Rainn Wilson Is Out Of Hot “Office” Takes

0:00I'm gonna ask myself some questions. Rain, what's going on these days? Because here's what I'm about to say. Are you ready? Here it goes. I'm going to say this now. Sit down. Pass in your seatbelt. Here's the deal. It was front page. Rainn Wilson. The office was racist. Exclamation point. I did see that. Giant clickbait kind of thing. I baited and I clicked. You went for it. Oh, yeah. I said, what? Feel the rain on your pod. Rainn Wilson tomorrow. I don't know. That's a song. Bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Rain Wilson. Rain. I'm doing the police. Oh, don't. Let it rain. I actually made a pun when our guest Rain Wilson, who was a blast, came into the studio.

0:51I can't remember. I said, let it rain. I don't know. He's heard it all. We tried to give him some curveballs, but he's heard it all. So we had him in studio, which is rare. we have a couple coming up in studio we had fun with Rain good dude we talked about Dwight's haircut on The Office and a lot of Office stuff and how that got made and what the rocket ship that he got on with that and his career where he came from, it's really an interesting story it always is we didn't focus on The Office we sort of swung back to that he's got a lot of different things to talk about we won't spoil it we had a great time code three a movie that's in theaters and and that'll be you know it's in movies now it's in movies now it's it's a movie now and it'll be in theaters when it's a movie then so uh code three rain wilson and here he is this is no pressure you You can eat, you can do whatever you want.

1:54I'm not going to eat in a podcast. We have no plan and no ideas. Yeah, no plan, huh? Oh, whoa. Is that what they said? No plan? NBC, Dwight, spin-off, axed. Let's start with that one. Did you say axed? Well, yeah, because... It was axed. Oh, okay. Was there one? Well, they... There was a planned one. It was a backdoor pilot. We'll get into it. It's delicious. Oh, good. Can we bury anybody? Let's see with the young Seahawks. fan you got any warren littlefield stuff or you know warren littlefield no i don't know i don't know i don't think i ever met was he before he was gone yeah he was gone at that yeah he wooed me for to do the letterman thing and gave me a um a poster or the capital records beat meet the beatles he got it from sunday's signed you weren't ready for that this fast uh wow rain is done now I met with Brandon Tartasos, who was before him.

2:53Do you remember Brandon Tartasos? It could have been Tartasos. I think it was Tartasos, but it could have been Tartasos. We had Jeff Zucker was our. Oh, right, right, right. Then he left, and then there was the other guy, and I can't remember his name. But he had red hair, and he helped produce Six Feet Under, so I should know his name. Did anybody kind of get out in front of the office once it became a smash and kind of like, well, you know, it was my idea. There was a guy, Kevin Reilly, who's still out there. Yeah, I like Kevin Reilly. And he was the champion. And he single-handedly kept our show on the air when no one believed in it.

3:29I don't know why, but he's the one who squirreled away some money for, oh, we'll do five or six episodes here, and we'll do two or three, and I got you money for one more script. Oh, good. He was doing the wheeling and doing. Did he get back end? No, because they're studio executives. I know, I was hoping because he's the, he sounds like the hero in the line of scenes. Yeah, do you even know how this works? No, did, Kevin Reilly worked at Brillstein forever, is that true? Yeah, yeah, he's a nice guy. He worked on managers for a while, and then he was an exec. These managers become executives. Right.

4:02It's very murky. Like Brad Gray. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a story. That is exactly like Brad Gray. Oh, you have stories there. You lit up like a little Christmas tree. Too many stories. Yeah, go ahead. Too many stories. No, he was my manager. Oh, he was? Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. Yeah. It was just the, in a general sense. Go ahead. Once the person who's representing you also becomes a producer on the show, then there's just an intrinsic conflict of interest. It's like, you know, the fox saying, I could go out of the hen house. I mean, come on, man. You're not going to eat them, are you? But that's part of Hollywood.

