Greg Daniels and Rainn Wilson conference call
Monday, March 24th, 2008 | 28 commentsRainn: That was a British import as well.
Greg: Magnum P.I., I think, was CBS.
Question: Rainn, I know that earlier you mentioned your three and a half year old son, and I was actually wondering what he thinks of The Office, if he’s ever watched it or if he, you know, gets confused because dad’s on TV or anything like that?
Rainn: Yeah, you know, he’s — occasionally I’ll be up on the TV screen for whatever reason — if I’m like watching myself from some talk show appearance or an episode of The Office is playing, or something like that.
And he says, that’s dada. And then he goes back to whatever it was that he was doing, that …
Rainn: … a train or a ball — or, you know, or hitting one of our dogs with a golf club. But yes, it seems — it’s pretty normal for him. There’s also a Dwight bobblehead up on the shelf, which he used to really be into. Now he just — he couldn’t care less about it.
Question: Okay. And now what is — what about your wife? Does she like your persona as Dwight or does she kind of, you know, tell you please don’t bring it home? I don’t want to see Dwight when you come home after work or anything like that?
Rainn: We actually play funny sex games of Dwight and she will pretend to be, you know, anyone else in The Office pretty much, you know, depending — we have outfits for all of the different characters.
No — this is going to be all over the media. Probably the worst thing I could have said. But yeah — I don’t really tend to bring Dwight home with me so much because I would say we’re not too much alike. I don’t know, Greg, what your — what you feel about that? But …
Greg: Yeah, I’m not going to touch that one.
Rainn: You know, she’s — my wife has a great, absurd sense of humor and she really appreciates me, you know, playing weirdoes and oddballs and she …
Greg: An accomplished novelist, I may add.
Rainn: Yes. And she is a novelist.
Question: Has she ever expressed interest in like writing for The Office or anything like that?
Rainn: Yes, she has written a 400-page spec script. Greg, I forgot to give it to you.
Greg: It’s all prose — very densely textured prose.
Rainn: Very prose, yeah. It’s very prose-heavy. It’s really — it’s written from the perspective of Oscar’s boyfriend, Gil. And yeah, he’s — and in it he’s suffering from emphysema. It’s very moving. It’s very, very, very sad. Greg, I’ll…
Greg: Sound like Frank McCourt’s spec that I passed on.
Rainn: Who?
Greg: Frank McCourt. Am I saying that right? The author of Angela’s Ashes.
Rainn: Yeah. He wrote a good spec like that?
Greg: It was just pretty good. It wasn’t great.
Rainn: Oh, all right.
Greg: But it was about the same length.
Question:I also want to let you know that, Rainn, my three and a half year old niece calls you squishy head because she has the little stress ball with your face from Target.
Rainn: That’s funny. My wife calls me squishy head, too, sometimes.
Question: I’ve been lucky enough to sit through the Scranton convention and I was curious — a lot of the actors have said that they had this great adrenaline rush and the writers coming back from that convention and were really kind of gung-ho.
And then all of a sudden the strike hit at the exact same time. So my question, I guess for Greg is were you able to kind of recapture that at all when you guys got back? Is there anything from the convention, from being in Scranton that you’re going to add?
And maybe Rainn, you could talk, too — were the people who were at the convention — what kind of stories have you heard? Those kinds of things — if you guys could talk about that for a couple minutes?
Greg: Sure. The convention was very fun and, you know, it was a real wonderful experience to see how many thousands of fans came from all over the world and there were people from Ireland and Oregon. And, you know, all — really people came from a really great distance.
And, you know, and this was my first time in Scranton although we’ve done so much research on the Internet. And I was really struck by how beautiful Scranton is, which is not what we really have been portraying here.
And the street here in California. But we saw some of the sights like Nay Aug Park and the Treehouse, which is this amazing wheelchair accessible treehouse that they’ve built over this gorge.
And there’s a lot of weird kind of Scranton-specific things that we saw, that, you know, will I’m sure come into different episodes. And the entire writing staff was there and they all had different experiences at, you know, driving around and going to Scranton bars, and meeting the policewomen.
And, you know, stuff like that. So I think it was very good for the creativity of everybody here.
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Wow great stuff here! Greg stating they will be playing with time this season, the idea of the characters seeing the documentary, John Krasinski and friends shooting the Scranton footage in the opening, and the Pet Day script! I think that it would be awsome if the characters saw the documentary and were in the public eye at the beginning of the final season, there are some really golden ideas behind that concept. I think eventually the idea will be put to use, but probably not for awhile.
#14… I feel your pain. My bobblehead’s cappa was detaited too. He’s got a permanent neck brace of blue tape right now.
Also my favorite moments in this was the hatch under Dwight’s desk and Spot the Fetus.
Oh and the idea that somewhere out there someone is now planning on putting Dwight into a time capsule.
#14 Alamedaman: That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
MMMMmmmm. So Good. Thanks to all!
Thanks for posting it, tanster. I have to say that personally I am a bit bummed that they keep fleshing out the Dwight character in far more detail than they do Jim Halpert.
I can’t say how much I appreciate you bringing the insider info to us. I love hearing/reading about the passion and creativity of the writers and performers on this show. It’s so much fun, and better yet, totally justifies the time I spend laughing and re-laughing over this show! Thank you!
That was great.
Hilarious reading - thanks Tanster!
I love hearing these two be so candid with their responses. Rarely do we get a window into people’s souls… But I’m glad to say that Rainn and Greg’s souls are awesome. The entire interview was well done with wonderful questions that true fans will love! Thanks so much for posting!
That was great!!!!! By the way Greg said “you know” like a million times. Still Awesome!!!!!!!
That was a great time lunch time killer! Thanks for posting Tanster! I can’t wait to see Michael and Dwight hanging out with Ryan in New York.
Mesmerizing.
But who is “Question”?
Tanster?
[from tanster: "Question" is various members of the press.]
Wow - that was the most enthralling thing I’ve read in quite a while. Thanks so much for posting!
Side note: Greg Daniels used the phrase “in like Flynn.” For some weird reason, that majorly cracked me up.
Okay, maybe I’m missing it somewhere, but who was the interviewer here?
Worth the read! Thanks Tanster! Loved Rainn’s line about the bobbleheads being found years from now. Can’t wait to see what twist and turns are ahead!
And great questions about whether they changed the story lines to fit the shortened season - it’s great to know they’ve taken bits of other story lines and incorporated them into this season…like we’re not going to miss out on any great stories because of the strike!
My dwight bobblehead broke :( I just have a Dwight head sitting creepily next to my printer now
Loved this! I also think showing the documentary should happen in one of the ending episodes of the series. It needs to happen, but it will definitely signal an end to the show. I can’t wait to see how Greg does it (but hopefully it’s not for a while!)
Great read! I loved Rainn saying that George Clooney was in The Rocker. Sounds like John got quite the ribbing about his ~fancy~ movie role.
I like how they say there’s no separation between Creed the character and Creed the person. :) That makes me happy.
That was definately worth the time! Thanks for posting it!
love the drinking game idea! totally watching for angela’s belly on the 10th :)
I think it’d be great if on the last episode they all sat down to watch the documentary and it started to show like the first 20 seconds on the first episode and there was this “low battery” light blinking on the bottom of the screen…then it just goes black with the words “no battery power” or something….