We're back. We're together. Look at this.
I love it.
Thanks for coming out from San Diego. Hey, it's really good to be in person. I'm excited about that to see you.
Come on, come on, are we rolling? Both of them? And this too is rolling? Everything's rolling. Oh my god, it's happening.
It's totally happening. Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Off the Beat. As always, this is your host Brian Baumgartner today. Yeah, very special, live in person. The Man, the myth, the legend. He's a New York Times best selling author. He is the host of his new show, Geography of Bliss, and I'm sure you have all of his other credits memorized. That's right. Rain Wilson aka Dwight Shrut is joining me today.
Hey, Brian, Off the Beat, get it Off the Beat. Today's episode is Off the Beat.
Farm Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna Bubble and Squeak. I could get every mole left over from the nine before.
Hi Brian, Hi buddy, this is cool.
What what's happened?
Well? You know, I mean we hadn't seen each other in so long and now twice in a few weeks. It's crazy. I love it. Yeah, I need more. I need to come to your farm for sure. I really want to come to your farm.
You need to bring the kids out to my little.
Farm, to your farm. Yeah, it's like a petting zoo.
Bring the children out to the farm and there's a it's like a little petting zoo, and there's fruits.
Do you let any children come to your petting zoo?
All the children?
You don't invite the children? Yes, I really.
I walk down the streets of Oxnard, California playing the flute and the children follow, and there's magical animals and yeah.
You're the pied Piper of ox and ard of Oxnard, California. Was that a dream early on to be the pied piper of Oxnard, California?
That that was out of my wheelhouse? It was out of my imaginary field of being.
Yeah, it was great to see you.
Nice to see you.
Yeah, like really, I started watching your show, which we're going to talk about later. Obviously you are very this is going to be a running theme of this conversation. Okay, that you're very open. I have been very open about your history, your personal history. Uh huh. You grew up in Washington and like in almost the first line of the show said you had an unhappy childhood. Yeah, yeah, first off, why was it unhappy?
You're going right to it.
Yeah, I'm going right to it. No, I'm going right to it because it's fascinating that you are so open in all of your work. I mean, you're open as an artist, as an actor.
I don't understand why more people aren't as open to me. It makes total sense to be open. I guess maybe I've been in therapy for twenty years, so I'm just really used to kind of excavating this stuff. And I've done a lot of therapeutic work in lots of different ways. So listen in a lot of senses. You know, my childhood was normal and happy. You know, I wasn't starved, but I was love starved. And I think it has to do with, you know, my dad, God rest his soul.
He died a couple of years back. He was really traumatized as a kid. I mean he had like a like a Charles Dickens childhood. He was beaten, tortured, like his dad would take off for weeks at a time, leaving him to raise his younger sister when he was like thirteen, and he had to like borrow food from neighbors. I mean, it was really bad shit, and so that'll mess with you, right, So he wasn't so good at the whole intimacy thing. He was a very sweet man.
He was a soft natured man. He wasn't like hard scrabble abusive, but he was very cut off. And when my mom left him and me when I was about a year and a half or two years old, I didn't really see her again until I was about fifteen, and then I was kind of raised by my step mom and they just had a terrible marriage. And you know,
just to cut to the chase. When I was writing my autobiography, The Bassoon King a couple of years back, I asked him, I said, when did you know that your marriage was bad and that you shouldn't have gotten married? And they both said, like, oh, within about six months of being married. And they stayed together for fourteen fifteen
more years. And then you know, I grew up a member of the Bahai faith, which you know I've spoken about a lot here and there, but one of the things that has been most difficult for me to kind of understand and rectify is that in the Bahih faith, everything is about love. It's about peace, it's about unity, it's about serving others and being open and serving humanity, et cetera. And so we had a lot of talk about love. We talked about love all the time, right,
but there was zero love in the room, right. It was a really fractured So it's for a child, it's incredibly gaslighting to kind of be like, we should all love each other and serve each other and be kind to one another. And then my parents weren't loving or kind to each other. And I was kind of stuck in the middle.
Were you Were you aware of that in the moment? Like were you aware?
Okay, No, I was, And this is you know, and this created in me a big a sense of anxiety, loneliness, alienation. I didn't know what the hell was going on. It didn't make any sense to me. Like I remember several times my parents would be fighting and then we would
have a Bahai spiritual gathering at our house. So it involved like saying prayers or singing or meditating or studying you know, mystical works of various religious faiths or of the Bahaigh writings themselves and like my stepmom like breaking dishes in the sink and there's guests over, and then her stomping through our tiny little living room about the size of this podcast, both because we didn't have any money, and going to the door and like slamming the door,
and sometimes you'd even hear screams from the other and then my dad going okay, well shall we say some prayers? And you know, I'm nine years old, and I'm like, this is I know this isn't right right, but everyone's pretending it's normal. Maybe this is normal. Is this how other people act?
I don't know.
So all of this is, you know, it's Christ for the mill. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't think I play kind of weirdo alienated characters as well. If I don't have that Petrie dish of an experience growing up. It did give me some mental health issues that I've kind of dealt with through my adulthood. And that's been part of the journey too, So you know, I see it all interwoven. I have
a psychological personal journey through therapy and recovery. I have a journey a spiritual journey as a behigh and seeking kind of spiritual meaning and purpose in my life. And I'm an artist too, and I transform and I play characters, and I draw on all of this complexity in history and the playing of those characters, and all three of those journeys are intricately intertwined.
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you, like, do you feel like your work as an artist, even young, that you used that, even if you couldn't articulate that things were maybe not quite right at home, as you said, or that you weren't fully happy, do you feel like you used the arts and creating characters and beginning your sort of passionate journey along those lines you used that, I think, so I think you use it.
You don't, you're not even aware you're using it right when you're starting out in acting.
But I always played misfits better.