4:44The idea is that they're going to also represent your best interests and produce the show. The idea. Right. There's just like, I'll give, do I give this money to the client or I give it to myself? It's a little tricky. Let's put it that way. Showbiz. We can go deep into that. Muddy, murky. What was that smoothie that you were eating there? Because that looks like the lawnmower threw up. We're sponsored by barf.

5:11It's just a green drink of grinding of vegetables. No, it's good. It's not a sponsor. Do you read ads on your podcast? I do read ads. What's your biggest sponsor? Our biggest sponsor for Soul Boom is this wonderful nonprofit called Fetzer. Oh, we love that. Yeah, and they've been amazing because the conversations that we're having about spirituality and mental health and kind of making the world a better place and blah, blah, blah. Like that's, there's like their whole thing. And they're like, they found Soul Boom and they're like, oh my God, this is, we love, we want to support this. And that's good.

5:49What's their product? There's no product. They're just this nonprofit family foundation. Oh, non-profit? Where do they get the money to pay you? From a dead rich guy who set up a foundation. You sure he's dead? He used to own the Detroit Tigers. I think his name is Fetzer, like Wally Fetzer. I don't know. Sounds familiar. We have a lot of for-profits that are investing. They put ads on, right? MeUndies, let me guess. MeUndies, Quints. Oh, MeUndies. I don't think we have MeUndies. We've done Quints. We've done Quints. Yeah, we've done Quints like everybody else. We have five-hour energy. Six-hour energy.

6:28Seven and a half-hour energy. That's kind of hush-hush. IHaveNoEnergy.com does donations. There's one called Wake Me the Fuck Up. Yeah. Our production company for this is flybytheseatofourpants.com. You guys should get sponsored by Supercuts because you both need haircuts. No. I agree. Can I tell you my problem? Yeah. Please. Yes, please. I don't have great hair. I'm not going to say I don't. You have a full luxurious head of hair. There's a lot of backstory to this whole thing. This is two-day hair. Don't tell anyone. but I've moved to central California. The woman who cuts my hair is very good.

7:13Chris Rios lives down here. So I go periods of time where I don't get a haircut but I agree with your premise that we both need haircuts. David? Celebrities, they're just like us. They have hair problems. You should have a hair product called Who'll Stop the Rain and it should be just some sort of hair product. I don't know if you should. Is this a comedy podcast? I don't know. I don't know. I have a question for you. Don't look at the camera when you say that. He's going straight to the lens. He is. That's genius. It's the old office move. He did it and it works. He did office on us. I'm going to ask myself some questions.

7:53Rain, what's going on these days? Well, I'm promoting this new movie, Code 3, that no one is going to see, but eventually they'll watch it on streaming. And what was it like being in the office? We're getting in that. This is just... Why don't we hit a little Code 3? Yeah, let's hit some Code 3. We don't have to do that. No, but I like to do it up front. These are good. Is this your handwriting? I like your handwriting. I think in bubbles. Are you more linear? Or is this a one-year-old? I need just a little... I can picture that page in my head. You know, that's why I... there's a lot of there's a lot of good questions on here I know maybe we should we'll get to one of them maybe you should ask one well let's hit

8:40where's my camera I would love to hear more about Chris Rios I don't have a picture and you remember so that's great and when you get down from central California down to see Chris Rios for your haircut do you usually fly or drive or how does that work I'm not good vertical Chris located in Beverly Hills I'm not good vertical I drive And I drive by where you live, which will stay undisclosed. It's Ventura County. I say that. It's a vast county. But I drive by and I do honk and I yell, who'll stop the rain? And I've never heard a response. When you're on the office. I have some hard hitting questions.

9:17Have you met Steve Carell? What's his net worth at this point? Ballpark. It's vast. And he would hate that question. He really would. Because he's very Midwestern. Yes. Very sweet. But can we talk about Code 3 for just a minute? I want to get it in and then get it at the end. We'll get in and out of Code 3. But let's do a quick Code 3. Yeah. Code 3. Yes. Code 3 is the greatest movie ever made. Yeah. Yes. It actually is a quite good movie. And we've got 97 % of Rotten Tomatoes right now from the audiences. I have that total from all the movies. 97%. We've got 0.3 % for this podcast. Yeah, yeah.

