"It Was Just So Intellectually Stimulating And Inspiring; It Was All I Wanted...

My path recently crossed, randomly, with that of B.J. Novak, a writer and actor on NBC's hit sitcom The Office, via email. He was immediately receptive when I suggested an interview for the site, and couldn't have been lovelier. I...well, since The Office is one of my very favourite shows, I just tried to keep my inner fangirl from busting out, screeching through an hour's worth of tape, and embarrassing me horribly. Wing Chun: So! The Office has saved NBC! How does that feel? B.J. Novak: Has it? WC: Has it not? That's what I read in Entertainment Weekly. BJN: Um...really? WC: Hasn't it? BJN: I thought [My Name Is] Earl gave it CPR. Earl gave it mouth-to-mouth and then...we gave it CPR? What's the order of emergency rescue? WC: So are you saying that you feel like your show is in the shadow of Earl? BJN: No, I was trying to give them props for leading the ratings surge -- as they did; they came out of the gates a hit. WC: Did they? BJN: Yeah. I heard NBC poured about ten million [dollars] into advertising for them. WC: Holy shit. BJN: And they delivered, and it took us a while. We were retaining something like 67%, 70% of [their audience] at the start of the year. WC: That's still really good. BJN: Now it's 96, 97%. WC: Well, that's awesome. BJN: So we caught up. But they led the way. WC: I have to say, I don't know anyone who watches one and not the other. People seem to like both of them. BJN: Yeah. They're good shows. WC: I agree. BJN: There's not many good comedies to watch -- you know, comedies that make you glad you watched them. WC: That is true. Last year, at the start of the fall season, NBC, formerly the comedy powerhouse, had four comedies on the schedule, and one of them was Father Of The Pride. So I really feel like they had some ground to make up this year, which they have. What was the feeling among the people on the show about the move opposite C.S.I., or do you not really think about that? BJN: I think it was a good move; I thought it was then. It was a little risky. I think we felt like, to use a poker analogy, we were going all in when the chips were down, which is a good move. It's good to get that chance, because it was double or nothing at a good time to go double or nothing. Either we'd get even smaller and go away, or we would suddenly go from struggling show to big-league hit. And it's a little early to say that, but it seems like that's what is happening. WC: You'd think it's sort of counterintuitive to put a show that you want to do well, if you're NBC, opposite what is literally the #1 show on all of television. BJN: Right. But there were a couple of things going for it. One, of course, is that people are just used to seeing comedy on Thursday night. So, you know, when people heard NBC really stake their credibility on, "Hey, we promise you, these comedies are good, and you can come back and watch us on Thursdays," I think people were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. And also, I think that people are happier watching a show about an office on Thursday night. I think if you work in an office, on Tuesday you're not so psyched about thinking about working in an office. Once the week's almost over, it's okay to kind of put your feet up and laugh about it, because the weekend's a day away. I think we make some natural sense on Thursday. WC: I feel like the whole question of counter-programming is starting to be less and less an issue now. BJN: Totally. WC: Both because there's the DVR thing, and in addition to that, there's now NBC itself selling the show on iTunes. I understand that, if you take into account how much advertising costs versus how much they're selling the episodes for, The Office is the most profitable show on TV. BJN: That is very cool. I heard that we've sold over a million downloads. And it also really helps to spread the word about The Office because people don't just tell their friends-- although we have a very word-of-mouth audience; I read The Tipping Point, and I think we're "mavens," or whatever? But our demographic is 18-34, which tends to be the biggest trendsetter. WC: And early adopters, and all that. BJN: Right, all that -- all that stuff that is going to be out of my memory in about a year. So not only do we have that kind of word of mouth, but people can actually carry the show around in their pocket [on a video iPod], so they can say, "Watch this scene." WC: And so much more efficiently without commercials. BJN: True. WC: For those of us who love the show and worried that it was doing okay in the ratings but not super-great to a Dancing With The Stars degree, I think there may have been some concern that NBC would yank the show before it had a chance to find its groove; do you have that worry times a thousand when you work on the show, or is it the sort of thing that you kind of have to compartmentalize in order to actually work on it? BJN: I think that actually