‘The Office’: John Krasinski Once Interviewed Employees at a Real Paper Company
The Office told the story of the employees of the Dunder Mifflin paper company. Presented in a documentary style, the documentary crew ended up staying with Dunder Mifflin for nine years. John Krasinski went on from The Office to become an acclaimed director of hit movies like A Quiet Place. To get into character as Jim Halpert, Krasinski actually interviewed paper company employees.
The Office creator Greg Daniels, who adapted the British series, was on the first Television Critics Association panel for The Office in 2005. He shared the story of prepping for the show, which involved a real paper company documentary. The Office is now streaming on Peacock.
‘The Office’ pilot director had the idea to really make a documentary
Daniels shouted out Ken Kwapis, who directed the American The Office pilot. Kwapis emphasized the documentary style of The Office.
“One of the things that he did that was really cool in my opinion was, you know, based on all the stuff we’ve talked about, we wanted to find a way to bring life into the show,” Daniels said. “And so we stopped studying the British one, because that’s kind of outside in, and we started with saying, ‘Okay. What’s the reality?’ They’re selling paper in a little office, and a documentary crew has come to see what’s going on and what’s going to happen in that situation.”
‘The Office’ enlisted John Krasinski in the plan
Kwapis had one big idea to prepare for The Office. Krasinski was game to go along with it.
“One of the things that we did that was kind of fun was that John Krasinski, and some of his friends who were documentary filmmakers, went to a couple of paper companies in the town that we selected and did the exact same kind of thing as an experiment and interviewed various paper sellers,” Daniels said. “So we had a sense of what the reality of the thing was like.”
More exercises in paper sales
In the first season of The Office, Daniels turned Dunder Mifflin into a real paper company. They could film the show the way Krasinski and friends filmed their mini paper documentary.
“When we set up the set in the environment, we started every day by the actors would pretend to sell paper for a half an hour, be on the phone,” Daniels said. “All the background actors were in there too, and the camera would kind of roam around and just be the documentary crew. We tried to keep as many V show things out of it and just really focus on, all right, what’s the reality, what’s going to happen in this situation? That was really a struggle, but it brought life from the inside out in the shooting of it.”
Jenna Fischer was also on the panel. She responded well to playing Dunder Mifflin before filming began
“That was one of the most exciting things from an acting perspective about working on the show,” Fischer said. “It was unique all the way down to the core. It was really, really artistic, and I thought that was so bold and courageous. We really did. We went into this office. Everyone arrived at the same time every day, and we sat at our desks, and the whole point of the show was not to perform for the cameras but be documented by them. And so we really just had to sit there and be documented.
