McCain and Schrute are the dream ticket

John McCain was ridiculed last month after he claimed to be a devoted viewer of the MTV soap opera The Hills. More than a few sceptics suggested that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee could not be serious. Mr. McCain seemed to set himself up again last Wednesday when, in an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he jokingly proposed Dwight Schrute, the sycophantic character on the NBC sitcom The Office, as his running mate.

“That is pandering of the highest degree,” Mr. Stewart quipped. But Mr. McCain’s fondness for The Office seems sincere. The next day he seemed slightly star-struck upon meeting B. J. Novak, a writer and actor on the show, at a gala sponsored by Time magazine. Mr. McCain started rattling off the details of Dinner Party, a recent episode that he apparently enjoyed and remembered.

Mr. McCain explained that he used a Comcast service to record the shows. (An aide reminded him that it is called a digital video recorder.) Mr. Novak said the staff of The Office was very excited by the endorsement. “It really meant a lot to us,” he told Mr. McCain.

Presidential candidates long ago learned the power of pop culture, but this year they seem to be leaning particularly hard on it. In the days leading up to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, both Democratic candidates appeared on Late Show With David Letterman with duelling Top 10 lists. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 10 reasons to love America included No. 6, “TiVo,” and Barack Obama’s 10 surprising facts included No. 10, “My first act as president will be to stop the fighting between Lauren and Heidi on The Hills.”

Then there is Mr. McCain, who has appeared on The Daily Show more than any other guest (14 times and counting). At the Time gala, Mr. McCain said he also watched Lost on ABC and The Tudors on Showtime. He didn’t mention The Hills.

Jones to appear in BBC Dickens drama

Ruth Jones, star and co-creator of hit BBC3 comedy Gavin & Stacey, is to turn her hand to drama by appearing in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens novel Little Dorrit. The period drama, which tells the story of the Dorrit family and the rich array of characters they meet on their way from rags to riches and back again, is being written by veteran screenwriter Andrew Davies, whose most recent project was Sense and Sensibility.

Jones, who made her name in the BBC3 comedies Little Britain and Nighty Night, will play "colourful character" Flora Casby, the childhood sweetheart of Arthur Clennam, played by Matthew Macfadyen. Little Dorrit, which is being billed as one of BBC1's highlights for the autumn, will air in the same soap opera format as Bleak House, the BBC's last major Dickens adaptation in 2005. An hour-long launch episode will be followed by 14 half-hour instalments.

Jones, who wrote Gavin and Stacey alongside James Corden, is also appearing in BBC1's forthcoming adaptation of Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. She is also writing a Gavin and Stacey Christmas special.

Mackenzie Crook, who shot the fame in The Office and stars in current movie release Three and Out, has also signed up to Little Dorrit. He plays office raconteur Harris, while Being Human's Claire Foy will take the lead as Amy Dorrit.

Tom Courtenay will play her father, while James Fleet, whose credits include The Vicar of Dibley and Four Weddings and a Funeral, will star as Amy's uncle, Frederick Dorrit. Amanda Redman has also been signed up, playing Mrs Merdle, while Lord of the Rings' Andy Serkis will appear as French villain Rigaud. Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman will also appear as Tattycoram.

Filming on the drama begins this week and will continue throughout the summer in locations in and around London, Buckinghamshire, Kent and Herefordshire. Made in-house by the BBC, Little Dorrit will be executive produced by Sense and Sensibility's Anne Pivcevic with Lisa Osborne producing.

Kate Harwood, head of BBC series and serials, said: "We are very proud to be presenting this wonderful line up of cast who will be bringing to life one of Dickens' broadest range of characters in a gripping, witty and touching script by the inimitable Andrew Davies. Part murder mystery, part love story, and wholly entertaining, Little Dorrit promises to be an autumn treat."

Real-life experience fuels Office performance

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.

Balls of steel

As Jim Halpert in the US version of The Office, John Krasinski won over the doubters. But, asks John Patterson, can this plucky Brit-obsessed underdog cut it as a player in George Clooney's gang?

It's worth mentioning at the outset that you probably won't meet a nicer, more deeply everyday kind of fella than John Krasinski. He's still fresh and green enough to look around a Beverly Hills hotel lobby and say, all bright-eyed, "Wow, there are famous people in this room!", not realising that he is simultaneously the most famous and most beloved person for 20 blocks.

This is also what we love about Jim Halpert, the big-blue-eyed sales associate from Dunder-Miflin Scranton whose love for blank-faced receptionist Pam (Jenna Fischer) has lately riveted audiences in America in the same way that the Martin Freeman-Lucy Davis romance did on the original British The Office. And, honestly, John is a lot like Jim.

First, though, we're here to talk about Krasinski's latest movie, Leatherheads, directed and co-written by co-star George Clooney. Leatherheads is a very likable, albeit not quite succinct enough, retro screwball comedy about the early days of professional football (ie American football) in the 1920s, when all the action was on the college football circuit and the pro version of the game was hobbled by a lack of backers and a dearth of paying spectators. Imagine a movie that feels like it was made by the Coen brothers (and numerous Coen regulars appear, including the imperishable Stephen Root and the speccy Klan guy from O Brother, Where Art Thou?), which doffs its titfer in the general direction of any number of motormouth 1930s and 1940s comedies.

