Rainn Wilson - Pt. 2

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and I played Dwight Kurt Shrewt. Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the office. Deep Dive. We're back, baby, Pat's right, we are back. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today you are going to be listening to the second part of my conversation with Rain Wilson. So, just like with Angela, I wanted to save this part of Rain's interview for our Camera as Character series because Dwight had one of the most interesting relationships with the camera on the show.

Sometimes it was like he was hiding from it, he hated it, but at other times the camera was his friend. In the scene from Stress Relief where he's lighting the fire, he thinks the camera gets what I'm doing right. And we also talked about many other important topics, like Rain's dynamic with Steve Carrell, whether the office could indeed be made today and who in the cast was the most likely to get fired? As always, Rain had so many insightful things to say. I just love talking to him

about our show. Though I hate that I'm being so nice to him, but you know what, I can't help it. I love him, You love him, America loves him. Dwight is everyone's favorite. I'm not bitter about that at all. I'm a little bitter about that. But without further ado, here he is Rain Wilson, Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker cooking every month. Lift over from the NATT before when we talk about what was unique about the show the camera as the character.

To me, what's impressive and what I'm tremendously out of in the show is that every shot wasn't about how can we cover this person the best, how can we get this or even how can we get this joke? But is the camera there? Where is it? What story is that telling? Because we're supposedly seeing this through a

documentarian's lens. I mean, your interactions with the camera's elevated Dwight an even higher level than it was yeah, So there was a constant a negotiation about where the cameras should be for a scene, and Greg was very exacting about it. Randall Einhorn, one of our chief directors, Matt Son one of our chief directors, and cameramen. There was this constant dialogue and it was very thorough. Nothing was done half assed, you know. It was just kind of like, well,

you know, we'd rehearse a scene. Maybe the director would have it plotted out, but the writer would come in and say, well, if the camera was here when he said, does that thing and then looks away, we can rack focus to the person in the foreground and get their reaction, and the other camera can get this other reaction and then you know, so it was there was a lot of calculation that went on. The use of Venetian blinds was extraordinary. How do we shoot through the blinds? Is

this a spy shot? Is it on this side of the blinds? On this side? Are they aware the cameras there? And so if you look at the episodes, it's almost mathematical about, you know, how can we position the camera so it captures seemingly effortlessly captures the greatest number of reactions and interactions to bring out as much humanity and comedy at the same time. So you know, when you would prep an episode, you would you know, have the ad there and you'd kind of read through the scene

and you'd think about where would need to go. And you also didn't want to just always repeat. You didn't want to just always have like, you know, we'll just put the cameras in Michael's office, just shoot over one guy's left shoulder and the other guy's right shoulder. And you wanted to find new original ways of shooting stuff, and it was very precise and sometimes it was a real puzzle. One of the challenges I remember having on one of the episodes, I can't remember which one it

might have been. I think it was Classy Christmas was that if people walk in and they're having a scene and you're shooting them, you have to whip around to get reactions on the other people, Whereas if you're on the other side and they step in front of the camera so the camera has the deep background of the rest of the office behind the players in the foreground, then you get to follow the action and just rack focus past them, past the plant, past the copy machine,

and get the reactions. It was better to be on that side of the axis of shooting because for people who don't know, there's a thing called the line when you're directing, and it's the axis between the principal players and you're either on one side of the line or the other side of the line. You can't really play on both side of the lines. They just would look really jumbled. In the human brain, it's just how vision works.

So I remember there being a lot of, you know, deep conversations like how do we get Steve in further so that the camera stays on this side. It was very complex. Yeah. One of the other things that I've been thinking about is you and I were theater actors, right, Steve Angela Oscar were really improv actors, and then you've got Craig Robinson and bj who were really stand up guys. And I wonder, seems to me that there's something in what made our ensemble unique that had to do with that.

