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Nearly a decade after the last installment of The Office aired on NBC back in 2013, it seems we haven't been able to stop thinking about what, exactly, made the series so special. A topic that has inspired podcasts and interviews, with the show's cast and crew sharing new behind-the-scenes stories what feels like every single day since the series finale, the sentiment of why The Office had – and continues to have -- such a stronghold on our pop culture zeitgeist is the driving question behind Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office, a new book penned by Brian Baumgartner – a.k.a the actor behind Kevin Malone.
Hitting shelves on November 16, the book is based on a series of conversations Baumgartner conducted with nearly everyone involved in the development, writing, and production of The Office, sharing a variety of new stories aimed at understanding why the series was so exceptional.
“To me, art on every level — from theater, film, television, whatever — is infinitely more interesting when it’s about a question as opposed to an answer, right? If I just tell you why this is great, that’s not so interesting,” Baumgartner recently told the Washington Post of his approach to chronicling one of the most beloved sitcoms in history. “So let’s explore what happened and why now it’s popular.”
From John Krasinski narrowly saving Jim from cheating on his wife, Pam, to the star-studded pool of actors auditioning for Michael Scott, here are four mind-boggling revelations from Baumgartner's book.
1
Screenwriter Greg Daniels Sent Cash To The Entire Crew During the 2007/2008 Writers Strike
Even with its astronomical success, The Office, like any production, faced a handful of bumps in the road, one of which was the impact of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Although the strike meant that production was on hiatus, producer Greg Daniels seemingly made sure the crew was taken care of during the 100-day strike, sending $1,000 checks to everyone who worked behind the scenes on The Office, according to makeup artist Laverne Caracuzzi-Milazzo.
"...Every crew member got a check out of Greg Daniels' personal checking account," she explained. “Greg Daniels went into his personal checking account and wrote the crew each an individual check because we were going to be out of work."
Yet according to Kevin Ferry, who served as a hairstylist on this show, this gesture was more than financial, leaving an emotional impact on the crew, who had long been out of work. “I went to the mail that day, and people were sending Christmas cards and stuff,” Ferry recalled of receiving his check. "I looked at the cards and I saw this card from Greg Daniels. I'm going, 'Oh, isn't that nice? He thought of us.' I opened it up and I saw this check and I didn't really look at it really clearly at first. I thought it was $100. And then I started counting the zeros and I could not believe it,"
This tidbit came as a surprise to Baumgartner, who described it as one of the books “most beautiful, touching moments.” “I had no idea. I’d never heard that,” he told the Washington Post of the interview. “No one ever told me that.”
2
Paul Rudd Nearly Talked Steve Carell Out of Auditioning For The Office
Ahh, Paul Rudd. Star of the original step-sibling love story, 1995's Clueless, People magazine's reigning sexiest man alive, and a potentially an ageless vampire. Yet long before he hit the big screen in Knocked Up, Our Idiot Brother, and appeared as everyone's favorite (non-George Costanza) shrinking star in Marvel's Ant-Man, the actor had some serious qualms about an American iteration of The Office, concerns Rudd shared with his Anchorman co-star, Steve Carell, upon learning he was auditioning for the sitcom.