9:54But it's about 24 hours from hell and the life of these burnt out paramedics. It's very funny. Little Royal Howery co-stars. It's kind of looking at the underbelly of like the American healthcare system. But it's also a lot of fun and kind of a popcorn fun movie. And yeah, I'm really happy with it. So it's all one day. I kind of like that. Essentially, it's kind of like the pit. Like it's all just like really condensed. One last, it's my last shift. And it's this newcomer played by Amy Carrero. It's her first shift. And they kind of dovetail. I like that. And you're driving around. Driving around LA in the middle of the night and answering some crazy calls and trying to figure out the meaning of life along the way.

10:46Can I tell you a true quick 30 second story about a paramedic? And I wonder if this kind of sensibility is in your movie. So he's a paramedic and he said him and his partner, they would go to these scenes where someone's lost a layer. You know, it's horrific. And then when they would leave for themselves, they would put on Queen's song, Another One Bites the Dust, just to alleviate the stress. For whatever reason, Another One Bites the Dust. You know, I don't. So is there stuff like that? How do paramedics deal with that in your movie? The heaviness of it, the stress of it and the intensity. Well, that's what I really learned doing this movie was like this population, and we got to hang out with them, train with them.

11:30We did a ride along in South Central with the fire department. Like they're so colossally burned out. So much is asked of them. They're so underpaid. You can't even believe it. Like literally what they make. They're literally making somewhere like in the$20,$25 an hour ultimately. and it's like kind of Starbucks rate essentially. They go into dangerous situations too. Absolutely. All the time. Yeah. They get shot at. They get vomited on. They get needle sticks. Yeah. They get blood. I mean, and, you know, they're going to some really dangerous neighborhoods and patients get mad at them. Doctors get mad at them.

12:11Cops get mad at them. Yeah. They're under, I mean, these are real American heroes, but going to the Another One Bites the Dust, they have a gallows humor man they have a dark dark humor which you've got to have to survive well it must be so heavy intense and traumatic just to be on that and you're watching it every day and people in pain also a lot of people fight back and they're getting punched they're getting drunk people and it's like I see them on cop shows like oh these guys have got the roughest job they really do but it sounds like a fun thing to do 24 hours or whatever a tight amount of time your last day her first day and little rel is very funny and that's just something I haven't seen a lot so that's a good area yeah audiences are really are really digging it when you know yeah so thanks try not to smile yeah he likes it what else Dana on your freshest list I've heard I read some things you're great in the movie is what I read I haven't seen the movie but okay So that's kind of cool.

13:20Yeah. Thanks. You know how to do this. I do good acting. Yeah. You got that. We always recommend Shopify. It took us from an idea to a real business. We got set up, I think, in less than a day with very little effort. We could just focus on the supply chains and the product development. Shopify gives us the ability to customize without the complexity. We can change something without introducing fragility or having to pay a developer. We're Thirsty Turtle, and we leveled up our business with Shopify. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash au. You were in this, one of my old favorites, Galaxy Quest.

14:04Was that your first thing you did? That was my very first movie. Galaxy Quest was really funny. I don't know if everyone understands how funny that was. You saw it? I saw it, yeah. You got to be in that, and you read it and said, this thing's funny you can tell right away this is this was crazy because i did nothing but theater in new york for like 10 years and i came out to la in 1999 and for some reason i got cast in two movies in the same summer galaxy quest and almost famous those are my first two movies two of like the greatest movies yeah yeah yeah ever made i had small roles in them but i was like oh my god i'm i'm set i'm gonna be a movie star and i promptly like didn't work for a year and promptly what did you do when you weren't working for an hour and a half did you just had enough money saved scrambles get on account how poor were you you know i was so you know what i did i'm so glad you asked that question because my friend was teaching acting classes in hollywood at like the world's worst acting studio and it was all acting students from like all over the world because people don't know this in hollywood like people come from sweden and korea and mongolia and you know pakistan to go be actors like on American TV shows.