That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about that before, but I think that's a really good point. People had all of these different backgrounds that kind of suited their characters, and I don't know exactly how, but I definitely see that all kind of adding into that kind of the jumble eye of the ensemble. And also like remember we were just post friends, right, this was two thousand and four,

and everyone was very interesting faces. You know, even like John Krasinski, who's handsome, was not traditionally handsome in a lot of ways. You know, it's kind of long face and stuff like that, but really interesting and odd faces all around. And that was pretty groundbreaking for the time. You see it more now, but especially for network television at that time, it was just unheard of all these kind of weirdos. But I think the diversity in our

acting backgrounds people brought different strengths. You know, what do you think made the ensemble so special? You Well, obviously I was I was the main part of that. I think Greg had a lot of experience. So he had written on Seinfeld and Simpsons and created King of the Hill, of course, but he had been on a lot of other shows, and I think he was very careful to make sure that he wasn't casting any divas and that

everyone was a team player and an ensemble player. So I think that one thing that theater and improv gives you is a sense of like, it's not the Rain Wilson Show or the Steve Carrell Show or whatever. It's the It's about the ensemble. It's like how do you make other people funnier? How do you play well with others? That was another thing he picked people with, also, like just really good hearts, Like the people when you look

back on it, everyone is a really goodhearted person. Now, I've worked on TV shows where that is not the case. In fact, I remember I forget which director was. It was a director later on season five or six, and they were like, oh my god, I can't believe how much you guys love each other like that. We hug each other and high five and in between takes we're just laughing and watching videos and goofing off and just a really loving environment. And he goes, I just got

back from directing desk. At Housewives, it's like half the cast is not talking to the other half of the cast. You have to call people out of trailers at certain points in time, but they won't look at each other, they won't do the off camera work with the other person. It's all this just cattiness and competitiveness and that that exists on a lot of different shows you kind of you kind of read about it and it's, uh, it's pretty extraordinary, and it wasn't there for us, not in

the slightest no. No. Yeah, So we have this, like, we have this collection of characters that are existing within this office, and I think when you think about the show, that's what you think about, and you forget how much change we had, like even from from season three and Jim leaving and then Karen Philip Elly and Andy coming in and Ed and then Ellie coming in, like we had sort of a constant revolving door, although not really revolving because not many people left. We just got bigger.

I don't know, there's something interesting to me about the energy that was created by Greg constantly changing up and adding cast members, making us go on location, and later seasons we had Clark Duke and Jake Lacy. Yeah exactly. Yeah, I think that was really smart. I mean, you know, I think Rashida and Ed Helms, like two of the greatest comedy actors of all time coming in was a really needed breath of fresh air in that third season

and really helped us a lot. And I think Ellie Kemper, who has proven herself to be one of the great comedians television personalities. Bringing her in in season five or six or whenever it was really helped the show as well, so he was very adept about that, as he is in all of his decision making. It's a hard time for hiring, so you need a hiring partner built for hard times. That's Indeed. If you're hiring, you need Indeed because Indeed is the hiring partner where you can attract, interview,

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greatest comedy duos in the history of television. Wow, that's so sweet of you, Brian, thank you shut up. I'm serious, I'm serious, that is very sweet of you. I do. I just kind of want to do a little deep dive into you and he working. How much did you talk about those scenes before you were in the room shooting. We never talked about scenes, never ever, So you talk about the various skill sets that we brought to the equation as actors. So Steve was in Second City. He

was kind of infamously great in Second City. He wrote a lot of their favorite best sketches, he toured with them, You'd done the Dana Carvey Show, and he was just really well known and super highly respected and and truly, like I've worked with a lot of amazing actors over the years before The Office and since the Office, I've

never worked with anyone like him before. He can improvise like it's it's almost a crime to call it improvisation because he can just be and speak as a character and it's both funny and pathetic and sad and moving at the same time. And it was just a true honor and marvel to like watch him work and for me, like again, I improvised pretty well. It's not really my bag.

