knew then we were going to be on the air for a long, long time.
We were off and running. There’s nothing like the energy that fills a cast and crew when you know you’re on a hit show. For Holiday and myself, who had struggled financially for decades, this was an incredible relief. I immediately traded in my dilapidated Volvo for an expensive luxury racing car that had just hit the market, the Toyota Prius.
The moment I knew that our show was entering “beloved cultural landmark” status, I was in the Detroit airport and an overweight old baggage handler came running up to me with his out-of-date flip phone. I was a little scared. What did this enormous Michiganian want from me? Did he want a photo? Did he want me to fix or bless his phone? He said, “Dwight, Dwight, look!”
On the phone, in flip-phone-style text, were the words: “I can and DO cut my own hair.”
He goes, “It’s from my daughter! We text each other Dwight lines back and forth!”
He was as excited as a schoolboy.
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Our show’s legacy was later secured when we were surprise winners of the 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and when Steve Carell won the Golden Globe that same season.
DIARY OF AN EMMY LOSER
Eventually I was nominated for three Emmy Awards in a row (for seasons three through six) but never won squat. I was beat out by Jeremy Piven (twice) and Jon Cryer (once). I would always somehow run into Neil Patrick Harris in the Emmy bathrooms for some reason, and we’d shake hands (after washing) and wish for one of the two of us to win in a secretive whisper. We never did win. He’s a nice fellow. But we’re both big-time Emmy losers.
There is really no more nerve-wracking experience than waiting in a big-ass theater in your tux with your spouse to see if your name will be called and you will need to bound to the stage and give a witty, heartfelt, off-the-cuff talk in front of twelve hundred judgmental industry leaders and twelve million people watching at home. Live.
There you are in the Kodak or Shrine theater or whatever, dressed in your finest duds, trying not to look sick. Suddenly, they announce: “After this commercial break, the nominees for BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY!” and a bunch of cheesy music starts playing. Your heart starts thumping in your tux like a bongo drum being played by a stoned Matthew McConaughey. Sweat starts to pour down your armpits and your temples. Your mouth gets dry. You grasp your spouse’s hand and coat it in your musky, desperate sweat. They look at you with compassion, empathy, and a little bit of queasy disgust at all the clammy sweat you’re oozing onto their hand.
AND WE’RE BACK!
A jocular, telegenic host comes out and introduces the award. A video montage of all the nominees begins to play. Your throat is dry and your blood pressure is boiling like water in a teakettle. Your spouse’s hands are completely coated in your briny perspiration and you can see the worried look of concern and pity on their face.
A giant TV camera comes up the aisle and is pointed directly at your face to watch you if you win and to watch you if someone else wins. The camera reminds you: “Look humble! Look grateful! Look placid! Look calm! Look upbeat! Look supportive! Twelve million people are watching your big, weird face! You could really stand to lose a few! Nobody likes you! Smile!”
What are you going to say if you win? You panic and completely lose track of whatever clever little bits of dialogue you were going to lead off with. DON’T FORGET TO THANK YOUR SPOUSE, you say to yourself. PLEASE LET IT BE ME, you say to yourself. PLEASE LET IT BE SOMEONE ELSE, you say to yourself. WHAT IF I FORGET HOW TO TALK? And WHAT IF MY HEART EXPLODES THROUGH MY THROAT AND A FOUNTAIN OF CLAMMY BLOOD ERUPTS THROUGH MY ESOPHAGUS ONTO KIEFER SUTHERLAND AND SHONDA RHIMES?
And the envelope is torn open by the jocular, telegenic MC. TIIIIIMMMME. SLOOOOWWWSSS. WAAAAAYYYY. DOOOOWWWWN. (McConaughey is doing a frantic, voodoo-intensity bongo solo that echoes in the blood behind your ears.)
And the name is called . . .
JJJJJERRREEEMMMMYYYY PIIIIVVVVVEEEEEENNNNN!
And all of a sudden it all stops. Boom.
Time moves in a regular fashion again. You hear things normally. The bongos and the blood stop. Your pulse slows back down. You hear applause everywhere and remember that it’s not for you. You remember the camera pointed at your face and you try to master that perfect expression of “Aw, I’m kind of disappointed but I’m REALLY excited for this very talented other actor who did win.”
You feel both relieved and pissed. Like a bully chose not to beat you up but only to punch you in the stomach and knock the wind out of you.
You look to your spouse and they smile a sad, supportive smile. You squeeze their waterlogged hand.
“Next year,” you say to them in a whisper.
The next day you go back to work.
RANDOM OFFICE MEMORIES
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Before the pilot was shot, John Krasinski and a bunch of his buddies decided to go to Scranton to do some research. They brought a crappy little video recorder and interviewed people who worked at actual paper companies in the Scranton area. This tape would greatly influence the set design and decoration. As they drove around the city they literally shot out the window at some passing Scranton landmarks. These shots would eventually find their way into our opening credits and would stay there through the entirety of our show. Thanks, Kras!
