Rainn Wilson, who plays the seriously deranged office drone Dwight Schrute, is only too happy to be back at his office desk in The Office. Seriously.It reminds him, he says, of his days as a "starving actor" -- talk about central casting -- when he worked as an "assistant office manager and special events coordinator" for a New York charity he refuses to name. That's assistant-to-the-office-manager, now, and not assistant office manager. "Got it?" Wilson said, sounding very Dwight-like during a conference call with reporters. "And then I was a receptionist in the Pam Beesly mould at Kirshenbaum, Bond & Partners, an advertising agency in New York," he added sadly. "I was Pam."
Rainn Wilson, real-life office temp, behaved more like Jim Halpert, the playful anarchist played by John Krasinski in The Office, than he did Dwight, Wilson confesses. "My heart really wasn't in it," Wilson said, "which is like Jim. Also, I was very capable, which is also like Jim. Jim is very capable. But I don't think they missed me."
Wilson has such a droll, deadpan delivery, it's hard to tell when he's being ironic. He says he killed as a waiter, for example, in his salad days -- figuratively, one assumes, if not literally. "I was an excellent waiter," Wilson said. "I could have really gone somewhere as a waiter."
The Office returns Thursday in the first new episode since the writers' strike ended. In the episode, Jim (Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) force themselves to go to office manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Jan's (Melora Hardin) house for dinner after they find they've run out of excuses. The set-up doesn't seem to involve Dwight, based on a bare-bones reading, but Wilson cautions not to read too much into a simple, one-line story description. "You'll have to tune in to find out," he said. "It's amazing what happens. It's going to rock your world."
Again, it's hard to tell if he's being ironic. One thing is certain: The Office spin-off show, now confirmed for midseason, will not focus on Dwight Schrute, as had been previously reported in some circles. According to NBC, the as yet unnamed Office spin-off will feature "new faces and new locations."
On a subliminal level, Wilson admits being a little disappointed. He envisioned Dwight as the star of his own reality show. "Not a comedy or sitcom but a reality show. About a beet farmer. Kind of like Ax Men -- this new reality show about lumberjacks. You could just watch a beet farmer all day."
He works all day and sleeps all night.
"Right. Exactly."
Ax Men is a real program, by the way. It airs on the U.S. History Channel, and is billed as "the first ever non-fiction series about the treacherous life of Pacific Northwest timber cutters."
Wilson says it was refreshing at first to get back to the daily work routine on The Office after the strike. That euphoria wore off after a few days, though. Working in The Office is a little like working in a real office. "We all go a little bit mad about eight hours into sitting under those fluorescent lights," Wilson said. "You find yourself spending all your down time surfing the Web, and there are only so many times you can check CNN.com to see if a bomb has gone off somewhere. You start to go a little stir crazy after a while, and things start to get out of hand. Recently we've kept ourselves entertained by doing Brian Baumgartner imitations, and coaxing Ed Helms into doing all his impersonations."
Baumgartner plays sad-sack office drone Kevin Malone in The Office, while Helms, a recent employee transfer from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, plays workaholic and type-A personality Andy Bernard. "Ed Helms does an incredible Tom Brokaw," Wilson said. "Here's my imitation of Ed Helms saying, 'albondigas' as Tom Brokaw -- al-bon-dee-gus soup."
The Office staff get along, Wilson says. Seriously. "It's a huge love fest. I know that doesn't make for a great story. It doesn't make for great print journalism, but when we got back to work, it was like a family reunion -- with our other family. It was great to see everyone again. The batteries were definitely recharged."
Literally, and figuratively.
"It's just a wealth of riches," Wilson said, without a trace of irony. "The writing is so good and so funny. There are many times I go in and I can't imagine even changing a word. And yet I do."
The Office returns Thursday on Global and NBC at 9 p.m.