helped us, the worry -- the resignation, almost, that we were just going to be a small show. And also, it's easy to forget that there was this very rough period at the beginning, where not only did mainstream viewers have no interest in us, but the type of people that should have and ultimately did come to our defense hated us even more, because we were remaking the British Office. So we were really the only ones, or so it felt -- us, and, of course, Kevin Reilly and the people deciding to put us on the air -- who believed in what we were doing. And that was a rough time, but it made us stronger. It was a good thing for us; it was healthy, because it made us really do the show just for ourselves, just for our own sense of humour, and not to please the fans or please the critics or anything like that. So we really, I guess...I don't know. You get it. WC: Sure. There was sort of a foxhole mentality. BJN: Yeah. And we work in this, like, bunker of a windowless building -- I call it The Bunker all the time. It's rather unpleasant. It makes being in a cubicle -- actually, we don't technically have cubicles. It makes being in a fluorescent-lit office a relief, compared to my windowless writers' office, where I am right now. WC: How does it change the dynamic of working on the show to have you all in your office park, instead of on a lot? BJN: Oh, it's been fantastic! That is a great thing, and that started from the beginning. We would come in every day -- I want to say at 9, but it was really more like 7. And shooting the pilot, shooting the first episode or two, we would sit at our desks every day. Every cast member was called [to the set], even if they didn't have a line that day, and we just got in the habit of going to work every day and sitting at our desks all day. They give us internet [access], and, you know, we spend most of our hours playing Freecell on the computer and IM-ing our friends in the cast and outside. It really mimics a real-life office. You know, the jelly beans on Pam's desk are real, and if it's a new batch or new flavours, you're excited. You get pleasure in the small things and frustrations in the small things just like in a real office, so it helps to refresh your real-life experience very directly. WC: How did you happen to get the job on The Office? BJN: [Executive Producer] Greg Daniels saw me do standup. This is probably over two years ago now, because the pilot was so long ago. And he called me in for a meeting with him; he thought I would be good for this small role that he was considering putting in, of the temp. He also knew that I had been a writer, and was interested in trying out writer/performers for the show, and was willing to read some of my writing samples. We talked for over an hour -- it was the most exciting meeting I had ever had -- about the British Office and his theories of comedy, and he drew me these Venn diagrams explaining his theory of television comedy, and it was so exciting for me. I mean, he's this genius in his little-- not "little"; in his palatial King Of The Hill office. It was just so intellectually stimulating and inspiring; it was all I wanted to do. So I was discovered first, I guess, as an actor, by about fifteen minutes. And I had other things I could have done -- I'd just been on Punk'd as an actor -- and all I wanted to do was this show that everyone thought was such a terrible idea to remake, and [Steve] Carell wasn't involved, and it was not something anyone considered a good bet, but I knew exactly what Greg wanted to do, and I so wanted to work with him; I knew exactly who he was when I got called to meet him. So that's kind of a chock-filled anecdote of an answer. You can make several answers with that question. WC: You really overestimate my ability to massage this into, like, a fancy Vanity Fair type of profile. BJN: I will work harder. WC: No, I will. So there's a whole crew of writer/actors on the show -- you, obviously; Mindy Kaling; and Paul Lieberstein, who plays Toby. How did it happen that there was so much crossover between the two camps? BJN: It started just with me -- that was the concept with me, or the gimmick, or whatever; the fun little experiment. But Greg had smartly built into every writer's contract some sort of acting hold -- I'm not quite sure what, but he did have in the contract that he could call them to act. I guess maybe this is a Saturday Night Live mentality -- I know they have a lot of crossover there, and Greg used to work there -- and he hired, even as extras in the pilot, Angela [Kinsey] and Oscar [Nuñez]; he hired people who he knew were improv people who could bring their own ideas to the role. So we always kind of thought of it as a small, creative group. And that's, obviously, how Ricky Gervais did it; he wrote and acted. BJN: I think he is figuring it out. I think he is conflicted. He is deciding what is the best attitude to have about something that is turning from a brief stepping-stone into, you know, maybe