15:12They have very thick accents. God bless them. But they take acting classes. And so I taught acting at literally Hollywood and Vine in a studio. And they would hand out, I didn't get to choose the scenes. They would do scenes from American TV shows to foreign students. So I remember directing this scene. I'm not even making this up. I'm not even making this up. I directed a scene from Cagney and Lacey starring a woman a Japanese woman and a Swedish woman playing Cagney and Lacey I'm not going to do the Japanese but you could do the Swedish we can imagine that why is the Swedish not offensive? Northern Europeans I don't know do the Japanese one day I'm Norwegian, I get to make fun of Scandinavians.

16:06I'm Norwegian too. She was like, oh, Cagney, you embarrassed me in front of the whole department. And, you know, Lucas is so mad at me. I don't know what to do. And then the other person responds. And then trying to keep a straight face to give them like, what's your intention? They're trying so hard. And they're trying so hard and they want to be discovered. and they've come to Hollywood to follow their dream of being an actor in this second-rate studio. That's so funny. That was what I was doing to pay the bills after I had done Galaxy Quest. Lacey, you have crossed so many lines today. I'm worried about you.

16:46I'm trying. I don't know. Is that a Norwegian or a Swedish? That was good. That was like Swedish Chef. Swedish Chef. It's a little bit of Arnold sneaking in there. Every time I do a European, Arnold slips into it. Arnold just covers all of Europe. It slips into a lot of things. Yeah. Let's look at a clip. Let me tell you. Where's the maid? Let me tell you. Let me tell you. He always asks. He's like Trump in that way. Let me tell you something. I'm going to tell you something, but first let me ask you to let me tell you something. Because I want you to let me tell you something. I'm going to ask you something that I'll tell you.

17:19Yeah. Then I tell you, and then I ask you again if I can tell you something. You guys, this is a front row seat to watch Dana Carvey do her impressions. I'm three and a half feet away from him. This is a joy. I'm so tingly with happiness right now. Oh, my God. That's so flattering. And you're right to the camera. I love that you're - I'm really using it. This is kind of your podcast. I love it. I mean, and it's great. Can you push in a little bit? Is this the training from the office? You can push in and post, right? 8K. Yeah, we'll take care of you. 8K? 8K. Oh, you can get right up in here. Oh, no.

17:51But they download it in 1080p. Why do you think this mic is covering my neck? I'm not a fool. All my age is here. because I'm Irish, Norwegian, and Scottish. Grew up in California. Do the math. Let me tell you something. I'm going to tell you what. This. If you listen to me now, listen to me good. Give me now and believe me later. Let me tell you something. Oh, I'll do that all day. Because here's what I'm about to say. Are you ready? Here it goes. I'm going to say this now. Sit down. Pass in your seatbelt. Here's the deal. Here's a good trick when Arnold, I don't really Arnold, but when they would ask him about anything personal, he would answer his own answers because he's on camera, so they can't use it.

18:29They go, now what happened with that maid? He goes, this movie is action-packed. And then they go, what? And they go, he's only giving quotes they can use about the movie, so he just never answers the question. No, the truth of Arnold, in which my brother and I, I have three brothers, we have this catchphrase with each other, like what would Arnold do? Because he can't go negative. He literally can't go negative, like Trump, not to get into that. They can't, you know, it's always promoting. So he had a movie, The Last Action, Harold that didn't do too well. He's on NBC Today or something, Matt Lauer or whatever.

19:01So you'd have trouble. Nah, the truth is the people are loving the movie and all over the world. The people enjoy it. Yeah, but the box office, everybody loves it and it's doing very well and all these things and this and that. So anyway, that's my Arnold section. No, it's a good way to promote because... Well, be positive. Well, it's funny. I kind of, I still haven't learned my lesson. I did a podcast in New York just a week or two ago And the guy was very just smart, wonderful, nuanced conversation. He's like, could you make The Office in today's kind of more PC landscape? And I talked about it in a very kind of nuanced fashion.