My bag is like creating memorable characters. That's how I think of myself as an Actor's like when I die and they show the little thing and the Emmy's the Academy Awards. I want people to go like, oh wow, he created a lot of really interesting, memorable characters. But it was just about watching Steve go. So I thought of us as like, sorr, wow, these guys are the loudest podcast engineers I've ever heard in my life. I'm just kidding here. It's okay, I'll show you how to

turn the volume down on the computer. Though, So I thought of us as like the vision that I had was like the image that I had is like we're just these different musicians. Like Steve is like this, he's a violin player, or he's the alto sacks or something. It's like it's quick, it's mercurial, it's changing, and Dwight is kind of like a little more of the base. And also I thought part of Dwight's job, part of my job as an actor, is just to keep him

off balance just a little bit. So I would always vary my timings and sometimes just try and fun with him, and I'll just all of a sudden, say, I could really go for some spaghetti right about now, and he would just never miss a beat. He would spin it into pure gold. So it was it was really a miraculous thing to watch. But I think that when a comedy duo is in sync there they know kind of

what instruments they're playing. And Dwight, I think sometimes I would try and be the violin, but Dwight was never That's not his speed, it's not his rhythm. He doesn't work in the same way. And it was also really great to just know, like, this is what Steve does. He does it better than anyone else, like on the planet, and I don't need to try and do that. I'll do my thing. My thing is to play kind of the big bass playing weirdo in the corner, you know,

in opposition to that. Yeah, well that was a thing that always amazed me, which was he would come in,

you know, like in the conference room scenes. These are sides, by the way, these are fake sides, and he would be like, you know, kind of like flipping through and like okay, and I'm gonna move here, and we would rehearse for like an eight page scene for about six minutes and they'd be like, okay, everybody go get dressed and whatever, and then he would put on his suit and finish getting his makeup on, and he would walk back in and it was like boom. He was like,

fully there, yeah, yeah. But that's why I wondered if you and he ever talked through any more of those things. That was one of the things with Steve that I kind of saw really quick because I wanted to just be respectful to his process and whatnot, Like he did not want to work stuff out, he did not want to rehearse, he didn't want to like talk about it and stuff like that. I mean he would if there was there needed to be a change in the writing, he would bring in Greg or Paul or Gin or

whomever and talk about, like, could we change this. I don't feel like he would say this and he needs to say something more like that. But as far as the acting, it's like it's off, boom starting gun, the horses are off and you just go and worked really well. Right. It occurred to me one of the things that make made you and Steve so unique goes to not to dismiss this at all. You and John were hilarious together,

but you were a much more classical duo. He was the straight man to you, whereas with you and Steve, you both were crazy idiots, right and still somehow it was made believable and real and hilariously funny without being a competition. It was really like an orchestra. Like you said, Yeah, so this is where we could talk shop a little bit, because I love the history of clown and of clowning.

And it really started with the comedies of the ancient Greeks, you know, like Aristophanes the Frogs and some of those plays. What's the one where they all have boners they withhold sex from the man until the men stopped the war. Anyone blanking on the name anyway, So it all starts back then, and then swiftly moves to Comedia dell arte, which sprang out of you know, Roman theater that had

these comic tropes and would travel all over Europe. And they always had the dopey clown like Kevin, they had like the weird, intense clown like Dwight. There were these tropes, and basically all of comedy in the Western world I think is based off of those tropes from comedian to Larte. They influenced obviously Moliere and then Shakespeare, Vaudeville and clown characters like that, then moved into you know, early radio

and TV. You know, think about the Honeymooners and then the early sitcoms and Dick Van Dyke and Maritt Tyler Moore and then on into the later sitcoms, and this constantly evolving process of these archetypal kind of forms that I really view like Michael and Dwight, and Dwight and Jim as like two comic duos, as being like inheritors

of the history of comedy. I don't know exactly how they fit in, certainly, you know, Jim was like the young lover, although he had that great dead pan and got more laughs than anyone else could have gotten in that role with this, you know, his looks to the camera and his long sufferingness and quick wittedness. But it's the it's the essence of clown. You studied clown as well, and physical theater and stuff like that. You and I know this might sound pretentious as hell to people, but