Krasinski is the college star and supposed first world war hero whose move into the ratty professional leagues, with Clooney's struggling Duluth Bulldogs, draws the national spotlight to the game. Meanwhile, a Chicago reporter, or reportrix, played by Renee Zellwegger in the best Hildy Johnson/Brenda Starr manner, knows that Krasinski's war heroics may have actually been war cowardice. What Krasinski remembers, though, is mud; the movie's final contest takes place on a rain-soaked field of combat, and mud proves to be an agent of influence in the final outcome.

"Believe it or not, George had to test these different kinds of muds. He wanted one that stuck better. You had this whole special effects team dedicated to mud. And the stuff is heavy; I could barely move around. We found plenty of time to complain about it. There were days when, no kidding, it was 30 degrees outside and we'd put on our muddy wool outfits, and then the next day it'd be 78 degrees but you'd be wearing the same muddy wool, all wet and disgusting."

Did all this suffering earn him induction into the Clooney gang?

"Uh, I dunno, I don't think so yet. I might be like the gang's personal assistant, but I'm on the way in. I'm a little worried about how they induct their members. I worry that if I was in an Ocean's movie they'd probably put a brand on me with a molten coathanger when I joined."

Did he get punked by Clooney, the notorious prankster famed for such stunts as altering a friend's answerphone message to make it sound like a gay hooker's instructions to potential clients?

"George loves his elaborate practical jokes but he already had three jobs - producing, writing and directing - plus the old acting thing, which is tough on a guy, so he was so busy I don't think he had time to punk anyone. But the first two or three days down there, I thought the entire movie was a prank. I thought this might be the most elaborate prank ever. He'd get the cover of Time magazine, and there'd be a little picture in the corner of me like a kid, crying my eyes out with a little leather helmet on, and the headline, 'We got a little TV kid to think he could do a big movie with Renee and George!' But the other thing he did was beat me at basketball, and that was devastating!"

But he's, like, 15 years older and half a foot shorter!

"Dude, he beat me seven to two! You start shooting and all of a sudden you give him a window and he's soooo fast. He asked me if I was any good. I said, 'Yeah, I'm pretty good.' Of course, George now tells people I said I'd kick his ass up and down the court! I remember telling my friends that he really lightened up when I challenged him to basketball. One of my friends said, 'Have you read Vanity Fair? He's ALWAYS talking about how he plays ball twice a day. He has his own court on the Warner Bros lot.' I knew I was doomed right then."

Three women stroll past, their pace halting as they whisper to each other, "That's HIM!"

Dude, they're checking you out!

"Aha... um, I gotta go!" he says, satirically half-raising himself from his seat. He sits back down: "No, trust me, it's Jim they're interested in, not me. Everyone knows me as Jim. I've been doing this a while now, so I know the difference."

Jim is the one guy in The Office (a masterpiece of US comedy that has established an identity entirely separate from the Gervais-Merchant British original) who earns our unqualified love. Did the popularity of the original scare him?

"My love for British things, and London especially, is so overwhelming. But one day I went out to lunch there with Ricky Gervais and I felt sure that people were going to just stone me. Over here the new show was well underway, but over there it had just hit and obviously no one was watching it enough to care about me. Ricky is a whole new echelon of celebrity. Everybody knows him! Everyone wants to buy him a pint!"

After a breathtakingly precise imitation of Stephen Merchant, Krasinski notes the incredible niceness of The Office's originators. "It would have been really easy to remove themselves from our version of the show, cut all ties, take the money and run, but they're so appreciative. You expect them to say, 'Of course we love the show,' whatever they think, but suddenly they'll start talking about our new plotlines and particular episodes in immense detail. That shows they do love us, I think."

He still sounds a little worshipful of certain British comedy titans. "Last night I was at the premiere of Run Fatboy Run. I finally met Simon Pegg, great guy, super-kind, super-gracious, and Eddie Izzard was there, and all of these guys just love the show. I'm like, 'You guys aren't supposed to say that. You're supposed to hate the show!' Believe me, your bullshit-meter's on full-tilt when actual Brits who you admire are praising you."


You don't have to be mad to work here: Krasinski on his co-workers:

Michael: "Steve [Carell, who plays boss Michael Scott] shot The 40 Year Old Virgin while we were doing the first season and I don't know if we would have survived without its success. He became a movie star and our show got picked up. I don't think that was a coincidence. He's got an incredible energy. He's deadly funny."

Creed: "You know he was in [60s rock band] The Grass Roots? So he'll be at lunch and he'll be talking about being onstage with Janis Joplin, and they're all on PCP, and Creed's playing a guitar that didn't exist and it wasn't plugged in, and notes would pour out of the guitar and crumble into dust - NOBODY has stories like that! The day the Doors were in the studio figuring out the beat to Riders On The Storm, Creed's there in the studio with them. And he's a huge star in China - he's like the white guy in every Chinese movie! The American general or the ship captain."

Phyllis: "She was running lines at the auditions and I told her, ' You need to be on this show - just don't go after my part!'"

Angela: "Right now she's tiny and pregnant, so now she's the same width as her height. I joke that she's my little sister. Compared to her character she's so nice. If she ever hurts someone's feelings she'll feel bad about it for ever. But in character she can say all these evil cold things and it's hysterical."

Ryan: "I was in high school in Massachusetts with BJ [Novak, who plays Ryan, also one of the show's writers]. His humour is odd. You can laugh at his jokes, even as you're the one getting laughed at."