I always played odd balls better, people that didn't fit in, people that were kind of tortured, And so I definitely drew on that. When I was in acting school, I swiftly realized, like, oh, I'm incapable of playing someone well balanced and popular, and you know, but the more twisted the character the better I would do.
Right.
So yeah, so you know, in a lot of ways, I'm grateful.
I wouldn't have I wouldn't have played quite true had I had a you know, normal balanced childhood. It's all, it's all part of the beauty and complexity of being a human being.
Yeah. I just had a conversation with Garrett Dilla Hunt. Yes you're old Powell, Yeah, who described you as a legend at you dub He was slightly younger, just behind you.
Legend yuh, but yes.
A legend kind of a legend in the theater department there. I mean, did you were you having success? Did you feel that in yourself when you were in college?
Not at all. So I started acting later in high school when I went to this kind of very wealthy, artsy high school called New Trier north of Chicago. And I was really grateful because I had some amazing theater teachers there. I got to be a part of some incredible productions very early on, very young. And then I went to Tufts University in Boston. I did a year.
I did a bunch of theater there and that was good, and I did some plays and then my parents were getting a divorce my dad and my stepmom and I, you know, as messed up as their marriage was, I was still very connected to them, right and I was kind of having a breakdown as they were having a breakdown. So I went back to Seattle. Then I ended up at University of Washington, where I met my now wonderful wife, Holiday Rhynhorn, and met Garrett, Dilla Hunt, Matt Ross, Lynn Shelton.
A lot of great artists were there at that time and started doing plays, and I don't remember at all being a legend Universon of Washington. I played, you know, a couple of leads, but a couple of smaller parts and some different plays, and I think Garrett was I had been acting for a while and Garrett was literally just starting. So I saw Garrett in his very first play, and he was so talented, but he was so tense I thought, I just thought, oh my god, he's going
to explode. The veins on his face are so tight, you know. But he was just kind of ruggedly handsome, other worldly, like kind of ethereal David Bowie cowboy from Yakima, Washington and doing these experimental plays. But he was just terrific. And then I went to n YU and then two years later he went to the NYU Graduate Acting Program. So we kind of followed each other and have both had pretty nice careers. He's he's an outrageously talented actor. I love his stuff. But I will say I just
wanted to tell this little story. So I had had because your question was about the success that I had. I had success in high school and in two colleges, and I kind of thought, oh, maybe I'm really good at this. Okay, I should go be a professional actor.
I should go audition. So I was in Seattle University of Washington, and I like went down the university avenue to the photography studio and I got I still have some of these really cheesy headshots from nineteen eighty six, and I'm like, you know, and and I typed up
a resume. I had my dad helped me type up like the high school and college plays that I had done, and I just started submitting myself for I looked in the newspapers and you know, on the ads and stuff like that, and I started submitting myself and I started getting some auditions, and I auditioned around at a lot of little, not community theaters, A semi professional and professional theaters there, and after about four or five auditions, and
then I auditioned for the Orgon Shakespeare Festival and the guy there was like, listen, you need to either come to the organ Shakespeare Festival and like carry a spear and understudy roles and do that for five or six years, or you need to go to like New York and get acting training. You should do one of those two things.
But it became really clear, like, oh shit, I am the tiniest fish in a very big pond now, and I'm really not good enough and I don't have the skill set to be good enough to act professionally at that point. And that was twenty nineteen or twenty at that point, and I'm really grateful that I had the wherewithal to kind of have that ability to kind of see myself to kind of go like, oh, you're not good enough yet, because some actors never have that right.
I kind of think that they're ready for Broadway and there and there, they just they don't have it right. So I was like, I need to train, And that's when I went to NYU for actor training.
When did you decide, I mean, this is slightly different a different question. When did you decide it's what you wanted to do. Yeah.
So my best friend at the time, John Valades, and we had grown up together since third grade and we ended up going to NYU together. We went to University of Washington together. We were like really good friends through our youth. He was going to India for a year. He decided to take a year off and just go to India and he was going to do some service projects and travel and he's like, come on, man, come to India, let's do it.
And I was like, I don't know.
And I was doing these plays and I was really thinking about acting and whether or not to make it a career. My parents were supportive but wary. You know, how am I going to pay the bills?
Sure?
And I had a spiritual, transformative experience that made me decide to commit one hundred percent. And that was I was visiting my birth mother, who I was just getting to know at the time in Boston. I think it was over Christmas break, sophomore year of college, and the movie version of A chorus Line was playing in a little theater in Boston and I just walked in by myself. I don't know I was wondering in Boston. I saw
it and I just went in. I watched it by myself. Now, this is a legendarily bad movie version of a musical. It's really and I knew even when I was watching it. I was like, oh, this is terrible, but it's all about acting and actors and it's how much I love the theater and I really need this job, please God, who am I? Anyway? Am I my resume? You know those kind of songs. And I was there and I just started sobbing and just tears were pouring down my face and I was like heaving, supplet.
That.
And then the theater was empty because the movie was terrible. And I went outside and it was sunset because i'd seen a matinee and it was a red sunset. Snow was falling through kind of a red sunset, and I had like tears on my face and I was like, that's it. I'm going for this. I'm all in.
Wow, I'm all in.
I know this is going to be a ten year commitment, but the only way to do it is to just completely fully commit. I want to be an actor in the theater. And that's when I auditioned for these UH training programs and I was lucky enough to get into nWay NYU.
For you, it was about theater. Yeah, and that's what you wanted to do? Is that where? Because that was for me, that's where I saw my life. That's what I thought I was going to do forever and ever. Yeah. Amen?
Yeah?
