Q&A with Greg Daniels
Greg Daniels spent years behind the scenes on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons” and co-created “King of the Hill” before landing his “Office” job. His overtime efforts on NBC’s U.S. version of the comedy have resulted in a run of 100 episodes and counting. And with the series going strong as Daniels launches the quasi-companion piece “Parks and Recreation,” “The Office” co-creator made it clear to The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Carlson that he’s not slowing down.
The Hollywood Reporter: What does it feel like to be the guy that revived “That’s what she said” for popular culture?
Greg Daniels: That’s really funny, isn’t it? I think it was actually (supervising producer/co-star) B.J. Novak. He put that in one of his scripts, so I would give him the credit for that.
THR: Speaking of Novak, you’ve got a lot of young staffers on the show. Does that help the appeal to a younger demo?
Daniels: I think so. I also think that artistically speaking, the fact that it had a lot of difference to what was out there helped. When you look back at when we premiered, I think the previous big NBC show had been “Will & Grace,” and the kind of shows that were like “The Office” were much more like cable, like the British “Office,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” … I think it was a little bit unusual to have the characters in the show be aware of the camera. Usually younger people are more interested in novelty.
THR: Did that kind of novelty give you any concerns as to life expectancy with the network?
Daniels: Oh yeah. Every moment — at the end of the pilot, and at the end of the first season — I felt like, “Well, if this is all we get, I’ll still be super happy about the experience because I really enjoyed all the people I worked with and was so proud of the stuff that we did.” So I had a kind of peacefulness about it, I guess. But we were struggling really hard to stay on.
THR: Was there a point where you realized, “OK, we’re gonna be around for a little bit”?
Daniels: At the end of the second season, I had made some off-hand comment to a newspaper, I think in Chicago, about how I wished we could be supersized for our finale. And fans organized themselves and wrote letters to NBC, and there was just tons of them, and they decided to let us supersize the finale. That was when I felt, “Oh, OK, we have fans.” They were interested enough to do that, and they’re making a difference.
THR: This far in, is there concern about how to keep the show fresh?
Daniels: I think that part of it is trying to anticipate what people think we’re gonna do and then try not to do that, and part of it is that the staff is exploring their own learning curves. We’ve had both of our editors and probably four of our writers direct episodes this season, and that is the way that they get a feeling of freshness and trying out different jobs. And then we have had great guest casts this year, and that kind of shakes things up.
THR: I gotta admit, when Idris Elba (formerly of “The Wire”) walked on, I was worried he was going to start shooting people. But I think that speaks to the quality of the show in that guest actors never feel like gimmicky appearances.
Daniels: We try to have it be people who are just really excellent actors but not necessarily taking you out of it by having tons of associations.
THR: Do you ever feel any pressure from the network to have those bigger guest stars?
Daniels: We did in the Super Bowl episode, which had Jack Black and Jessica Alba, for example. But in that instance, what we did was have them be not actually walking into the world but be in a bootleg movie that people were watching on their computers. That helps keep the show grounded and less like “I Love Lucy.”
THR: Looking back over the past several seasons, do you have any particular episode or moment that stands out to you as a favorite?
Daniels: We had a 100th episode party, and Dave Rogers, the senior editor, cut together an “100 Moments” montage (featuring one from) each episode, and there’s stuff that I love about all the episodes. The other thing is just having all those memories of the actual filming, like being out there under the scorching sun shooting the “Beach Games” episode, and Harold Ramis directing it from under this little black cloth that he had to go into to look at the monitor, everybody just sweating a ton.
THR: Shifting gears just a little bit, “The Office” — and “Arrested Development” before it — led the charge for modern, single-camera comedy. Would you want to move into multicamera?
Daniels: Well, I wouldn’t move back into multicamera because I never really had a multicamera background. Before “The Office,” I had done like 12 years of animation, which is single-camera in its storytelling style, and before that I’d been doing basically variety, like “Saturday Night Live,” so I actually avoided the normal multicamera sitcom experience pretty thoroughly. So I don’t know if I’d ever be interested in going to there. I don’t think it takes advantage of my skill set. I feel like I’m more of a visually-oriented person than like a playwright, and I think that a multicamera sitcom is best for people who are very good with words. Single-camera is kind of tricky. If you don’t really watch it, it sucks comedy out of things.
I think that the mockumentary style is fantastic because of the interviews providing a voice-over element. You can have the images edited in a very compact way underneath the interview segments, and it allows the subject of the interview to narrate things. And by having a mockumentary, you can interview anybody who’s in the play. Their point of view can narrate whatever it needs to narrate.
THR: “The Office” is a comedy but also really dark on occasion; one episode that comes to mind right away is the “Dinner Party” episode.
Daniels: (Laughs) That was pretty dark.