I don't care fuck them. How do you how do you feel like it played into the clowns and the physical comedy of the Office. Absolutely. I mean I think primarily with Kevin and Dwight and Michael, but no, even Angela, Andy Bernard, those characters. Absolutely we all might have had clown noses on when you think about it, totally, you could have put clown noses on all of the different characters. And even though it was a documentary and gritty and real and felt like an office, like it was really

happening documentary style. And that was one of the things that I said to Greg early on into the writer's room, like I really love physical comedy, and I would really I think that Dwight really soars when he's doing physical comedy. I really want you to consider writing as much physical comedy for me as possible. And I do think that that's when you think of the Office, you think of like documentary uber real bad lighting, reactions, looking at the

camera and stuff like that. But you could do a compilation episode of the Office of like the physical comedy bits, you know, the fire episode and Dwight with Jan's baby carriage or parkour and all of this stuff, like even you having to give me a massage. Do you remember you climbing up on the wall. Yeah, I was on were on the filing cabinet behind you as I was doing that. So there's a really a strong constant vein.

Like every episode, I would say I had some at least one or two big bits of physical comedy and involving pain and getting hit and doors slammed in faces and whatnot, and that I don't think that gets quite

enough props or attention from people. Well, and and even pretending to be a different character than you are, right, you a number of characters, and Jim and me, and when Jim dresses as Dwight and says Bears beats Battlestar Galactica, and people always say, I want you to write Bears beats Battlestar Galactica or if I'm signing a picture or something like that, or say it or something like that. I'm like, Dwight actually never said that in two hundred episodes.

Dwight never said Bears beats Battlestar Galactica. That was Jim as Dwight saying that. I don't say that. I'm not a persnicketty asshole going Waitney said it. But people should realize that Dwight never actually said that. Wow. I would never have gotten that. I would I blew your mind. I know, I never would have gotten that. Yeah. Okay, So you have this comedy duo with Steve. When did

you find out he was leaving? I knew that Steve was going to get out of there as soon as he possibly could because he had all of these movies that were wanting to pay him ten and fifteen million dollars a pop to go do. So of course he would like wow. You know. So did you have reservations about the show existing beyond him? Yeah? I had. I had great reservations about the show existing without Steve. You know, did I think we were going to bomb and fail

without Steve? No? Were we going to be hurt by losing one of the greatest comedic actors of all time in the lead character? Of course we were. No one thought otherwise. At the same time, we had a pretty damn great ensemble. You know, Ed Helms at the time was lead in Hangover, which was the biggest comedy ever made, and we had him and he. You know, I didn't think we needed like a Robert California or Kathy Bates or you know a lot of other like big names to bring in At that point, I think we had

the ensemble. I wish the creators and I know they were doing a lot of battling with NBC at the time because we were starting to slip in our ratings even before Steve left. It's not like we were just on our ratings bonanza all the way through Steve and then Steve left and we were declined. We were in decline for a good year or two with Steve there.

But yeah, I knew it was gonna I knew it was going to hurt us, and I knew it was also time for you know, all of us to step up in the ensemble and carry more weight of anyone on set. Who would be the most likely to be fired for an HR violation? Oh? Ouch, boy? Would I first wanted to Joe can say, Oh, that would be me, because I told a lot of inappropriate jokes. But at the same time, oh boy, You've got me stumped on

this one. At the same time, for some reason, I'm going to Creed because I would tell inappropriate jokes, but people could always tell like, oh, that's Rain telling a really inappropriate joke. But at the same time, like Creed could tell one and I imagine that certain people would kind of go, oh, he means it. He's actually going to chop up my body and put me in the trunk of his car or something like that. Or so I would say a tie between me and Creed maybe yeah, okay,

I mean, would you go with that? I will now that you say it. It was all about you. I mean you would say things that I mean, my language can be horrendously bad. I've kept it together somewhat here, but you, somehow would put combinations of vulgar words together in a way that even made me uncomfortable and looking around like who heard that? And are we in trouble? Oh my, you know, we made the show before all of this stuff, the me too and stuff like that.