When did that start to change for you? Because your career was successful, You're traveling around at major regional theaters and working in New York. What for you made you transition and decide to move to Los Angeles? And did you view it as a career change? Because I did? You did? I did? I didn't think about it until I decided to fully change, which was say no to any acting roles in the theater. I'm not doing that. I'm going to move to Los Angeles and really recommit
myself to what I viewed as a career change. Was it the same for you or no? It wasn't the same for me. I mean I was so in love with the theater and devoted to the theater, and I had done you know, after three years of theater training at NYU, I did nine or ten years of NonStop theater in New York and regionals. I did a company called the Acting Commpany, which was a tour bus and
truck touring company of Shakespeare. When I first got out of college and I was on the road with Jeffrey Wright, you know who's in West World and has been War nominated and the French Dispatch Angels in America.
Yeah, he's an incredible actor. I was Demetrius, he was Puck in The Midsummer Night's Dream. And we got back at the end of a six month theater tour, just exhausted but draggled. We go and pick up our mail at the headquarters of the theater company and I opened up my bank statement and I have like twenty three hundred dollars in the bank after six months of work on the road.
And I was like, oh fuck.
And then Jeffrey Wright's opening his mail and he's like, yeah, whoa.
I'm like, jeff, what's going on. He's like, check it out.
I got a residual check and he had this check and it was for thirty five hundred dollars and he had done two days on a Harrison Ford movie and he got more money in rezials for those two days that I had for six months of working and right then and there is like in my head. I remember it was like, Okay, this is.
I got it. This is ridiculous.
You know, if I am ever going to pay off, forget buying a house, if I'm ever going to pay off my student loans, I have to do TV and film. See actors in New York. And I do think there's a you know, a handful of David Costable's when we both know that do it all. And I love that about New York and actors in London that they can do a play here and a TV show here, and a movie here and a commercial.
Here and you get to do it all. You know, LA doesn't really work like that.
There's a very few theaters, they're far away, they don't pay very well, etc. And it's hard to do that anywhere else. A little bit in Chicago, maybe DC, a couple places like that, but it's very hard to kind of balance all of it. But I really was like, I want to do enough television and films so that I can come back to New York and get cast in leeds in plays, right, because that's what was happening
all the time. You'd have like James Vanderbeek just did Dawson's Creek and he got offered Hamlet, you know, because he's been on Dawson's.
Creek, you know. And that's the reality of the theater.
They got to sell tickets, right, So I was like, I want a TV show so I can come back and play Hamlet in New York. It hasn't really worked out that way. I've been here in LA for over twenty some years now.
But now my son is going off to college.
Can you believe it?
Now?
Walter was born. Walter was born during the Hot Girl, Perse Girl episode of season one. That's right in a really traumatic berth.
Yes, you ran from set to go to the hospital because there was a medical issue. Yes, I know.
And now he's going off to college, so I'm going to have more time to do theater.
He's the physical embodiment of how long we all were together. Just as he grow Oh, it was like, oh wow, we've been together a long time. And now he's going off to college, which is nuts.
Nuts yeah, just not nuts. Yeah. But once he's gone, he's our only kid, and then I've got a little more freedom, so I can go do theater for very little money, for six months here or five months there. So I'm very excited about about doing that because for me, you know, I always have a little bit of the mystical, spiritual nature in me, and for me, acting is about
there is a magic about transforming into characters. Yes, and people always are like you know, Dwight gets so much attention and focus about who I am as an actor and as a person, and that's great. I'm so grateful. Those nine years were magical, amazing, what a great character.
The writing, the cast.
The thought, the you know, the producers, everything like that, the fans, the support, it's it's it's been incredible. But people don't realize this, and a lot of people aren't in the acting world. Like I played dozens of characters before I played Dwight, and since I've finished Dwight, I've played another couple dozen characters. So for me, it's about transforming into characters and telling stories. I played Hamlet in school.
I did Eugene O'Neil at the Arena stage. I did Philadelphia Here I come at the Guthrie.
I did you know?
I did Shakespeare tours. I've done lots of little I played the creepy guy in Supermarket and CSI.
But they're all characters.
They're just like you know, I hope that when I die, people will Yes, I look at Dwight, but be like, wow, look.
At all crazy different characters.
This guy played like this was a panopoly of a very different characters, dozens and dozens and dozens over his life. And I love that act of transformation. It's so satisfying to me to just to build and develop and play a character and then play a completely different character, you know, than the month after.
Yeah, I feel I really feel this way that for you and I, I think we have a unique bond and excitement about what you just talked about, like actually creating the physicality, the inner life, the external differences from ourselves and melding that with who we are. That that for me as well, that is really my favorite thing in the world. Yeah, Like just it's I keep using the word transformation.
Yes, you walk different, you speak different, you think different, you see the world different, you have a different kind of energy. All of these things need to transform to create a character. Now, of course I'm it's the basic building blocks of Rain Wilson. So I'm going to be using this big, weird ungainly body, and I'm going to always see things through a certain lie, so you're always going to see Rain Wilson in those characters. And that's also a magical thing. But that's that's what I love
about the theater. And I think why, you know, people have always loved the theater and they love to see their favorite actors transform.
Do you resent that people only want to see you be Dwight?
Sometimes I do to be really honest, you know, to be perfectly frank. It's just like I'll do an independent film that I worked my ass off on and play a villain or you know, played something completely different than me, you know, unhinged person or something you know, really funny or whatever, and I'll promote it on like social media. They'll be like, hey, Dwight, Yeah, yeah, Dwight and exactly and it's and it's it's like, guys, I get it, I got it. You love the show.
I do too.
It's beautiful, But also can you respect me as an artist and that I'm trying to do some other things here too. But at the end of the day, I've been really lucky because I even think, like the last ten years since I got out of the Office. I've done a lot of really cool stuff. I did this show Backstrom, No one really watched it. I did the show Utopia.