something else. WC: But he's still in business school, right? As far as we know? BJN: Yes, he's still in business school. WC: So there's that! BJN: Yeah, no -- he has some hope! I didn't mean-- WC: I think the viewer's sort of hanging on to that, like, "Ryan could leave!" BJN: Yeah. WC: Not that anyone wants him to, but from a character point of view, you don't want to think of him as being stuck. BJN: Oh, right. No, he's always intended to keep one and a half feet out of the office. And I think the comedy and tragedy of the temp is how much he is sucked in when he doesn't want to be. But, you know, he hasn't been in the show all that much, so there is a lot that hasn't been shown and more that can be shown. WC: Do the producers sort of think, "Well, we have four seasons," let's say, "to tell this particular story and get to this particular end point"? Like, for example, the British version, the culmination of it is with Tim and Dawn getting together. Not necessarily having it end the same, but is there a sense of "We could play this out indefinitely," or "We have a specific place we want this to go and then we stop"? BJN: No. We are not aiming toward a particular point. We are going to see the characters in this office -- and the office itself, Dunder-Mifflin Scranton -- evolve, as the show does. And, you know, we have ideas a little bit in advance, but we often like to see where some small element that we wrote in as an afterthought, or the way an actor played a line, or something that comes into our heads as we produce an episode, would naturally lead the characters. WC: How much of what we see do the performers come up with on the fly that's not in the script? BJN: I think maybe 10%? Maybe a little less? We do script it to sound very natural, because we are writing a fake documentary, but the actors are very talented, and they're close to the writers in sensibility -- and geographically, in terms of where our offices are on the set. Especially Steve and Rainn add a lot in improvisation, and usually the last few takes of a talking head [interview segment for the faux-documentary] will be, at that point, fully improvised. And they're extremely good. I know NBC watches all the dailies of everything, probably just for fun, because they really come up with great stuff. So I'd say maybe 20% of the stuff we shoot is at least partially improvised, but some of that is just to amuse ourselves, and then it's 10% of the finished show. We don't leave any room for improvisation, people just make room. We would love to, as writers, write the thin outline of a scene and let Steve Carell just fix it on stage, and we have been tempted to, at times. But we're all showing off for each other when we write a first draft of a script. We want every line to be exquisite. And when the actors get it, and they add more, we'll delight in passing the dailies around and finding a great take, but it's 100% scripted until it gets to the stage. WC: It must be a huge pleasure for you, then, to watch it and just see how it evolves when it's acted versus when it's just on the page -- when you write it, especially. BJN: Yeah! There's a lot of shows and movies where people dread the script getting out of their hands and to the hands of the actors and directors, and you hear of people wanting to write things that are actor-proof, or director-proof, and this is really extraordinary. I mean, it gets even better every step of the way. Everyone is so on the same page and so talented. Any line that Steve Carell gets will be better when he does it. Same with Rainn, same with John [Krasinski], same with Jenna [Fischer]. And NBC, even -- they give notes that show they know what we're going for, and that's why they hired us. So they don't even give bad notes. It's pretty great. The process does tend to make things better every step of the way. It's really amazing. WC: Was there anything NBC wanted to change from Season 1 to Season 2? BJN: They had some notes, but they tended to be good ones. There were things Greg wanted to change between Season 1 and Season 2. WC: As a viewer, I feel like there was a tonal shift; Season 1 seemed a little tentative, maybe, but in Season 2 it totally came into its own. BJN: Yeah, I think so, too. I think it's brighter -- even literally, in the colours -- and I think there is more of an upbeat side to it that I think is actually realistic. I think Season 1 is really special, but I think we keep getting better. But the NBC notes -- they tend to want to see more of everything. Their main note is "Go further," or "What else," or "Show us this side, too," or "Go further with this side and show us the other side." Every time we get notes from them, it's more things to write. There's almost never anything to cut. And also, you know, they work in offices. So they give good notes. Born of frustration? Who knows. Maybe that's what's playing out when they give us notes: "Give us something about a development executive!" I wrote the "Sexual Harassment" episode, and I remember fighting to have the word "boner" in it. And NBC Standards & Practices had asked us to change it, and we changed it to "schwing," and it just didn't have the same-- I know this is going to sound weird, but the same redemption for Michael at the end, and we fought Standards -- we said, "Please, can you consider from this angle, from that angle" -- and they agreed to have it in as long as we had a parental advisory at the beginning, which we did. So even there, they compromised. But I think that's good, because on iTunes and DVD, that version will live, and it won't need that advisory. But I think a Kentucky affiliate didn't air it. Someone else blanked out that part of the show. But, you know. WC: It's such a strange country. We were in L.A. a couple of weeks ago and watched a Futurama rerun on the Cartoon Network. And this was at 11:30 at night, and the line was "Great zombie Jesus," or something like that, and they blanked out "Jesus." And this was something that had originally aired at 7, unblanked. So I can't understand the logic. BJN: On cable! WC: They don't even have Standards & Practices on cable, I thought. It's weird. BJN: Well, it'll all sort itself out, with satellite, and satellite radio, and politics will change, and DVD, and HBO, and it'll all sort itself out. But in the meantime, yes, it's frustrating for so many writers. WC: I just wonder if any parent, first of all, pays attention to the parental advisory, and in the second place, if that will actually stop them writing an angry letter afterward if they're determined to. BJN: Well, I don't know. I have a fourteen-year-old brother, who only a few years ago was ten, or eight, or six, and there are certain things I would love him to be shielded from. I think it's a good idea to let people know what's coming up. But I don't think that people who want to see things should not have them shown. WC: We touched on the British version a little bit, and you mentioned how hard it was at first for the "I fear change" people knee-jerk hating the show for no reason. In other ways, how was it to work on a show that had such a direct predecessor in the UK version? BJN: Well, there's a very good side to it, which is that we are always trying to live up to the British version, whereas I think most shows, looking over their shoulder, look at the other sitcoms on the air, and ask, "What did they do on this?" and "What did they get away with there?" and "They did this and it seemed fine," etc., whereas on our show we always look toward what might be the best, finest comedy of all time, and think, "They wouldn't have done this, they wouldn't have done that," and challenge ourselves to come up with something better that lives up to that. So as an influence on us in that way, it's actually been great -- you know, the way that a kid who studies can be a good influence on your kid, the British show is a good influence on us. WC: Or like a kid wants to be like his big brother. BJN: Yeah, it's like a perfect big brother. It may be frustrating that we can't get all "A"s and be captain of the football team and do all that, but he's still a good influence on us, and we're better than we would have been without him. WC: How often do you watch the British version, or do you not anymore? BJN: My little brother is just getting into it. He loves our show, and he's a little troubled at how good the British show is. He just started it a week ago, and he was like, "Man, I'm glad I didn't see this before!" WC: But I think if you watch both of them in tandem, you really start to see the differences. What do you think the main differences are? BJN: Well, one difference recently that I think will work well for our show over time -- which is not something they had to concern themselves with -- is that we are seeing Michael be a good boss, too. We are seeing his strengths, and I think that actually may make his comedy resonate more in the long run, because he is more making fun of every boss, because he is a more typical boss who does these terrible things rather than a boss so dismally bad at his job that you can dismiss him out of hand. That's definitely different from theirs. WC: I don't think we ever saw David Brent being even kind of competent. BJN: He was also fired almost immediately after the show started, you know, which is obviously something that we didn't intend to do. I like to think that we have slightly better colours and better camera angles than last year, and I like to think that that's because documentaries, in general, are better made than they were five years ago, getting a little more well-made every year, and our documentary would be made not like Laguna Beach, but more like hit documentaries. So I think a very good justification for the show being brighter and more accessible is that documentaries aren't as drab as they were when the British Office came out in 2001. What have you noticed? WC: I think the biggest differences to me