There was an interesting process to decide on our theme song. Many songs were being considered seriously, including “Better Things” by the Kinks and “Float On” by Modest Mouse. Greg graciously sent out a list of songs and links to them as well for the cast to weigh in on. The one we all wanted most of all was “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra. It’s a sensational song and its jubilant, upbeat refrain would have fit perfectly over the drab video of the opening credits. Then we found out another show, the doomed and dismally conceived LAX, used the song. (Yes, this was a television show that was about the day-to-day operations of A GIANT CRAPPY AIRPORT starring Heather Locklear. THINK ABOUT HOW STUPID AN IDEA THAT IS! Besides prison and a dentist’s office, what place do we want to avoid more than any other? Long lines, missed flights, shootings, pushy crowds, metal detectors, overpriced food. Just the kinds of things you want to curl up on a couch with a bag of yogurt raisins and watch more about week after week, no?)
The theme we eventually ended up with was a beaut. Composed by former seventies rock/pop star Jay Ferguson, it was fun and catchy with just a hint of melancholy. It perfectly set the tone for the show. I’ve written pretend lyrics to it on many occasions. Perhaps I’ll sing them to you one day if you’re nice.
This lovely but relatively unknown actress named Amy Adams came in to play the “purse girl” in Mindy Kaling’s first episode, “Hot Girl.” The various men of Dunder Mifflin pursued her and competed for her affections with great abandon. Little did any of us suspect that the actress playing that little role would eventually become a ginormous movie star, an Oscar nominee, and a secret ginger sex concubine of Kim Jong-un.
Our camera operators Randall Einhorn and Matt Sohn were brought over from Survivor to work on our show. Greg wanted experienced documentary/reality camera guys who could find details and shared moments and make the action of scenes feel organically captured as in a documentary. These two great talents would end up directing many of our episodes and were instrumental in creating the look of the show as well as finding creative and unique ways to discover the visual comedy of the Office world. Also, they’d eaten bugs with Richard Hatch, Survivor supervillain from season one.
Mindy and B.J. were always apparently dating, breaking up, and getting back together throughout seasons three through six, approximately. I don’t know this for a fact, but I heard it from those nosy-ass writers. I would occasionally see Mindy in tears and B.J. frantically gesticulating to her the way tempestuous lovers often do in various corners of the set. Their offscreen shenanigans were great inspiration and fodder for the eventual Ryan/Kelly “on again, off again” relationship. Now they’re best friends, finish each other’s sentences, and talk about me behind my back constantly.
It takes a brave and confident show-runner to allow lines that the actors make up on the fly to remain in the show. I have friends on very successful shows where they are not allowed to change ONE SINGLE WORD. To most comedy actors that is a strange form of hell. Here are some of my favorite improvised lines that actually made it into the show.When I was in the sixth grade I was a finalist in our school spelling bee. It was me against Raj Patel. I misspelled, in front of the entire school, the word “failure.”
“And just as you have planted your seed in the ground, I am going to plant my seed, in you.” (And B.J., the writer of the episode, effortlessly replied: “I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”)
I have hunted werewolves. I shot one once, but by the time I got to it, it had turned back into my neighbor’s dog.
Have you ever seen a burn victim, Phyllis?!
Hot dog fingers.
I thought your vagina was removed during your hysterectomy.
Another improvisation that stayed in the writers’ imagination was an early talking head where I said off-the-cuff: “My name is Dwight Schrute. My father’s name? Dwight Schrute. His father’s name? . . . Dwide Schrood. Amish.” This eventually DID make it into the show and it’s one of my proudest creative moments as it eventually spawned Dwight’s Amish past as well as Mose and eventually the beet farm.
One of the more challenging things about working on The Office was that the way the show was filmed, documentary style, we always had to be in the background of each other’s shots. For instance, if you were shooting a scene in Michael’s office, there would always be the possibility of the camera peeking over someone’s shoulder and catching the rest of the cast out in the bull pen of the main office. This meant that we would sometimes spend COUNTLESS hours pretending to work at our desks while scenes were going on in other rooms or other areas of the main office. (In the first season we didn’t have working Internet and those hours were especially grueling. We DEMANDED working Internet in a show of diva-like solidarity.) There were many days of production in which I did no acting whatsoever but merely sat for twelve hours at my desk using my actual Internet to read the news, play online chess, and text-chat with my castmates. I would sometimes remind the producers that I was the best-paid background actor in all of Hollywood. It was excruciating, but I would remind myself that it was a hell of a lot better than working at that New York insurance broker’s. I made a deal with our assistant director Kelly that if the cameras ever caught anything I was reading on my computer screen I would donate $100 to Meals on Wheels. Let’s just say a lot of sick shut-ins got fed because of Dwight and his computer screen. You’re welcome, sick shut-ins.