Backstrom is the role you stole from me. That is God. I wanted to play that role so bad, and they just really wanted you. I wanted to play that role. I mean we've discussed this. It's not in a long time. Yeah, but literally, when I look at your at your at your when I looked at your sheet and I see Backstrom, I'm like, motherfucker that one. That one's still yeah. Yeah, there's another version of Backstrom. There's another.
A lot of maybe it would have worked and been better and stayed on the air with you as the h.
No I as the cop.
That's true. Well, but the point I'm making is that you know this show Utopia and Amazon. I did Harry Mudd on Star Trek and a bunch of independent films and some theater, and like, I really love the actor's life that I've had post office. Yeah, people haven't given a shit about any of it.
Like, no one is like what, But.
It's been really Uh, it's been fun for me. And these have been some really great, satisfying characters. And then part of me has thought recently, like, oh, this is the life I always wanted. Like, I'm living the life I always wanted. I'm getting to play all of these cool roles.
People haven't really vibed with them.
That's okay.
I just started watching Launched today. I know this is not going to come out today, but Geography of Bliss, Yeah, is there a part of you? Is there a conscious thought within you to show yourself? We're all performing all the time. We're performing with our family, with our friends, with our coworkers, depending on what the relationship is, right, I mean, like everyone, not actors. Everyone is performing in
one way or the other. Is there a part of you that wanted to show yourself really in Rain Wilson, I mean you are Rain Wilson in Geography of Bliss. Was there a part of you that wanted that? You know?
It just it was not something that I wanted. It's just this kind of world of like people want to know about the guy who played Dwight, and so I talk about my life story and people really resonated with me talking about mental health issues and that was really people like oh wow, and they that because it's such a big deal right now, for young people, this mental health epidemic that young people are going through, it's just
it's staggering. It's preposterous, it's deadly. It's so any kind of celeb says, hey, I have struggled, people are like, tell me more, because it really can help people. So when I saw like, oh, me sharing my story is helping people, and so I started sharing it more. And your first question is like, Wow, you're so upfront about sharing this stuff. And you know, maybe it's because I said, like, I've been in therapy, so I talk about it every week.
It's not that big of a deal to me. It's just stuff that I work on, right, And I'm very blessed with some kind of character trait in me that I never just kind of settle. I'm always trying to dig deeper. I want to get to know myself better. I want to get to know the universe better. I want to figure out why we're alive deeper. I just have an insatiable curiosity around that stuff I'm not able to. I wish I kind of could just be like, hey, bro, like, yeah,
a mellow whatever. Maybe it's maybe it's being wired with that anxiety that I talked about as a kid. So just more and more over the years, talking about myself, telling my stories, people being interested writing about myself and the bassoon King, and now in this new book Soul Boom, and then people knowing me as Dwight. It's and part of me is kind of like, I guess I'm a celebrity now. I'm like Suzanne Summers doing her diet books
and her aerobus eyes or something like that. It's like, right, So this is the first time I've done a big hosting thing, kind of being myself yourself on a TV show. So it's hopefully I can do it all. I'll hopefully still keep acting and also get to be myself. I don't know, we'll see what happens well.
Geography of Bliss on the Peacock. You were nice enough to give me some episodes. I didn't wake up at two o'clock this morning and start binging them. I love it because you were embracing the office in the show. I mean several times I almost like like I almost like drew my breath in because it's not you. This
is not something that you do. Is talk about Dwight, and I feel like they exchange the exchange with the Bulgarian cab driver where you start hummaking the theme song, like trying to plug him into like who you know who?
Right?
You know?
There was something so refreshing about that and an openness to your journey of trying to find happiness. How did you choose where you were going to go? Yeah, so it was a crazy story.
My manager at the time just got an email from this young producer who said, Hey, I got the rights to this book called The Geography of Bliss that was a bestseller about this journalist going around the world trying to figure out what made people happy in various cultures. And he said, I think this would be a great travel documentary series, and I think Rain would be perfect
for it. I had spoken a little bit about some mental health stuff with me and my search for well being and meaning in my life, and you know, nine times out of ten, I'm not going to respond to anything that comes in just cold call like that. But I was like, he's kind of riot.
This is interesting.
So I sat down with him and this other young producer they're both like twenty eight years old, Casey and Evan, and just totally vibed with them. I read the book. It was great. It's just just one of those things that fell together in such a beautiful way. And then we brought on Radical Media, which is a really top production house and great showrunner Melissa Wood and great director in Niharika Desai, and we pitched it around and Peacock bought it, and then it was like where are we
going to go? At first we were going to go to Finland and Moldova, and then a little thing happened, which is the invasion of the Ukraine. So Finland borders Russia, okay, and Moldova borders Ukraine, and they were like, jeez, we can't because what if we go shoot there and then six months later they've been invaded.
And we can't use the footage because it would just be weird. So like eugh.
So our Finland alternative was Iceland. Our Moldova alternative was Bulgaria. We could tell a similar kind of story about those because Moldova is the unhappiest place in Finland is the happiest place, so we went to like the second happiest place, Iceland and the second unhappiest place, Bulgaria. And then we really wanted to showcase Africa of course, and Ghana has
some amazing statistics about it's optimism. It's one of the most optimistic places on the planet where people really do believe that in ten or twenty years their children are going to have it way better and that they're going to build a better and better life there. And in a lot of ways they have. Ghana has been one of the great success stories of the world, you know, economically and educationally. It's a beautiful culture, English speaking, which
is very helpful. I highly recommend anyone go to Ghana. It's so much fun, food's great, people are wonderful. And then Thailand has a spiritual compone it with its Buddhism that will be very intriguing to us. And then here's a funny story. We were gonna go we were gonna shoot in Ghana, and then we were going to go to Dubai and do an episode called like Can Money by You Happiness, And the day before we flew to
Dubai Real Housewives of Dubai. It's a show aired in Dubai, and Dubai has a royal family, and the royal family saw Real Housewives of Dubai and they were flabbergasted and incensed at all the drunken bacchanalia, backstabbing shenanigans of those real housewives of Dubai.