are that in the British version, and I think in a lot of British comedy, the comedy comes out of people feeling awkward, which obviously is a big part of the U.S. version too, but I think that the British version is even more uncomfortable to watch. There have been plenty of times watching the U.S. version where I can't look at what Michael's doing because it's horrible, but I feel like the UK version does that more. And the U.S. version, I think, does a more credible job in portraying relationships. [Glark]'s point is that as much as he liked watching the Tim/Dawn interaction, he never really completely bought it, whereas I think Jim/Pam works much better. BJN: Well, I don't know if anything can beat Tim and Dawn, but that's wonderful to hear. Yeah, I think, over time, we'll have to -- and I think, hopefully we are -- making humour out of everything, not just the discomfort, which we certainly love making fun of. That's probably what was most striking to viewers at first -- because most shows don't touch that at all. So it was so untapped for American network TV. WC: The only other show-- BJN: You were going to say Curb [Your Enthusiasm]? Larry Sanders? WC: Yeah. BJN: But hey -- network. I guess, over time, there are so many areas of things to make fun of, or things to get fun out of, among fourteen people in a typical work environment. So there could be a million things, not just the discomfort. WC: Have you ever worked in an office? Other than as a writer? BJN: A couple of times! I've been able to escape a lot of it, but I temped right between the pilot and the series; I temped for about two, three weeks. Not much experience. And I was an intern in college in an office, and did a couple of other very short-term things in offices. I do not have very much office experience. WC: Is there much for you to draw on in terms of creating future storylines? BJN: Um, no. I do talk to friends about things that happen in their offices. We all always check in. The "Booze Cruise" idea -- just those two words, "Booze Cruise"; after that, Greg took it from there -- came from a friend of mine who had been on a booze cruise. But life experience is somewhat universal, and these characters are just being realistic people in an environment. I worked in an office less than a lot of people, but I write Jim and Pam the way I think people talk, and Michael the way I think people try to lecture and lead. WC: It's extremely convincing, to a cringy degree. BJN: Good! WC: How much of where a season is going do the writers or the producers know in advance? Do you kind of have an idea of what you want to happen in a season in terms of greater storylines, or do you do an episode of the week thing? BJN: We have ideas of, "We'd like to reveal this over time"-- WC: Like the Dwight/Angela thing. BJN: Exactly. And of course, with Jim/Pam, Greg has known more or less what this season is going to be about for much of this year, and I think we have followed a couple of general arcs -- first it swings this way, and then it swings that way -- so he does have that in mind. And, yeah, I think it's all in Greg's head, and through osmosis it gets into all of our heads, generally where things are going. It's not over-plotted; there's no map on our writers'-room wall of everything. We just kind of know. WC: It's not like Alias. BJN: That's what it's like there, right? WC: I think I read that somewhere. BJN: Or Lost. WC: Yeah, well...yeah. More so. I guess nobody cares about Alias anymore. Which is sad -- it used to be a good show. BJN: I'm updating your reference. WC: Yes, thank you. I appreciate that. BJN: [joking] "You know there's a new J.J. Abrams show?" WC: And an even newer one. BJN: That's not with Don Rickles, is it? The Don Rickles pilot? WC: Don Rickles is in it, yes. BJN: Oh yeah? Good for him. I'm a huge fan. WC: "This ensemble drama is set in the world of bounty hunters." BJN: Yes. WC: And the only people I've ever heard of who are in it are Greg Grunberg and Don Rickles. BJN: We were at the Writers' Guild Awards. I met the Lost writers. J.J. Abrams spoke to Mindy about our show. Just realizing that they watch The Office is one of the biggest compliments of my year. WC: It's a good show. BJN: Oh my God. It's the show of our age. WC: Yeah, you like it? BJN: I love it. WC: So: Ryan and Michael. BJN: Yeah. WC: From your perspective, is it an innocent boy crush on Michael's part; is it that Ryan has the thrill of the new, that Michael's just not sick of him yet; is it the glamour of Ryan being in business school; or is Michael maybe, like, actually kind of in love with Ryan? BJN: I love this storyline, and I love the sort of awkward-without-quite-planning-it way that we found to do it. I believe that Michael sees himself in Ryan, and I think this causes an exaggerated-- what do you call it when two mirrors exaggerate themselves forever? Do you know what I mean? WC: Yeah. BJN: That kind of thing. He takes a couple of Ryan's positive traits and thinks, "That's