THR: Do you find it’s tough to maintain a balance between that and more lighter fare, or is it more like whatever’s funny to you is funny?
Daniels: Personally, I’ve always enjoyed pathetic things happening. What makes me laugh a lot of times is the distance between what somebody’s hoping is going to happen and the pathetic reality. I find that particularly funny. I think a lot of what we’re doing is character comedy, where the humor is very much about that particular character chose that or did that or said that. Whereas if you don’t care about the characters so much, you can do comedy that anybody can enjoy, like very physical comedy or stuff like that. So I kind of think that sometimes we short-change the physical comedy in favor of this character comedy, and sometimes we allow the characters to have all these letdowns, and at the end of the day we look at it and we go, “Wow, that’s pretty melancholy.” So yeah, I think we could always do a little bit more with the physical comedy. I always enjoy it so much when it’s on the show.
THR: How does it feel to have “Parks and Recreation” launching as “The Office” hits this milestone?
Daniels: It feels great! I feel really glad that “The Office” hit 100 episodes. I feel that from the standpoint of (“Office” co-creators) Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, I didn’t let them down. I remember interviewing with them seven years ago, and this was certainly the goal, so I’m very pleased that we got to 100 episodes in a strong fashion. I think the show is in a very good place right now. I don’t know if you saw the ratings last week (ending April 19), but we were beating “CSI” in 18-49 — who would have thought that when we aired for the first time? While I’ve been working on “Parks and Recreation,” Paul Lieberstein and Jennifer Celotta, who are two other executive producers (on “Office), have been really stepping up and doing an excellent job. They have taken “The Office” to some really great places, and it seems very in-its-prime. From that standpoint, it’s not a bad time to try and launch something else.
“Parks and Recreation” was kind of born out of Ben Silverman really, really wanting another show as a companion piece, and I think it has a good potential. I think Amy Poehler’s super funny, and again, I think the mockumentary format is the way to go for single-camera comedy shows. I don’t know how you shoot an “Ugly Betty”-style show. It seems like that would be so much work to light it properly and have dolly tracks. There’s so much energy and improvisation you can do when it’s all handheld and the concept is if the lighting isn’t perfect, it’s because there wasn’t perfect lighting in that room.
THR: Where do you think Michael Scott (Steve Carell) will wind up?
Daniels: I’m hoping that we’re still many episodes away from that, so I wouldn’t want to give anybody any hints.
Congratulations Office Crew!
Getty Images has lots of pictures of the event :)
Including a picture of Riann putting his hand in the cake :)
I love the Office cast, this makes me so happy for them. Now, onto 200 episodes!
What a HUGE accomplishment! That’s what she said :)
Office cast and crew: Your hard work and faith has made the “little engine that could” turn into a cult-classic with legions of fans. Yes, that is right. Legions.
As a fan, I feel so lucky to be part of such a wonderful show. And as a terrified-of-graduating-in-May student, I have gained inspiration to begin a career in journalism – a far cry from my Marketing degree :) Thank you!
Jenna and Steve have Scranton shirts on what does that mean?
#4-I think they all have Scranton shirts on.
Congratulations, Office Crew!
You guys are amazing, and deserve it all!
Haha for a second I thought that the cake actually had Officetally.com written on it!
So proud of the Office gang!
Spoiler alert with those photos!! ;)
Congratulations to The Office cast and crew for all their hard work and dedication! 100 episodes is quite a feat.
Hmm, Bob Vance isn’t wearing a Scranton shirt! Maybe, just maybe, by the season finale, both Michael and Jenna are back in the fold as Dunder Mifflin employees? Oh and Ryan too!
I bet that cake tasted sweeter than a pretzel with all the toppings. Congrats to The Office on their 100th episode!
AAH I’m so jealous of you!! I wanna meet the Office cast like it’s my JOB! lolol It’s pretty much my life goal right now. :)
In addition to Steve, Jenna, and BJ being there in Scranton branch t-shirts, I was pleased to note that the character of Charles does NOT appear to be there (saying this with the understanding that Idris Elba seems to be a lovely person in real life)–I’m all for mixing things up a bit, but the character is just too mean to exist much longer in the Office universe without ripping a hole in the time-space continuum. Then again, maybe he just wasn’t in the shot because he’s a guest star…
Too bad I could not have put my Wilton cake decorating lessons to practical use!
Many congrats to the cast and crew of “The Office!”
Why am I not surprised that Rainn put his hand in the cake? Such a Dwight thing to do.
Here’s a link to Getty Images photos of the event:
Link
Did you get a piece, tanster, or did they make you wait like Milton and you didn’t get anything and threaten to set the building on fire? ;)
[from tanster: i got a piece! after the press event, they moved the cake to the set so that everyone could get a piece. :)
Congrats to the entire cast & crew of The Office! YEAH! Very great accomplishment and this better be a DANG good episode! :) we have high expectations after 100 episodes you know!
