Greg Daniels and Rainn Wilson conference call

Greg: This is Rainn — duh. I’m dumb. There you go. Hey we’re at each other’s throats now. It’s a good thing that we’re not in the same physical location.

Rainn: I know. I’d be pummeling him.

Question: Is there going to be any love interest for Dwight that will be introduced right now because right now? You know, Angela has kind of moved on and — or she’s trying to move on, and it looks like it’s just breaking Dwight’s heart. Do you think that he’ll have a love interest come in and try to make Angela jealous?

Rainn: I don’t know, Greg. That gets into some dangerous territory there. What do you think we can say about that?

Greg: Well, do you remember in your audition when you improv’d his — some of his ex-girlfriends?

Rainn: Yes.

Greg: Because I’ve always — we’ve always had that on the board and that, I think, you know, it’s part of his character that he has some exes out there. So …

Rainn: Yes. Dwight — I improvised in the audition for the pilot which Greg — by the way — thanks for casting me.

Greg: Oh, just wanted to bring that up again, yeah.

Rainn: Thanks for casting me because …

Greg: No problem.

Rainn: … I have a career now. So thanks for that. And yeah, I had a — we had an improvisation of me and Jenna, and I told her that I had an ex-girlfriend who was stationed in Kuwait City, you know, as a Reservist.

So I don’t know if that is coming into play, but ex-girlfriends — yeah. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more sides — a lot more facets of Dwight when it comes to dating and women.

I want to say that this is something that I love about this show is that, you know, every season, every — even every episode — every couple of episodes, there’s always some new aspect of Dwight that Greg and the writers want to explore.

And that’s such a rare thing, you know. So many shows have their comic sidekick character and this is — they do X, Y, and Z. But I get emotional stories and comedic stories, and family stories — and lots of different textures. And I really appreciate getting to do that as an actor.

Greg: We’re going to play with time a lot, I think — like Lost. In the next six episodes. It’s going to get suddenly weirdly sci-fi.

Rainn: There’ll be a hatch under Dwight’s desk.

Question: So The Office is going to turn into Lost, huh? Actually, Greg, I was just wondering are there any signs that Stephen and Ricky will write more episodes for the show or make a cameo, do you think?

Greg: I don’t know. It’s a really good question. Stephen was going to direct on … in December and, you know, we’re hoping to get him back next year. And, you know, as to cameos, we haven’t written any in. We — at one point, we had written in one for the character that played Gareth a couple of years ago.

But we couldn’t get him on because he was doing Pirates of the Caribbean or something.

But it’s a possibility. But we don’t have any plans right now.

Question: Now the upcoming episode is — Pam and Jim show up to Michael’s dinner party. I was just wondering where was Dwight?

Rainn: Well, you have to tune in on April 10 to find out. It’s amazing what happens. It’s going to rock your world.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about how you spent the break and what the first day back was like?

Greg: Well mine was very boring. I just walked in circles a lot waving the placard and didn’t, you know, travel anywhere or do anything. But the first day that we came back was very good for the writing staff because this was the longest break that we had had since the show started and people, you know, had time to kind of recharge their batteries in a good way.

So we had a lot of fun tossing out ideas on our first day back.

Rainn: I did a little bit of picketing. I played a lot with my three and a half year old son, which was good. I think the strike was terribly painful for the families of Los Angeles — the working families of Los Angeles, but it was also great for the families of Los Angeles.

And I went to Israel and I did some writing. And I worked on my backhand with my Zen tennis coach.

Question: And what was the first day back like?

Rainn: You know, it’s been — it has been a huge love fest. It’s like — it’s kind of crazy. It doesn’t make for great print journalism, but I will say that everyone — it’s like our other family and we — our other family got together.

And — like at a big family reunion and it’s been really, really fun. And we’ve had a blast these first two weeks. It is great to see everyone again and batteries were definitely recharged.

Question: And I know you go through it every summer, but is it tough after a break like that to get back into being Dwight?

Rainn: You know, it’s — it does — there’s like ten minutes when it’s like okay, wait, who is this guy again, right? And then, you know, I just put on the calculator watch and the glasses, and just be all, you know, inappropriate. And then it just works out fine.