And so they shut down all productions.
We literally showed up in Dubai with our camera.
Bags and our producers.
And they're like, sorry, your permit's been pulled. So we had to like shift. So our final episode we did back in Los Angeles, which I really like. And the final episode is about you know, Ken rain else and find happiness back in La. Can he come back to La and you know, put into practice what he.
Learned out in the world. So would you do more? Oh?
Yeah, Oh my god, I've said it before, I'll say it again, Like I never thought i'd have a better job than the office, but getting paid to travel the world and talk to people about happiness and wellbeing and meaning is just, oh my god, it's so awesome.
It's so great. Do you feel like you were changed? Were you able to forget the cameras and you're an intensely interesting and interested person. Were you able to open your be open enough while shooting the show to really change and have discoveries?
Yeah, that's a great question. It's a weird thing to have a camera pointed at you and like, hey, go have a discussion with this taxi driver about happiness. And you're like, okay, it's it's an interesting challenge. And I got self conscious a lot, and like, am I saying the right thing?
Is?
This? Is this right? But I would say over the course of the show, I definitely loosened up and had a good time and was really able. And remember I was connecting with the people even when the cameras weren't rolling too so. But I do feel like I was changed. And the takeaway that I have from Geography of Bliss
is really pretty simple. When I was writing my book, I came across this very famous study called the Grant Study out of Harvard University, and it followed three hundred men over eighty years from like nineteen thirties on about happiness and well being and what it means to live
like a good life. And they studied every aspect of you know, family life, divorces, health, mental health, spirituality, exercise, travel, income, et cetera, on and on, and they boil it down to one thing, and one thing only to which is a good life, and that is community and connection. That's all that It's about and I think we've learned this in COVID. We need to stay connected, We need community.
We thrive in relation to one another. We don't thrive kind of on our own in our bubble steering at our phones.
Right.
We thrive and this is part of the mental health epidemic. We thrive in community and connection. And that's what they that's what eighty years of study of hard data by the top scientists, you know, social psychologists in the world arrived at. And that's what I arrived at. It's pretty simple,
it's pretty obvious. But seeing these incredible thriving communities, whether it's a tribe or a family, or a work collective or people that love to do polar plunges together or you know, have a band together, but humans thrive in connectivity. And so that really is like, oh, I need to lean into that more in my life because you know, I have groups of friends here, here, and there, but it's time for me to lean into lean into that because that's where the greatest and deepest satisfaction lies.
Isn't that so interesting? Because connection and community and how much joy and happiness people find in the office. Yeah, because at its core, we were a community, and we were connected as characters but also as people. Yeah, and that palpable energy I believe because I'm told goes out into the world and makes people happy. I mean, that's what I've said many times. The greatest gift for me
that the show gave me is thats Asuals. The second greatest thing that the show gave me, no, is when someone comes up and I always describe it this way. It's not that they're they want their tell they're telling me how much the show means. It's that they have an overwhelming feeling of need to communicate to me how much the show means, right, like they are.
Sometimes that can be a bit much though, right, Sometimes when you're at an event, it's settings, it's setting, it's all settings. The twelfth the twenty seventh person like grabbed your arm and been like, no.
You understands there is settings, but that but that's but that's what you're talking about, Like that is that is them wanting this connection and community that they found from the show. But you're absolutely right to bring that up.
And I just want to say that what you're talking about, like, so you me, John Jenna, Bjy Angela, the whole Gang, Oscar.
The list goes on and on, like.
We loved each other. Yeah, and there was a joy that Greg Daniels helped create the environment for that and the casting and then that that joy and that love may not have been between Dwight and Kevin and Angela and Ryan and whatnot, but you can it bleeds in, you feel it, and people can tell. And then that is what people are responding to at the end of the day. And you know, Pam says to end the series, you know, there's beauty in the small things. Isn't that
what it's really all about? And I think that's what people. People aren't watching thirty Rock over and over again. Yeah, you know, they're not watching a lot of different shows over and over again, but they come back to the office for that. And do you remember there was a director I have to look up his name. I can't remember his name.
We were in season like seven, and we would come in in the morning.
Laughing, hugging, high fiving, kissing each other, you know, tickling each other. We and he's like, what the fuck is going on?
You've been seven years and you guys are acting this way with each other?
Like he goes you don't understand. I just came off the set of Desperate Housewives and half of the cast won't talk to the other half of the cast, and they won't come out of their trailers until this person is like on the set and they don't want to cross that person, and they this person won't do scenes with this other person, and it's like and there's so you hear that about so many different TV shows.
Yeah, anyway, do you think travel brings happiness experiencing places, whether there are happy places or unhappy places.
Yeah, I think travel is one of my favorite things, and I think it's uh, it's beautiful. It works on a lot of different levels. Like you you're interacting with a different physical environment, right, it's an advent. You're out of your comfort zone, so you're your your senses and your brain is kind of firing in a whole different way because you're you know, you're in Greece, or you're in a mountain range, or you're in London or a different city or a different language or whatever. So that's
all really exciting. I think the important thing about travel is a lot of Americans, not just Americans, people from all of the Western world kind of want to travel and have an experience that's very similar to their home life. So they travel and they go to a resort that has a buffet and has the same foods you know that they eat at home, and they sit by a pool, and then they watch HBO on their iPads and then
they go back and that's their vacation. Now, there's nothing wrong with having a relaxing vacation for hardworking folks, But if you're traveling to different cultures, it's so important to embed with the culture. Whenever you can do to take a tour, go with guides, visit with a family, you know, go on an adventure, like try and speak the language and respect a culture. And that's when travel really comes alive.