me when I'm younger," and then that gets processed in his brain as, "And I was awesome when I was younger." So that makes Ryan even more awesome in his eyes, makes him identify with Ryan even more, and so on. So I think his fantasy is, "This is the future, this is who I was, this is going to be my great mentoring project, isn't he great, aren't I great." WC: He wants to be the boss to Ryan that Ed Truck [played by Ken Howard in "The Carpet"] was not to him. BJN: Yeah, I think that's great -- "He is the mentor to Ryan that Ed Truck was not to him" is a good way to look at it. But yes, it's played out, to Ryan, in less cheerful terms. WC: But in so many different ways. I really am amazed at how many different ways you all find to make Michael creepy. BJN: I think it's adorable, only because I know it's harmless. But I think it's very sweet, truly, and I hope that Ryan eventually sees the sweetness in it, too. I don't think it'll make him excited about it, or make him encourage it, but I would love him to see that and still find it awkward. WC: Well, it hasn't been enough to make him want to leave the office -- at least, not for that reason -- so I guess he is taking it, maybe, in the spirit that it was intended. Have you seen the Michael/Ryan Brokeback Mountain parody? BJN: Yes, a lot of people have sent that to me. WC: I'm sure. BJN: It's hugely flattering. WC: But it's overstating things between the characters, you would say. BJN: It's overstating things in that it's parodying it, which is great. If it were really reading as a straight-out homosexual love story, there would be no need for Brokeback Office. I think we're probably just at the right level if it is a joke to make it a gay love story. But I was flattered and charmed by that video. WC: It was very well-edited. BJN: Nicely done, right? I think they got every moment that I've ever been in in a two-minute video; that was a little depressing [laughs]. That is all I've done; I can't think of a single scene they didn't use. WC: I don't think I saw the Sausage Egg McMuffin. BJN: True! I even wondered that. I was like, "Aw, they had a great close-up of me staring! Why didn't they use it?" I'm editing it in my head. WC: You could do a gloss on the gloss. BJN: That's a good use of my time. WC: So I read that you and John Krasinski went to high school together. BJN: True. And middle school. And Little League, and everything. WC: Had you kept in touch, or was it just a coincidence that you ended up on the show together? BJN: Both. Total coincidence. I mean, whenever I really stop and think about it, it's just so crazy I stop thinking. But no, we were friends for, I don't even know how long. And our first collaboration was actually eerily similar to this: our senior year in high school, I wrote, with a few other people, the senior class show, and cast John in the lead, and so John was the star of our show, and I was the writer who had a small comic part. And now eight years later -- '97: nine years later, and it's the exact same thing. WC: What was the show about? BJN: The show was called The Senior Show. It was an original comedy show with a couple of musical numbers -- mostly a parody of the school, its teachers, etc. John played an English teacher we liked, Mr. Todd, who dressed himself as a ghost and visited four "types" of students on the last night of eighth grade and gave them missions to accomplish in high school. I played Mr. Yasi, an eighth-grade teacher with a cheerful Boston accent who taught the American Presidents class that John and I both took; I also played a student with a propensity for creatively dumb questions. WC: And you said you did keep in touch after that. BJN: Yeah, we kept in touch a little. We'd run into each other at, you know, Blockbuster Video, or wherever kids hang out, and over Thanksgiving break, and catch up. And I would hear, "John's in this Pepsi commercial," or I'm sure he heard about Punk'd and stuff, because, you know: high school. Word travels. And then there he was at the final callback, and as soon as I saw him, I knew he'd get the part. But, um, yeah. It's really weird. It's fantastic. Oh, I have one story about John that I haven't told anyone. WC: Hit it. BJN: I was talking to my parents, complaining about L.A. and not having anyone to hang out with on a weekend or something, it being an antisocial town or something. Just one weekend; I like L.A. in general. But my mom said, "Oh, you know John Krasinski feels the same way!" And I said, "Really? How do you know that?" And she said, "Oh, I read it in an interview with him." And I thought, "Okay, this is a very awkward, middleman way of learning about my friend John. Maybe we should catch up more on the set." WC: Was it a credible interview, or had she read about it in Life & Style or something? BJN: She read it in the Boston Herald or something. WC: That's adorable. BJN: "You should talk to John about that." "Good idea, Mom!" And he was on the cover of Newton magazine. WC: How big a town is it? BJN: Newton is 84,000, I recently found out. It is a very nice controlled environment. Very good suburb. WC: Of Boston, I assume. BJN: Yes. WC: I'm Canadian, I don't know. BJN: My father is from Toronto, actually. WC: Really! BJN: My brother proposed that my motto on my website be "Half Canadian, All Comedian." WC: Nice. BJN: That could be the headline for your piece, actually! WC: I totally am going to use that! Credit to your brother. BJN: And Honest Ed's was a major influence on my show-business aspirations. WC: Nice namedrop. Do you get back to visit Massachusetts very much? BJN: Yes. I'd say three, four times a year. My family's still very much there. WC: You said you have a brother -- that's the only sibling? BJN: No, I have two brothers. One lives in New York; he's twenty-three. And my littlest brother is fourteen. My parents are there. But because I have a little brother who just started high school, it's still very homey to go back to my hometown. WC: When you're not depressed about how antisocial L.A. is-- BJN: That was just one weekend! WC: What do you do for fun when you're not working? BJN: I think about travel. I look up places to travel online, and watch the Travel Channel, so that's a good hobby. I haven't gone anywhere in a long time. Travel is impossible, but daydreaming about travel is easy. I do standup, which is kind of like a work thing, but I enjoy it a lot, and it leads to being social a lot. You know, I didn't have a job for a year and a half before The Office, so I just did standup every night, and that became my social life, too, because then you finish your set and you're in a bar with ten other people that you know. Good comics gravitate to each other; you know who's your type of person by watching them onstage, hopefully. And, I don't know. I like to read. I like...long walks on the beach. Stuff like that. WC: Fortunately, there is a beach in L.A. BJN: Yeah, I love going to Malibu; I love that about L.A. I love the Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax. And I love Zuma Beach in Malibu, and I love In 'N Out Burgers. I love the Coffee Bean. And the hike above Griffith Park on a clear day. Those are my five favourite things about L.A. WC: Not all the proximity to showbiz glamour? BJN: When I worked at Paramount, my first job here, I wandered into a Coke commercial. I thought it was a real carnival. And I was like, "L.A. is so nice!" I thought Paramount had thrown this free thing for local kids, you know? And I was walking through, and there were all these kids playing hopscotch, and cotton-candy vendors and pizza, and music, and somehow the guards had just let me walk right in. So I was in a Coke commercial. WC: That should have been the tip-off, the hopscotch. Kids don't play hopscotch anymore. BJN: Right! There were a lot of tip-offs, in retrospect. WC: Maybe the "Quiet on the set." BJN: And it was in little New York. "Wait a second. This is Brooklyn." WC: "It looks like Sesame Street." BJN: Exactly, it was just like Sesame Street. But I was so heartwarmed. I'd just moved to L.A., and I was like, "This town ain't so bad!" WC: But you didn't see yourself in the commercial later? BJN: No, I didn't look. WC: Ah. BJN: That would have been funny, though, 'cause John was in a Pepsi commercial later. WC: Ooh. Would have turned brother against brother. BJN: Yeah, good thing that didn't happen. Bad blood. WC: So you mentioned Lost -- what shows do you watch other than that? BJN: The Daily Show. House, I've gotten into recently. WC: Ooh, your former competitor. BJN: Yeah. I dissed House a little bit, but I hadn't seen it. Now I love House. I've only seen, like, three, but I've liked it. And South Park I think is just fantastic. I think Earl is really good whenever I can see it. That's all I can think of right now. I used to watch a lot of TV, but I'm weaning myself off now. WC: Do you find it's harder to watch it now that you make it? Like, you can see the seams, and it looks all crappy? BJN: Our show? WC: NO! No, other shows! BJN: I feel that way about movies sometimes. I think that really good television is at a higher level than a lot of movies. I think they haven't had that big clearing house that reality TV was, where it was like, "Okay, we don't like this kind of crap that's imitating other crap that's imitating other crap. We're going to show you how people really are for two years. There'll be nothing else on the air but videos showing actual people, and then you can start again, with television imitating real life." Movies haven't had that, I guess, because you see a comedy in the theatres, and they're hitting these familiar beats that have nothing to do with real people's experience or making fun of things that are really in people's lives. And I think, you know, The Office, Earl, South Park, the shows I mentioned are kind of more based in the real rhythms of conversation and stuff. So it's actually a little harder to watch movies, working on TV.