YES! Michael, Pam and Ryan all with red Scranton shirts.
Ain’t no party like a Scranton party, cause a Scranton party don’t stop!
Huge spoiler alert here.
It looks like Michael, Ryan, and Pam will all be back at Dunder-Mifflin by the end of the season (thank God.) My guess is they merge the companies to get Michael’s newly signed clients.
I’m betting DM is going to find MSP as a threat and buy them out in a merger, making Michael Scott a rich, rich man (for negative 2 hours when he buys a fur coat from Burlington Coat Factory).
it’s kind of funny seeing the cast in their ‘street clothes’–i always either see them in costume, or, on the rare occasion i watch, in their dresses at awards shows.
You can see the back of the shirts in some pictures at nbc.com. I think it says “Dunder Mifflin Company Picnic!” I hope that means that Pam and Michael are really back! Congrats to the best show on tv!
It really amuses me to see them on their street clothes. WTF are they wearing? Man, those people should never leave their stylists…
That said, I love them to death and am so jealous you get to spend the entire week with them. You totally deserved it.
Congrats Office Cast and Crew!!! I’m so proud!!!
Why wouldn’t they celebrate the 100th with a full episode? I’m going to fantasize that it’s all a surprise, and the rest of the episode will continue to a full hour. And yes Congratulations Office cast/crew!
23-Clara: The cast is dressed in character! I’m fairly sure their everyday attire doesn’t involve matching Scranton shirts :)
i love how john kras mentioned the long pause from booze cruise.
i’m glad to see no charles. idris is a good actor, but no one messes with jim….or michael…..or stanley with his crossword puzzles. lol
Congrats to the show! Now all “The Office” needs is a paltry 231 more episodes to match “ER’s” tally and earn a one-hour retrospective and a two-hour finale at the end of the show’s run :P
This really did make my day! I LOVE THE OFFICE!
I have become a big fan of The Office
Congratulations to everyone of the series on their 100th episode anniversary!!!!!
I like Jenna Fischer, she’s my favorite actress of the series, and I love her character of Pam!!!!
Congrats to the entire cast and crew of The Office!! This is by far one of the best shows on tv right now. (at least i think so! )
Congrats everyone! You’re all amazingly talented artists!
What a fun little compilation of interviews!
BJ’s “Yea, me too” throwaway line at the end made me laugh out loud.
Jenna: “Holly’s at the picnic, so Michael has a real reason to come.”
John: “TWSS”
How could John not say that? Jenna clearly set him up for it.
Congrats to anyone that has been a part of this amazing tv show. Keep going strong. Another 100+ right? ;-)
HAHAHAHAHA and alien baby. NICE!
Finally, some Dwim (Dwight and Jim) action! Love it!!
I love the cast’s sarcasm to all the questions. They make the interviews so much better!
Gosh, I love EVERY single one of them!!
“I rollll with different people…”
Haha! I couldn’t love Steve Carell more. Or any of them, actually. Big congrats to all! :)
Jenna’s alien baby “spoiler” kills me! And Steve is just ridiculous (in the greatest possible way!). I honestly love their interviews as much as I love the episodes. So great.
steve carrell may be the most endearing person on the planet.
they seemed to be interviewing b.j. and mindy together a lot. i feel like that means a ryan/kelley reunion is in the works. i hope so, i always thought their relationship was hilarious.
“I thought you’d be dead by now.”
OH MINDY!!! LOL
Bob Vance has the sweetest lil’ interview with you as well as a big THANKS to you on MySpace! Loved it! It looked like a wonderful time!
oh god, the alien baby crack…. “we know it’s jim’s because it has the flip hair.” NICE!
hey i’m pretty sure idris elba is standing behind steve during his interview, in the black dunder mifflin shirt
Steve’s dimple, Ed & Angela are adorable! Gah, I love ’em all!
I don’t know but I think Angela let one of her cats out of the bag when she said that this will be when jim and pam get married.
Hmmm. I wonder why Ryan and Andy are fighting… : D
I loved Jenna’s call-back to Pam’s “This was the best Dundies EVER! WOO!”
I think Ryan and Andy are fighting because Andy and Kelly are bff’s and Ryan is jealous.
Ed called Rainn Dwight! Hahaha.
Is it just me, or did Season 5 positively fly? Regardless, I cannot wait for this episode.
I want to see that picture of John, Jenna and Steve that was taken during this video. Come on NBC.
Does anyone know why the season finale is only a 1/2 hour? Especially since it’s the 100th episode?
I wish there was some way we could see the “100 moments” montage that Greg Daniels talks about in his interview!
I agree Maya – how about as an extra on the season 5 DVD set? Please please please!