19:40Like, well, that's a tough one. We had some episodes where we've got lead characters that are clueless, right? They can be racist. They can be sexist. And, you know, there's, you know, the episode where we, you know, marked on the, they marked on the Asian women to like tell them apart. There's stuff like that that's really like pushing the envelope. But that's where there's a great source of comedy, blah, blah, blah. It was front page like Rainn Wilson. The office was racist. Exclamation point. I did see that. Giant clickbait kind of thing. I baited and I clicked. You went for it. Oh, yeah. I said, what?

20:17He texted me about it. I said, this fucking guy, we can't have him. What is that about? Cancel. Cancel it. I go, cancel somebody involved. I don't know who, but let's start canceling. Cancel him. But whenever I talk about anything like that, because we're sort of a neutral podcast, we're just trying to be friendly and make money. Yeah. Podcasting is not a big money-making gig, let's face it. Let's not let the viewers know. It's not at all. They're like, where does he get those shoes, those sweats? uh it it's it's does well but my point is does the nuance of stuff you strangle yourself yourself into nuance and you feel like you almost said nothing and then somebody somewhere pulls it out it happens all the time there was another one i did a couple years back where i talked about like you know i went through some really unhappy times on the side of the office because of like you know I wanted to do more movies and I was just I thought that I should have more opportunities and I was you know complaining a lot and I wish I hadn't have been in that space and it was like Rainn Wilson miserable on the set of The Office I could have written a better one he hates The Office but the producers like Trump and the Seahawks hat they're gonna do the same thing for your clips and it's listen everyone I was not miserable on the side of the office I had some struggles with early fame and of course mental health and guess what the office could kind of push a lot of buttons around race and sexism and and issues in a way that would be trickier today could still be done and that I don't think the office is racist and I was happy as a clam on the side of the office Thank you and good night.

22:09That was a great podcast. Here's that headline. He still hates the audience. He still. Rain Wilson tried to dodge a question and fly on the wall, but he was called out by a frosty... I tell you, when I worked on Just Shoot Me, oh my God, a couple of people remember? Thank you. When I worked on a sitcom and ER was going on around the same time, someone quit ER and was making so much money and no one could believe it. It was one of the three men. Sherry Stringfellow. Yes. And everyone's like, how could you? And she's like, I'm in a studio 25 hours a day. Because it's like a never-ending movie, those shows.

22:46So she gets like a month and a half off in the summer. And then they go right back in. And it's memorizing lines all day. The ER's got to be the hardest. Memorize, memorize. And you have to memorize all that medical jargon. Yeah. And you got to go, hey, put the squeeze. You got Ringer's lactate over here. So that. Lactate. 10 cc's of Ringer's lactate. That was an emergency, that show. So anyway, she quit. and I kind of go, she may regret it down the line, but I get she needs a fucking breather. There's no mental days back then. There's no taking a break. It's just like grind, grind, grind. And the money means nothing.

23:18She's not even spending it. She never sees it. It's just work, work. So maybe there's times on shows when you do get, like when there's so many mouths to feed on The Office. Sometimes you have light shows. I remember Lovett's, well, all of us, let's say. When SNL, you'd have one sketch that week, sometimes none. it's just a weird vibe in your head of like am i gonna get fired am i am i doing enough can i keep up with these people shouldn't i thought i was funny in this could they put me and that's just constantly it might be like that on your set too sure every set probably yeah but did anyone ever distort that with you like david spade's ungrateful no yeah that i they will that was they will now that you said that yeah david spade miserable on the set of snl but you i think everyone is i had But you came before, you didn't get to see Dana because you were 2007.

24:09Wait, when did you host? 2007 or 2008, something like that. I hosted like three times, sorry. You and I together could be in the five-timer club. I did host in 2010. That was the last time or 11. But you didn't get to see him. With Kristen Wiig. I did not, yeah. Billy Hader. Billy Hader was there. Will Hader. I got to see Dana in action, though. because I got on when he was on already, then I got on. But you're right about those impressions. Every time Danny goes out, there was a score. Characters. People say - Micheloflin Group. Church lady. Issue number one. Rainy, rainy, rain time. Unhappy with the office, are we?

