‘The Office’: Rainn Wilson Improvised This Hilarious Moment That Left Him and Steve Carell ‘Disintegrating Into Laughter’

The Office stars often found it challenging to get through scenes without laughing. One Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute moment left Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson “disintegrating” from Wilson’s hilarious improv.

Dwight presents his organizational chart in this episode of ‘The Office’

While discussing the season 4 episode “Did I Stutter?” on the Office Ladies podcast, hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted about Dwight’s elaborate organizational chart.

After Stanley sasses Michael in a meeting with the iconic but harsh line, “Did I stutter?,” Michael isn’t sure how to handle the employee insubordination. Toby suggests he talk to Stanley about his rude remark and when Michael attempts to get an apology, Stanley refuses.

“It’s like I used to tell my wife, I do not apologize unless I think I’m wrong, and if you don’t like it you can leave,” Stanley says in a talking head interview. “And I say the same thing to my current wife and I’ll say it to my next one too.”

Unsure how to move forward with the issue, Michael looks to Dwight to see if “there a way that someone else might be able to discipline Stanley,” Fischer explained. “Does Stanley report to anyone else besides Michael?”

“And this is when Dwight gets out his very extensive, very hilarious employee org chart,” she continued. 

The chart has a lot going on — as well as an overlay piece that gives Dwight authority over everyone in the case of an emergency.

Fischer explained that the writers “put a huge amount of time and effort into that org chart,” believing it could be made into posters. “So they filled it with all these little jokes that you can’t even really spot in the episode itself. And unfortunately, though, the poster did not become the runaway bestseller they had hoped it would be.”

‘The Office’ scene with the pointer made the actors crack up

While Dwight goes over the org chart with Michael, he uses a long pointer for his presentation — and there’s one moment that left the actors cracking up.

“We got a fan question about this scene,” Fischer said. “Did Rainn improvise touching Michael’s face with his pointer?”

As it turns out, Wilson did improvise that moment. “And they could not get through it,” Kinsey recalled. “They were cracking up… something so sort of delicate and intimate about Dwight touching Michael’s face with that metal pointer. And those two fellows were just disintegrating into laughter. It’s in the bloopers. It’s so fun to watch.”

Fischer revealed that there was some discussion before filming about whether Rainn would have a laser pointer or the metal pointer. They landed on the metal one and Wilson decided to add the bit about touching Carell’s face with it.

Fischer added, “After Rainn improvised it once, they loved it and they had him do it again.”

“And it took over seven takes before they got even three seconds of usable footage,” she explained. “And that’s what you see in the episode, was like take number eight.”