The Office Interviews

I think the show is sort of dry. It's a bit different like it doesn't have jokes per say. It doesn't have punchlines. It's not predicated on setups or insult humor. It's trying to be more a slice of life, I guess. And literally a fly on the wall. Well, not literally because we use cameras and not flies. But the whole concede of a documentary crew coming in and chronicling the lives of these people in a very mundane work place.

It doesn’t, on paper, sound like it would be much of a show at all. But I think what people seem to be enjoying are the very subtle moments between characters. And the fact that you can look at it again and see something different that you didn’t see the first time. So what I think the producers and the writers are trying to achieve, and the directors, is sort of a laying of things as oppose to what you see is what you get. I think there are a lot of different elements that all together make the show funny.

This is the first episode I’ve written for the show, the one we’re shooting right now. So it’s exciting. It’s very exciting to hear things you’ve put down on the page being said by such good actors. And everybody on the show is great. I think we’re all really lucky because it’s a very, very strong ensemble of actors. And to just hear the words being said, and really made better than you could have ever imagined them. That’s exciting.

It makes me much cockier when I’ve written a show because I walk around, I just hold the script a lot and it says my name on the front. And I give people notes and like I’ll go up to John Krasinski and say. “That’s not the way I heard it in my minds eye”. And I get people mad, but it feels good to walk around and sort of make people angry with my own conceit and my sense of self. I’m very, very proud of myself most of the time. But when I’ve written an episode, I’m even more so.