I hope I was never really I certainly was never demeaning to anybody or cruel to anyone, or you know, coming on to women in some weird ways. It was just like inappropriate jokes. But I heard about some other shows where people like off camera were like dropping their pants and showing their genitals to the person who's on the camera, and that would happen all the time, and everyone thought, oh, this is hysterical, you know, like all the quote unquote hysterical high jinks that would happen. That

was really just straight up harassment. That's what I always imagine people are wanting us to say about the pranks. Yeah, like, oh yeah, no, I would. I would moon rain all the time, yeah, off camera, And that was no. We never did anything like that, Steve. And I'm going to talk to him about this. But Steve, he's been quoted and I don't know if it's been paraphrased or whatever, but there's something out there where he has said that The Office could not exist today because of the culture

of political correctness that exists in television. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I think The Office would be a very different show. And I think that having a just colossally inappropriate boss who's making a lot of sexual jokes and hinu windows and crossing lines and boundaries, we were sending up kind of a problem that was out there, an issue that was out there. We were shining light on it and poking at it. That's what she said, And I do think it would be very problematic in

this day and age. How do you navigate that, even if the guy is supposed to be an asshole? How do you navigate him saying just sexist stuff and racist stuff and it's coming out of his mouth and he's just not aware, you know, it would have I agree with Steve, I don't think you could do it. I disagree with both of you. I can't. It makes no sense to me. He took off his glasses, he's getting in sense. It makes no no, no. But see, I just keep thinking he's been paraphrased incorrectly. But then now

you just endorsed it. How can what is now the most watch show and television You're telling me an executive is going to turn that down the potential for that down. Yeah, But this is what I'm saying is that there would be a backlash, for instance, Diversity Day if you had a show right now that was starting out, you know, not The not The Office, that's a big hit show.

If there was a show that was starting out and had a Diversity Day episode and people were saying, like, try make Googi googy to an Indian person, and if they were saying, I can't drive, are you Asian? Or are you a woman? And like you were saying rosta man, I'm doing like like and people were doing that stuff like there would be a lot of angry people on social media saying like, this is inappropriate, this is it's

having a laugh at these stereotype. Yes, it's sending them up, but we need to get out of this and we cannot continue to participate, and there would be a huge backlash against it. So I'm not saying like, could you do The Office the Office now? But a show like The Office could never take off right now because if it tried to play in the world of what's inappropriate, people just don't have a sense of humor about it. And partially for good reason and an understandable reason, and

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the PAM thing? I thought it was weird when you picked us to make a documentary, But all in all, I think an ordinary paper company like dunder Mifflin was a great subject for a documentary. There's a lot of beauty and ordinary things. Isn't that kind of the point? So to me, that is what Greg says that it was all about. Is that what you think it was all about? Yeah, the beauty of ordinary things. I'm going to sound pretentious again and I'm going to take us

back to the theater. But really, my favorite theater artist of all time was Anton Chekhov, the playwright, and Chekhov was one of the first, if not the first, that really saw the beauty and ordinary things and ordinary people and those when you define what a Chekovan moment is, it's a profound moment that's very simple, where hearts are broken over a teacup being passed around or what's not said, or a longing and has some kind of physical manifestation.