That is such a great point because I travel quite a bit, and there was a period of time that, like my first question when going to my hotel was where's the nearest Starbucks? Like where, because in the morning, I'm gonna want coffee, yeah, and I'm gonna want And by the way, folks, I'm surprised this is a small one.
Brian walks around with a big like ice car and he will nurse.
He will nurse something like this, Like I don't know how he does, like six hours. Yeah, it'll take him some ice in.
There, and he's just all day. You just see Brian like swirling his little ice. It's a little that's for the people listening in the audio.
But it's not a Starbucks. It's not it's not a Starbucks. I'm not saying I don't go to Starbucks. And Starbucks please, if you need to spend your AD dollars anywhere, please off the beat is available to you. But my point is because I wanted the same, right it was. It wasn't about Starbucks, but it was about well, Starbucks are everywhere, and I know what that tastes like. Sure, and I want the same to your point, and now I try to do the opposite, like what is the what is
a local coffee shop? And sometimes it's awful and sometimes it's mind blowingly amazing because coffee shops are like they they reflect in a lot of ways, especially independent coffee shops like a community. It's different the food, the way the coffee is and anyway, I think what you say is really important because you're right, and through your experiences on geography Bliss, we see you do that over and over and over immersing yourself into the culture and to the people.
Yeah, it's I'm so blessed. It's I'm so fortunate to be able to travel in that way because they they hook up families for me to stay with, and people for me to spend the day with and have and eat meals with and walk through the woods with, and so I get to go much deeper and have made some really delightful friends and connections.
There's another part that though, that I really liked, which was you connecting in these different places with at times people that you knew already. The actor in Iceland, iked Sarria Olifson. Yes, it's fun to see you relax in a way with people you have a familiarity. Obviously, the people you don't know, that's amazing too. But seeing you with these people that you have met over your life and now spending time with them in their homeland or the place that they live now, that was really fun
for me. M Yeah, that was great. It was a great addition. Did that just happen or was that planned? Were you like, oh, I know someone here in Bulgaria.
Yeah, I knew this psychologist in Bulgaria through the Bahaigh faith. Community, which was really interesting and the producers were very resistant, and I was like, we got to talk to her because she's been living in America for thirty years, but she's Bulgarian, so she really knows and she's a psychologist, she really knows the Bulgarian psyche Like, well, trust me, we're going to want to talk to her. And it was a key interview there to really understand the Bulgarians.
And then dari It does the same thing. They become translators. Anthony Bourdain did it so beautifully. God rest his soul, like the people that he would meet and the chefs and the guides and stuff. And you'd go back to Vietnam and meet the guy that had been there twenty years earlier when he had been to Vietnam, and it's such a great entree into culture and food and connection.
Yeah, you go deeper, though, and I feel I feel you searching for the answers to these questions. I mean, you know, I mean, you've written books about life, life's big questions that there truly is no answer, but that searching that to me is really compelling, Like the searching for something as opposed to an experience, which there are two different things, and Anthony god Rest his soul Yes was brilliant. I felt like that was more having an
experience this. I feel you searching for something, which to me is more interesting.
Oh good, thanks.
Yeah, you founded soul Pancake and now you have your new book, soul Boom. How have you? How is the questions that you're looking to answer changed from your time with soul Pancake. Yeah.
So soul Pancake was a digital media company, mostly a YouTube channel. We worked and created a lot of short form video content and a lot of social media content about life's big questions. But it was always with an aim to inspire and uplift and bring people together. That was kind of the focus of the platform itself. We ended up selling the company to Participant Media, so it's kind of been folded into what they do as a
media company and a film production studio. So sol Boom is a little bit different because this is me kind of writing a book on big spiritual ideas about the meaning of life. As I say in the book, I'm throwing a bunch of spiritual spaghetti at the wall and we'll see what sticks. And I talk about life and death. I talk about consciousness, the journey of the soul, sacredness God. I have a chapter on God called the Notorious Good, and then I talk about can we use spiritual tools
for social transformation? How can we use these big, deep, rich spiritual ideas that have been in every faith tradition on the planet from the dawn of time? Can we use those ideas to help us transform collectively? Because we're hurting so much right now, there's so much disunity, there's
so much venom, toxic social media and partisanship. How can we learn from the Bible, How can we learn from the baghavad Gita, from the Torah, you know, from the damapatas of the Buddha, And can we use those tools for a kind of We think a lot about spirituality as personal transformation, like, Oh, I'm going to I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna read holy words, I'm gonna try and be a better person. That's that's part of our spiritual path. But can we also use them for
social transformation? So it's a it's a big idea book, and at the same time it's I try and make it funny and light and readable at the same time. It's not a dissertation or.
Anything like that. No, it's beautiful and I feel like with Soul Pancake you are searching for the answers to life's big questions. This to me feels deeply personal, much more personal to me in this book and exploring the questions that are in the world today through your own specific lens, which is always the case, but being so open again and sharing your past experience gives it just a real power. Wow.
Thank you so much. That's that's very kind. I appreciate that. I I tried to share my experience whenever I could. I just find that people are more receptive to ideas when you share it personally, you know, when you make it say here's what I went through. You know, my chapter on death, which is called Death and How to Live, it is framed by the death of my father, which happened, you know, six months into COVID and he died of
heart disease at age seventy nine. And it was, you know, like I said, my mom took off when I was, you know, a toddler, so my main parental bond was with my dad, and I'm you know, most bonded to someone who was really really bad at intimacy because he had been so traumatized. So that was a conundrum but heartbreaking nonetheless, So I wanted to really share deeply, like
what I was going through, what I was feeling. I tell a very comedic story in it about we were preparing the body for burial in a Bahigh tradition, which is very similar to a Jewish tradition, where you wash the body and wrap the body in preparation for burial, and the funeral home didn't have any nice bowls. It had like some tupperware containers or a teapot, and that we were up against it because the funeral was starting soon, and I had to run to a target to buy
glass bowls. It was the middle of a heat wave, and I'm pouring sweat and it's COVID and I'm sobbing snots running down my nose, and I'm trying to find glass bowls to wash my dead father's body. So we have a good.
