‘The Office’ Has Multiple Connections to ‘Entourage’
At first glance, it might not seem like The Office has much in common with Entourage. But it has multiple connections with the HBO show that came before it. Find out how Rainn Wilson and another actor tie the shows together, and how The Office used a famous line from it.
Rainn Wilson appeared on ‘Entourage’
Before The Office, Wilson played R.J. Spencer in the episode “I Love You Too.” The character was a comicbook expert who was very active on the internet. He interviews Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) to talk about his role of Aquaman.
That doesn’t go over well because R.J. brings up Mandy Moore breaking up with Vincent so the fictional actor walked out of the interview. R.J. wants to tank Aquaman because of this. The rest of the episode is about how Vincent’s team stops this from happening.
That’s not the only connection between The Office and Entourage. One of the stars almost got an important role on the NBC show.
Jeremy Piven turned down the role of Michael Scott
There were multiple actors considered for the role of Michael Scott. One of them was Jeremy Piven, who played Ari Gould.
“They came to me initially for the American version,” Piven told Cigar Aficionado. “I was such a huge Ricky Gervais fan from the British version. I thought, ‘How could anyone possibly play that character better than he did?’ It was this perfect blend of nerdy cockiness in the way he navigated the space. So I turned it down.””
The Office quoted the show in an important Dwight episode
The episode, “The Coup” starts with Michael (Steve Carell) and people in the office getting caught having “Movie Monday” by Jan (Melora Hardin.) One person who is against the break from work is Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) and she tries to get Dwight (Wilson) to go for Michael’s job as manager.
This is hard for Dwight because he loves his boss, but he talks to Jan about being better suited for the job. Michael pretends that Dwight was successful and is getting his job. He then breaks it to him that it’s not true and knows that he betrayed him.
Dwight gets on the ground and begs Michael for his forgiveness. Michael decides to forgive him then tells him to “hug it out, b*tch.” This was a famous line from Entourage and Ari Gould would say it.
Kinsey and Jenna Fischer talked about the episode on Office Ladies. “This was in the script,” Fischer said. “This was a callback.” It was previously noted in the show that Michael loves the HBO show.
That means Entourage exists in the universe of The Office despite the fact that Wilson was in an episode. The quote is a memorable moment for fans who actually wanted Entourage and those who didn’t.