So I think at its best, I think the office was cove in in that sense where there was a beauty found in ordinary things. And Chekhov's work has suffused so much of what's happened in theater or TV and film for the last one hundred and twenty years. You know, when you think about dramedy, like the word dramedy half drama, half comedy, like he was the first. You know, you might argue that some of Shakespeare's romance plays kind of

fit in that spectrum, they really didn't. He was really the first that was like, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, And now I'm going to laugh a little bit, and I'm gonna cry a little bit, and I'm gonna laugh and cry a little bit, and it's just going to ride that line between buffoonery and heartbreak. And I think Greg and the writing staff and the cast and directors really knew how to how to milk that.

You know. The example I always give is one of my favorite moments was directed by Paul Lieberstein, who I think is an amazing director and a great writer, and who played Toby. Obviously. I think it was in the episode of Money and it's Dwight and Jim in the stairwell. Dwight is heartbroken over Angela and Jim gives him some advice and I forget what it was even, but Jim gives Dwight some really heartfelt advice You'll get over it, or you go tell her you lover or something like that,

something about Angela. And then Dwight has got his head down in his hands and Jim slips away, and it's the spy shot of the camera down the stairs, and then Dwight reaches out with his left arm as if he would have put his arm around Jim and like hugged and it would have been like their first hug ever. And Jim's not there, and he kind of it looks

around and it's this awkward moment. But I always think like, if Jim hadn't left, and if Dwight had just put his arm around Jim, like they might have bonded in a way that wouldn't have allowed the show to go on because they wouldn't have been the nemesis to each other. They would have like connected too deeply, and you can't have that on the show. You want to have them episode after episode after episode not connecting. But to me, it's like that little moment like defined what the office was.

It had absurdity to it, reality to it. At the same time, it was based in heartbreak, and then it twisted into something kind of peculiar and odd and awkward. That's really smart. No, I mean you're pretty smart. I'm smart guying. You know, you're obviously you started soul Pancake two thousand and eight. You're a very spiritual person. That's important to you. Yeah, what ortual person who tells really inappropriate jokes? Are you still tell the worst? The worst?

I don't. Do you feel like there was a good that came from the show? Yeah? So, you know, my my spiritual life and that world is, like you mentioned, is important to me, you know, prayer and met itation and thinking about life's big questions and our purpose here and how we can be of service to one another, how I can make myself a better person. All of these big spiritual questions occupy some time and space with me. So I truly believe that at the end of the day,

we weren't kind of trying to do this. But I do believe that The Office was a spiritual show. You know, anytime I'm kind of recognized, people will say thank you for the show. It meant so much to me my parents were getting a divorce, or my little brother had cancer, and we would watch it together and we would cry. It got me through some of the hardest times. I mean every day, like people write into my Facebook like

it got me through such hard times. I was going through depression, I was anxiety and disease issues, whatever, mental health issues, and the Office got me through that. And I think that the reason that The Office has lasted the way it has is it because all great television is unlikely families, and it's the most unlikely family, and you love to be with that family. There's something really soothing about showing up hearing that theme song. You're in

that office with these characters that you love. You want to cohabitate with them, you want to work in the office with them. I've talked to so many young people that have said, I want to work in an office just like in dunder Mifflin. They're like thinking somehow that out in the workaday world, that it's going to be even remotely like the office the most wrongheaded thing known

to man. But yeah, I think we made something that ultimately made people laugh, got their minds off their problems, that brought a lot of like comedy and warmth and heart and connection, and that's really what people need now, and so they're they're watching the show. It's not a cynical show at the end of the day. It's people that do love each other, as weird as it is, and it's been a positive worse in the world. I didn't doubt that when we're making it, but I didn't

even really think about that when we're making it. But the heart of the show, the heart of Greg Daniels, the heart of all the actors and the writers, kind of has lasted. Yeah, what are you the most thankful for the house that the Office bought me? Now? No, I'm yeah, but that's fair. Oh yeah, no, I yeah, yeah. I had been a struggling actor. You know, I got out of acting school eighty nine, ninety something like that. So here I am in two thousand and four starting

