The May issue issue of Maxim (with cover girl Roselyn Sanchez from Without a Trace) includes short interviews with B.J. Novak, Brian Baumgartner, and Ed Helms.
Thanks so much to Vish for the transcriptions!
24 Hours to Live: B.J. Novak
If the Office star were buying the cube farm, these would be his final water cooler thoughts
How do you want to leave this Earth?
Mysteriously.
Any woman you always wanted to sleep with?
The one on your cover would do just fine.
What’s the best advice you ever received?
My dad gave me great advice when I started doing stand-up comedy: “Only say what you think is funny and only keep what they this is funny.”
If you could haunt someone, who would it be?
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and the rest of the Ghostbusters cast. They’d tell everyone they were seeing ghosts for real this time, and everyone would think they’d lost their minds.
What would you say is your greatest accomplishment?
I was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for a proposal I submitted regarding targeted land grants for the Indian subcontinent.
What book do you most regret not finishing?
Green Eggs and Ham. I gave up in frustration when I was in kindergarten. I thought the guy in the book was being a total dick to Sam-I-Am, and I said to myself, “Ok, I know where this story is going,” and I stopped reading.
Do you have a longstanding lie you’d like to clear up?
I said something a few questions ago that wasn’t entirely accurate.
What has been your greatest source of strength?
Spinach.
Your last meal?
The chocolate chip pancakes from IHOP.
What is your biggest regret?
I bought a Powerball ticket with the numbers 9, 14, 23, 26, 39, 50. I should have played the numbers 3, 10, 19, 24, 28, 37.
You can punch anyone and get away with it …
Osama bin Laden. And hard, too.
Who gets what in your will?
It will all go to whoever solves the puzzle I have embedded in this interview.
What’s on your epitaph?
When I was seven years old, I read a funny epitaph in a kids’ magazine: “Here Lies the Body of Kermit Smoot. He Almost Learned to Parachute.” I don’t know if I could ever top that.
Tell us about your ideal funeral.
Open bar. Twenty-one-plus.
What are people saying over your casket?
I don’t know. I can’t hear them. This is getting weird …
What lesson do you know now that you wish you’d learned earlier?
Pimpin’ ain’t easy.
Desk Jockey Confessions
Brian Baumgartner and Ed Helms escaped the drudgery of cubicle life only to reenact it on The Office.
Ever do time in the real office?
BB: Yes. The best part about working in a cube farm is the lack of standing. You really don’t ever have to stand if you don’t want to.
EH: Yes, but it was an Orwellian nightmare. I felt like a kid in a candy store, but everything was licorice.
What don’t you miss about it?
EH: My boss was so insecure she’d yell at me, then call me into her office and cry and apologize.
BB: I had a jerky lawyer boss. He looked like Napoleon. He probably reads Maxim and still scares me, so I refuse to say another word about Daniel H. Parwinder.
Could you ever go back to an office?
EH: I’m an actor on The Office, in which I play a desk jockey. So it’s still very much my reality. Only there’s a guy with a camera filming everything.
BB: Sure, I know all my mom does at work is surf the Net and look at nude pictures of my dad.
What do you think is the worst desk job to have?
BB: It’d have to be a cop who’s been taken out of the field. At least that’s what I learned on TV. Every time a policeman is put on desk duty, he gets really pissed.
EH: The guy who inspects microchips for defects.
What’s the worst part about working on The Office?
BB: Ed Helms. He is such a pretentious New York Daily Show snob. We went to high school together, and he’s changed. He was cool then. Such an ass now.
EH: Tolerating Brian “Napalm Breath” Baumgartner’s brutal halitosis.
I love B.J. Novak so much…
What’s the worst part about working on The Office?
BB: Ed Helms. He is such a pretentious New York Daily Show snob. We went to high school together, and he’s changed. He was cool then. Such an ass now.
EH: Tolerating Brian “Napalm Breath” Baumgartner’s brutal halitosis.
HAHAHAHAHAAA
B.J. Novak is just too delicious for words.
Who gets what in your will?
It will all go to whoever solves the puzzle I have embedded in this interview.
Dude is funny!
i’m developing a crush on B.J. novak. he had me at “the chocolate chip pancakes from IHOP.”
did they really go to hs together?
YES – I went to high school with them in Atlanta. I was in Brian’s class. Ed was a year behind us. They were both in the singing “Ensemble” which was the small really good chorus at school.
That is so crazy if Brian and Ed really went to the same HS. Didn’t John K. and BJ also go to HS together? What are the odds of that happening twice on the same show?
While I would probably pick Jim over Ryan, I would hands down, no question pick BJ over John. I don’t think anyone on the cast can rival his wit.
i could get out my yearbook and show you Ed and Brian together.
hmmmm…
tanster! let me know if you are interested in that.
not sure how they would feel about that, though, now that i think about it.
EB, I would love to see that! Send me a scan.
As Kevin would say, niiiiiice. :)
the scan will take a little bit, but here is proof (as if this were necessary). They are both in my school’s performing arts hall of fame. There you have it.