24:50Too racist to continue. What do you think? More teeny tiny tunes on TV. That thing was exhausting to do. More than Kentucky. But I had one, so I had a botched bypass in 1997. But I never had a heart attack, everyone gets quiet. How was your heart attack? Look at me now! You know, it's a big difference. Are you okay? That's what I say every 10 seconds. You okay? Hold on. So as far as - Show us the scars. So then I'm doing a movie. So it got - Do you have scars? It's very faint.

25:28I'm sexy with it. It never bothered me. So anyway, my heart's really good. My resting pulse is 40 and whatever. So, but I was doing a goofy movie and the tabloids, they go, the tabloids are here and they think you're too exhausted. You can't do the movie. It's like three years later. So I said, well, let me call him. Let's call him. So I said, okay. So I call a National Enquirer guy and I go, I never had any heart problems. It was just a stent that needed to be, you know, and I'm totally fine. and I just had one bypass. So next day, National Choir, Dana Carvey has five open heart surgeries. And hates the office.

26:10And hates the office. Well, at the end, I didn't want to say that. I don't know why. Says Rain will slam. And I don't know why in those days. That's amazing that it would just be a bold-faced lie. Just a lie. And then you're like, do you go to court? You know, that kind of thing. No, there was one time when I went to like, Like, you know how the, did you guys ever do press in Canada and they have the Much TV? It's their version of MTV. And I did some festival and introduced some bands and did some interviews and stuff. And then, what was it? Not in sync, Boys in the Hood. Boys in the Hood. Boys in the Hall or something.

26:50One of those boy bands. Backstreet Boys. Backstreet Boys was there, I think. And then there was a gossip site that said like Rainn Wilson had altercation with Backstreet Boys or something. Like I never even like met them. And my publicist called this site and was like, and he's like, I just needed a headline. That's so great. Well, I like the honesty of that. Yeah, he's just like, I need it, I need it. I'm sorry, bro. I'm going to waste your money. Yeah, anytime, one time my mom got called and she goes, oh, they were wondering who you were dating. and I go, Mom, it was the National Enquirer. She goes, no, it was American media.

27:26It was a reporter. And I go, that's who owns the National Enquirer. But they say that's a good slippery way to get it. But calling my mom in Arizona for anything about anything that would happen in your life and then I go, Mom, just realize, just don't do it. But they get your phone number. It's all so creepy, all so bad. Here's one. Maybe we can get a trend on this one. Yeah, back to you, Dana. is there any question that hasn't been asked of you yet around the office? Because I wouldn't even know where to start. I assume you've done so many interviews. Is there something we don't know? I need a banger.

28:06We need a fucking banger. The future of this podcast is resting on this. You said it was me. We make a lot of money, I'm telling you. but could always make more. Go ahead. No. That's a great question and I don't have an answer for that. This is the question I have but I know you've been asked this a million times. The Dwight hair. Yeah. The origin of that. I stole it from Mackenzie Crook who played Gareth in The British Office because I read an article that he went to like the shithole barber shop in Slough where it was set and got the least flattering haircut for his hair. It was probably the best hair on comic television.

28:54And I just lifted that from him. I'm like, let's design the worst possible haircut for me. I was not thinking about wearing that haircut for nine seasons and 200 episodes. Because I have an enormous forehead. I do too. And so it's just revealing it like it's these little curtains. you know it's like it's like a little it's broadway set like you could do oklahoma perform it here with finger puppets and uh yeah that's a good yeah it was there ever an episode where they the girls were scheming to get you a new haircut that would have been a good pitch that would have been up did you ever refer to the hair to work with us was the haircut referred to a lot huh greg daniel when he was on snl yeah oh nice he was a writer with conan and i remember him and Kony coming right out of Harvard.