to do the Office. So fourteen years of struggling to kind of pay the rent, and then all of a sudden, you know, I had an actual career. It opened a lot of doors for me. I got to do some cool movie stuff and work with a lot of cool people and be involved in some cool enterprises because of it, and I'm super grateful for that. But yeah, I'm I'm most grateful for the fact that we made a gift for audiences that I think it'll be around for a

long time. Why why is that? Though? I mean, we've talked about all of these elements that went into creating the show and why we think it's special and what makes it unique and that, Well, why now are eleven twelve year old fourteen year old kids watching this show over something else? Well, there's so many reasons. We've been over a lot of them. Sure, it's an unlikely family that is formed. They're relatable characters, you want to hang

out with them. But I also think it's and Greg always said, like, it's ninety percent funny, but ten percent kind of truthful in moving And if you stay on that, you don't want to go more than ten percent because then it starts to get sentimental and modeling. But it just has that ten percent per episode of reality, of truth, of real connection that grounds the show, that gives it a lot of heart. But also, like the style of the comedy, it never tells you when to laugh or

that you have to laugh. There's no laugh track. You can choose to laugh at something or not. You know, someone can look at the camera, some people can find it hysterical, some people won't. Maybe the third time you watch it, you do find it hysterical, and you hadn't the previous time. So you're finding a lot of those details. We talked about the detail that went into positioning the cameras and how you're going to shoot stuff and get reaction shots, and so I also think there's a great

amount of detail in there. So it stands up on repeated watchings where a lot of other shows may not because the jokes are kind of hit a little harder. There's so many reasons, but at the end of the day, I have to think it's just the heart. I mean, I think people just loved those characters and they just feel like they're a de facto family. Okay, there's been fifteen years since we shot the pilot who shot the violot. This is about Rain. Okay, Rain Wilson, here we go.

Do you consider your old co workers family or friends? Remember, Oh, you can choose your friends, but now your family. Oh wow, that's a profound question. You found a life's big question packed into packed into the office. God, that's such such a good I don't know. I guess I would answer it like Michael Scott, and he would say, as the Office cast, my family is the Office Cast, my friends. I think they're my family. You're a jackass. You're a jackass.

Do you want me to be more? Sincerely? Love? No? I love no? Are you kidding? I love that? So that's good, jackass. Wait, let me let me ask you one more thing. So, in doing research for this podcast, I found out that fifty two point one billion billion minutes we're streamed in twenty eighteen alone. Dear lord, I guess this is average lifespan over a hundred thousand people watching it for their entire life. What, oh my god, that's nuts. People just need to get a life. I mean,

it wasn't listening person listeners. I love you all, thank you for watching the Office. But there's so much use to do. Read a fucking book people, written by Rain Wilson. Yeah. I actually I have written too. So there's a couple I have. Jenna has written a book, and bj has two read only books by the Office Cast. Listen to this podcast and read books by people from the Office, from the and by our merchandise. All right, Rain, I love you. I love you, Brian Baumgartner, and I've missed

you so much. I hardly ever see you. Thanks for having me on this show. This is P promises to be really exciting and cool. I'm so excited for this thing. You started to sound like you were being sarcastic, and then you and then you turn genuine halfway through. Very, I'm very that's kind of my thing. Is like, am I sarcastic? Am I being a dick? Or am I being genuine? Kind of writing that line and yeah, okay, suck my balls, Okay, bye, all right, guys. That is it,

mister Rain Wilson. I hope that you had as much fun listening to that, to that conversation as I had having it. I don't know if that's not quite right, but whatever, I enjoyed that so much. Huge thanks to Rain for joining me and talking to me, and bigger forget Rain, bigger thanks to you for listening. I will be back next week with more of the goods. We're gonna go deeper, We're gonna go bigger, We're gonna go dive here. I don't know we know, I don't know numbers.

I don't know words either, Apparently, but we'll see you next week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner alongside our executive producer Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, Our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olandski. Conquer your

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