Time along the way. You talk about your behigh faith, You have always been very open about that you left in your twenties and then returned to it later on. How important was that for you? The leaving and the coming back and what brought you back.
Well, it's a key story for me. It's maybe the most important story of my life. Was that kind of twelve year journey where I left the ba High Faith to go to New York to be an actor. I just wanted to do theater. I didn't want to think about religion, spirituality, God certainly not morality. I wanted to kind of party and do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. And a lot of kids do this, you know, this is a very common things.
Probably probably eighty percent of kids who grew up in some spiritual tradition, when they go off to college or go off to live in the city and have a life, they jettison their faith, the faith of their childhood. So I'm not special in this regard. I think what happened for me, however, is I started really coming up against some of these mental health issues that I've been talking about.
That's when my anxiety kicked in. I used to have I mean, I can't even tell you how crippling these anxiety attacks were.
That I would have.
I mean I would fall on the floor, shaking and sweating, and I was like I'm having a heart attack. I'm going to die. I'm literally dying. Came so close on a half a dozen occasions of calling nine one one. I mean, I was just and then all the many anxiety attacks I was having, and then depression, addiction issues, and and this forced me to reinvestigate spirituality. Okay, it's interesting because I had a conversation with BJ and and
BJ was very frank. He's like, that was great that you had that it forced you go on a spiritual path. But what would you say someone like me, Like, I'm interested in spirituality and I'm struggling, and I want to get to know it more and I want to figure out my life a in a But my life is fine right now. You know, I'm I'm fine, I'm functioning, I'm pretty happy, I'm doing great projects. So how do you how do you do that? And you know, I
don't know what the answer is. I mean, I think it's to just get more curious and to read a little bit, which will fuel that curiosity. But I was really fortunate in a way, like I kind of hit bottom so bad in a number of ways in my twenties, and I was really dissatisfied that it forced me to look at spirituality again, and I read a lot of the holy books of the world, and I studied and
journeyed and read and journaled and did some therapy. And because I felt in my bones like I think that there's probably a spiritual solution to this misery that I'm in, and that by jettisoning my religion and my spirituality, I have done myself a disservice. And I bet this will lead to greater happiness and fulfillment if I re explore
that dimension. It was a very long time coming. I mean I was still exploring early on in the office, but came back to the faith, the bhy faith from my childhood, which has brought me and my wife a lot of solace and connection.
Yeah. The themes that you explore in the book, they seem to have a lot in common with geography of bliss, self awareness, self improvement, self acceptance. What do you see as a relationship between soul Boom and geography of Bliss And is there an is there an overall message or are you trying to just put people on their own journey? Yeah?
Great, great, great question. So I knew the book was coming out. What month is this May April, so it was coming out in late April. And then Peacock was like, Hey, good news, We're gonna we're going to release Geography of Bliss in September. And I was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa what? No, no, No, I have a book coming out in April that's about this theme and I'm going to be promoting it. I'm going to be out there on the road. I'd love to talk about Geography of
Bliss as well. And they were great about it. And I also said, and also think about it, like, think about releasing the show right before people are trying traveling over the summer. It's a post COVID show. It's kind of launching into the summer traveling the world. People are going on vacations, like, and they're thinking about being more expansive. Maybe they've traveled traveling for the first time, like it all.
And they were great about it, and Peacock was like, you know what, you're right, then Snell, there you go.
They shifted the release date.
They said that, they said, you're right.
I have to say they've been an amazing partner and team on this and it's funny Brian Sidebar. There was this article in the Onion Avy Department and it was like Peacock is using its former sitcom stars to have documentary series and they they they mentioned some other actors that had been on like Parks and Rec and some other shows that were doing some kind of documentary series on Peacock and they it was like the article was like this scandalous article, like we've exposed this.
It's like, duh, what do you think? Like they're trying to get people, They're trying to get people to watch the Peacock.
But not only that, Like there are office fans turning to Peacock and they like Rain. They tend to like Rain Wilson and then they turn it on and then they see that I've got this show, and it's it's win win, Like it's that's how television works.
It's how it's always worked, you know what I mean?
Like, you know, uh, TV stars of CBS or TV stars of HBO do other shows on that. You know, Uh, Patricia Arcat is doing a new show on Apple after severance because they have a nice relationship and people that go to Apple like Patricia Arcat. It's oh my god, give me a break. So, so what is it about it? To me, It's all about you. You you brought it up before. It's all about asking questions. I'm not a guru. I don't have any answers. I'm a schlubby, chubby, weird guy.
I still struggle. I've learned a few things, but I'm not presenting myself as like some kind of guru, know it all self help guy, like a lot of folks do on social media and whatnot. I'm just I'm a fellow journeer. And let's dig into these big ideas. Let's look at what makes us happy. Let's examine cultures around the world and where we can find great well being from them and have a blast along the way. And in the book, like, let's dig into what it means to be alive? And is there a God? And do
we have a soul? And how do we find what is sacred and holy in our lives? And what is the miracle of consciousness? And how do science and spirituality intersect? And where do we you know, where do we go from here as a society. I don't have the exact answers for it, but it all dovetails. So the universe seems to be pushing me in this direction to be telling these kind of stories. Who knows what's next the book.
If you haven't gotten it, get it read it. I've known Rain twenty twenty plus. I mean, you know, I was at least aware of you for much longer, but known each other twenty plus years.
We have to talk about three sisters a little bit.
Oh yeah, three sisters. Well, let me finish this legitimate pitch for the book. I learned about Rain by reading this book, and Rain is a very open person. Rain is I've said this before, I'll say it again. I'll say it till the day I die. He is the lewdest, most inappropriate, most If there was a Dundee Award for most likely to be sent to HR in today's culture,
it is Rain Wilson, no question. But at the same time, the kindest, the person that everyone would go to if something were really happening in their lives that they needed vice and input in. Thoughtful, always curious, and the book reflects that amazingly.
You're so kind.
Thank you. That's very nice to see. Yes, well, I mean it. And as for geography of Bliss, it's funny, it's funny and will make you think about your own life. And it's beautifully shot, by the way, which you had nothing to do with. So you But it's my parents went to Ice. I've been to. I have been to the Reikievik airport on a layover, so I spent you know, three hours in the middle of the night. Never thought of ever leaving the airport or going there again seeing it.
Even just the shots of you guys driving around, the's incredible, is unbelievably beautiful.
It's I've been five times. That's one thing that was a lie we told in the show. It made it seem like I was going there for the first time.
I had been four times before. Oh, just as a person, just as a as a traveler.
Yeah, liars, and I love that play.
I would.
I was very seriously talking to my wife about, like what would it take for us to go.
Live here because it is recently or years ago?
Two? Three years ago?
Yeah no, but not when you were just there for the show.
No, okay, But it's the black sand beaches, glaciers, volcanoes. It's I say, like our last trip there as a family, we went and like parked under like a five hundred foot waterfall in our camper van and like we're cooking dinner and looking out, like it's pretty nice, pretty nice waterfalls.
Like we've seen way bigger. We've seen the three thousand foot waterfalls and like coming off of the side of a glacier and the you know, Onyx Cliffs and this one, and it was like, wait a minute, I'm parked under a five hundred foot waterfall and I'm like it's like ho hum, you know, it's it's incredible, super fun.
Yeah. Three Sisters, Three Sisters.
So before the Office and in the early days of the Office, I was directing one of my very favorite plays, Checkov's Three Sisters, and I met Brian through some mutual friends. I had seen you in a play, although in a small role in Minneapolis, and I was like, oh, this guy's perfect for Andre and three Sisters. And we did this kind of ongoing workshop production that we were The plan was we were going to perform the whole play in people's living rooms. We got to perform the first
couple acts a couple of times. You were so great in the role, just perfect combination of heartbreak and comedy, and it was really fun and arduous because we would just meet on Sunday mornings and like rehearse for three hours every single week and do little chunks of it. And we all had to like pitch in some money, like, hey, everyone put in twenty bucks to go at the rehearsal space and stuff. But you were you were great and sad and beautiful and I hope you'll do more theater.
Oh my gosh, thank you. Those were really fun times. Yeah. I was trying to think. I couldn't put the time table together, so it was literally before the office. Yeah, and then and then.
And then early on, like when we had shot the pilot we had started it. Yeah, and then we shot the five more episodes of the first season and we kept going. By the time we were into like the second season, other people moved from LA to New York and we were kind of losing the cast and stuff, and then we got really busy and it it kind of petered away.
Yeah, you should produce it.
Should should. You're a little old f andre now, sorry, am I.
It depends on how old everyone else is. Really.
Yeah, you've got to feel sorry.
Sorry twenty years ago. It was twenty years ago. Yeah, Wow, it's always great to see you. I'm gonna come by the farm, Come.
By the farm. We've got pigs to pat and a pea hen.
Pigs, a pea hen, a donkey.
Still, yeah, the donkeys that is at my wife's where she has her horses.
Okay.
And then we have a donkey named Chili Beans, a rescue donkey. He's adorable, chili beans. Oh, he's so huggable. He's got fuzzy, big ears. It's like if you've ever nuzzled a donkey. And that's not a dirty euphemism, but I would love for you to nuzzle my donkey.
I'm n even bushes chili beans. Chili beans, you can make chili out of him. Oh, that's see. Dark, It all comes around, that's all dark. It sure does, Rain.
Wilson, everybody, bomb Gardner, everybody bringing it week after week.
Like we just looked. I'm gonna look into the camera. Oh we didn't do any takes to the camera. A hundred and four thirty one of these puppies you are, this is number one forty one, which is anyone, which is a significant number, not at all?
Could you have called me like it's not in the first like thirty or forty, because.
Hello, well, no. I mean. The funny thing is is the very first time I ever sat down for a podcast interview with me was with you at the old iHeart studios in Hollywood. And I called you and I was like, hey, I'm thinking about putting this thing in oral history of the Office together. And you were, as
always like very accommodating with restrictions. You said, absolutely, I have to do it next week because I'm gonna maybe shoot this movie and the show and I'm gonna be busy, so next week, so you don't even know any of this scrambling started, no what we the team hadn't done a brief at that point. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. And I was like, oh my god, we have to have rain. So we scramble. So we go to IHEARTA, we go to iHeart.
I thought you were like in production.
No, this was like no, this was like I'm making calls, Hey, this is what I'm thinking about doing, and yeah, you were just very clearly like, aps, whatever you need, but next week only. It was sent. And we sat down that day over two hours and I left the room and you left and you said hello, nice to everybody. You left and everyone was like, we have a show, we have one. You didn't suck, meaning me, like, you didn't suck, guys.
You guys did it. You did it right, I mean you did. You interviewed everybody, every and you spent hours and you you got into the minutia and the seasons and the and the pre the office. How'd you sell? I mean it was it was an incredible accomplishment. It became like a cultural document and it was awesome. You guys just kicked ass with that thing.
Man, it was. It was beautiful. Thank you, well, thank you. And now we sit back together. Oh and let's we won't it won't be, bestie, it won't be.
We used to play tennis together. And then you just went that's a dark side and just went completely over into golf.
Horrible, horrible man. Yeah, thanks Rayin, Thanks Brian, talk to you later, Hie, everybody bye. Off The Beat is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Ling Lee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary and our intern is Sammy Katz. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton and