David Rogers

On this week’s episode, Brian brings in The Encyclopedia AKA the incredible editor David Rogers. David tells Brian all about his early days on The Office, from the 25 attempts it took to get the theme song right to his role in getting Meredith hit by a car - and landing her a spot on the Tonight Show.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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believes there may be more than one killery. They were
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your podcasts. I am David Rodgers. I was an editor,

(01:07):
director and producer on the Office. Well, hello there, one
and all all of you, I'm talking to you there.
Welcome to this week's episode of the Office Deep Dive.
I am your host, Brian Baumgartner today, I am thrilled.

(01:31):
I'm I'm pleased as punch, as they say, to bring
on the man who worked well. He worked tirelessly on
the Office. I don't think he slept at home for
ten years. So he worked to keep the show as fresh, authentic,
and well hilarious is possible. And listen his decisions. They

(01:55):
actually changed the way that um one view the show
because he was the person who would decide what would
stay and what would go, and how we would see
an experience it all. He was our ridiculously talented editor
and later are ridiculously talented producer and director David Rogers,

(02:20):
or as I and everyone I know calls him Dave. Now,
Dave was actually the very first editor brought onto the
Office team. And listen, he was more than just a
colleague a co worker. He was actually a true fan
of the show from day one. He had has and

(02:43):
had an encyclopedia knowledge of the show. He remembered every
moment from every episode. I feel like he was the
reason Dwight loved Battlestar Galactica. He helped Meredith get hit
by a car, and he even had his own nicknames
for the cast, like just guess who was called to

(03:04):
blu roon. No, it wasn't me, uh Dave. Also, he's
a force in the world of TV. The Office won
five Emmy's total, two of those went to Dave. He's
become a trusted collaborator for so many who worked on
the show. He went on to work with Mindy Kaling
on The Mendy Project, and Greg Daniels and Steve Carrell

(03:26):
on Space Force, among many others. You may also recognize
him for his well distinctive voice. He was the voice
behind dunder Mifflin's very own documentarian. But before we get
into the meat of this interview, and before I let
you relive the show through his words, I wanted to

(03:48):
let you know that you can also relive the show
through our our brand new book, Welcome to dunder Mifflin,
The Ultimate Oral History of the Office, which you can
pre order on Amazon right now. So go ahead do that,
trust me, you're gonna love it. Then come back here,
because the time has come for you to be carried

(04:10):
away by the incredible wealth of knowledge that is Dave Rogers,
Bubble and squeak I love it. Bubble and squeak on
bubble and squeaker cookie every month, left over from the

(04:32):
night before. Oh my god, oh boy, wow, you look
exactly the same. Do you want to know what? You know?

(04:52):
You don't say that. Everyone keeps saying it that I
look exactly you know. I mean, well, I wanted to
say it to you first, so yeah, I usually you
wouldn't say it to me. Good to see you too.
It's like way too long, I know, are you going
to sit over there? Okay, I mean that's the rule. Yeah.

(05:14):
I saw Mr Correll yesterday. Yeah, yes, he seemed good. Yeah,
he's been in he's been in editing a lot, he has. Yeah.
I don't think I realized that he and Greg wrote
the pilot, created it together. I think Steve had the
idea and then they kind of hammered out like kind
of a loose thing, and then Gregg wrote it and
then he would give notes and stuff, you know, and

(05:37):
then I think that was the process. But I think
I think Steve had the idea and it came to
Greg and was like, hey, what do you think about that?
So yeah, let's let's do it, and then they that
was it they pitched and you know, how's Malkovich. He's good,
He's good. It's uh. You know. One of the things
that we're striving to do is have this kind of

(05:58):
dual you know, they they due a little bit, they
joust like they're friendly and but there's some jousting and
things like that. We're struggling to create new relationships that
are different from Michael Scott because he has like one
assistant and it's like or like his secretary. And he
was saying, he's you know that he has a line
where he goes, I really like to get shut up Brad,
and it's like we even changed it to like thank you,

(06:20):
Brad because it was too much like shut up Dwight.
You know. So we're trying cognizant of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The context or the character might be different, but how
it's going to be perceived in some small level is
going to be you're sort of built in expectation. That's fascinating.

(06:42):
Um okay, rewinding back, Um two thousand fourish, what are
you doing prior to working on the show. So I
was working on the Seinfeld DVDs. You know, I came up.
I was assistant editor and Seinfeld that I started cutting.
I cut the clip show for that right before the
series finale, and Uh, I would always kind of come

(07:03):
back and do some Seinfeld things whenever things would pop up.
So we were working on the DVDs. We were going
through pulling you know, the bloopers behind the scenes and
interviewing a bunch of you know, everybody from cast to crew,
and making these many documentaries inside looks of all the
episodes and just being really meticulous with things. So I

(07:26):
was working on that. We we were getting the first
three seasons out, and uh the line producer from News Radio,
which was another show I had worked on, Ken Sibornac,
said Hey, I have a pilot I think you know
you'd be good for Uh. I said okay, and then
uh I was like, yeah, I'd love to let's talk.
And then I didn't hear back from him, and uh,

(07:49):
you know, I understood. I always wanted it just to
him to say, hey, the directors is going with his editor,
you know, and be like, okay, that makes sense, but
you've never heard back. I just I didn't hear back,
and then uh, I was all right, and then I
get an email from him, like I know I know,
I owe you a phone call. We got picked up
for five episodes. I think you'd be great for the series,

(08:12):
you know, would you like to come in and meet
Greg Daniels. I'll send you the the pilot. I was like, yeah.
So I watched the pilot and I loved it, and
it was so I was like, oh God, he's so
it's dark, you know, and I love that. Uh. I mean,
for me, it's the moment. I'm a huge six million

(08:32):
dollar Man fan. So him doing an impression of the
six million dollar Man, like referencing it and doing it.
They just went on and on, and I was like,
I looked at this and I go, I'm doing this show.
And I came and I met with Greg and we
just hit it off right away and we were talking
about things and it's funny. I I was talking about

(08:53):
all the characters, and I said, I feel like Dwight
would like Battlestar Galactica. And this is before the new
Battlestar Galactica. But I thought like Star Trek was too
mainstream and cool for him, that he would like this
kind of smaller, more cultish old show. And uh, I said,
I could just I could just see him having like
a viper on his desk, you know, like an old

(09:13):
model of of a viper. And so it was funny
that when the new show came up and that we
they did work that in that he became a Battlestar
Galactica fan. But I'm one of my birthdays. Just as
a side note, like Greg bought me a huge model
of a Cylon base ship like from the original series.
And and in the penultimate episode, I got to direct

(09:34):
Dwight hangs a Galactica in his office and they were like,
do you want the new one or the old one.
I'm like, oh, I want the original series one, you know, totally,
and I have that. I have the model and Rain
signed it for me, you know. But I love he's
got he's got a line with his you know, his son,
who's he just he looks at the Galactica the same
way I look at the Galactica. So it was just
kind of it was just kind of funny how that

(09:56):
all all came together. But yeah, I just met with Greg.
We just hit it off and that was it. And
then I was like, Okay, I'm hired and I'm starting
on a diversity day was the first episode, and so
you were the only editor hired at that point. I
was the only editor hired. And I'll say this the
deep the Seinfeld DVDs, Jerry and Larry came in to
watch one of the documentaries that like how the show began,

(10:19):
and Jerry saw it and was like, well, this needs
to be on TV. And so then I'm working. Then
we're making the Seinfeld story. So now I'm I'm I'm
editing to get this thing on TV and we're starting
on the office And I said, Greg, I said, there's
gonna be a little bit of overlap. There are days
where I'll be editing with Jerry Seinfeld, so I'll have
to go there and and do that. I said, I'm

(10:40):
finishing up, but there's gonna be some So there were
a couple of days where he's like, when are you
completely done? And I'm like, I'm almost done. I'm almost done,
but I was there was a little overlap, but um, yeah,
so I I sorry, go ahead. I started on a
diversity day. Yeah, but that first season, then you're working
on your finishing up the Seinfeld project and you're the

(11:00):
only editor on the show. I was the only editor
at first, and then we weren't sure when we were
going to air. Originally was going to be March, and
then they said there's a chance it might be you know, earlier,
and Greg said, I'm not going on the air in February.
I don't want to be up against everybody's huge stunt episodes.
So that meant we would be on the air in January.

(11:21):
And because of that, then there was pressure to get
the episodes done. So Stu Bass, who's a veteran editor,
he came in and so we were we were tag
team on a few episodes. So like, I think there
were somewhere I cut, There was a couple where he cut,
there was somewhere he finished. You know, he like I
would do the assembly and he would work with the
director and vice versa. Do you feel like you got

(11:43):
the aesthetic of the show right away? How much was
Greg directing you in terms of how he wanted the
show to look or feel. Um, I think I got
it right away. I mean I just was like, oh,
this is funny. And I mean there's definitely a little
difference with ending the just the style of the mockumentary
and having these kind of cameras moving around. Um, we

(12:07):
played around a lot. Definitely that first season. We spent
a lot of time. You know. One of the things
that was cool was that they shot you guys, I
think in two different outfits. Like we could take general
views of you of just like you guys sitting in
the office. And even if we shot of for episode one,
it also worked for episode three and episode five and

(12:28):
then two and four. You might have had similar clothes
or something like that. You know, there was something where
we had general views that we could kind of steal
from one episode and put into another. Um. The one
thing that was knew about this kind of show than
anything I had done before was usually you know, when
you're editing comedy, it's like fast, fast, fast, and you're

(12:48):
pacing it up. In here, it was like, no, we
need these moments of of breath and it's holding on reactions,
and you know, it's a little different than anything I
had done before. But once you get into and you're like, Okay,
now I know what's what we're looking for. Well, we
just explored things and and tried and you know, especially
even with the theme song and the main title, different things,

(13:11):
Oh my god, we had he sent out like to
the cast, he maybe sent to you like, hey, give
me five songs that you guys look. So I was
building different main titles, you know, twenty we did like
twenty five different songs. Here was a song here, there
was a song here. John Krasinski had a song from
Sloan that was like this is great, um and uh.

(13:32):
And I'd have to cut the picture though too. And
it wasn't just like all right, I'll just lay the
song in. So I was like cutting multiple versions of picture.
But ultimately we went with you know, I think Jay
Ferguson was the composer and we just his version that
was the one we used. From the beginning. Were you
planning on using the footage that John Krasinski shot? There
was no plan, Like stuff came in and it was

(13:53):
like okay, I'll use this and use that, you know,
I mean, we just there were all kinds of things.
So it was like circling stuff the water cooler. You know.
We were just just trying things like to make a
main title and things that would hit. And you know,
it was hit with the music. So when the song,
when the rhythm of the song was different, it had
to be totally recut. When we had different songs and

(14:16):
and and you know, there were different versions of the
main title. There's a longer version. I think for the
super Bowl episode we did a longer version of the song.
We did shorter versions, you know, towards the end, we
would get you know, do really short versions because we
needed more time for show. There's also a version and
maybe it was the Super Bowl where there was just
more of the cast, and then towards the after Steve left,
also it was we have okay, here's a shot of

(14:38):
Phyllis and Stanley, here's a shot of Kevin and Angela
and Oscar. You know, so we would we would get
more more people into the main title. Randall talked about
there were rules that they had was sort of dictated,
you know, by Ken's original vision and by Greg that
they would not shoot a shot that is impossible to

(15:01):
get as a documentary. Like if we came up to
a house and they knocked on the door, there would
not be a camera inside the house shooting out because
the crew wouldn't have if we've just arrived there, there
would be no camera from inside, right. But more than that,
if Michael is standing at his office door and we

(15:21):
are shooting Michael, we can't play a camera directly behind
Michael because we would then shoot that cameraman in reality, right,
So we were bound by the traditional rules of documentary
that everything was happening in the exact moment. And I
remember Randall and Matt fighting directors who were wanting the

(15:41):
cameras to be placed you on a second pass or whatever,
and them saying, no, we can't be there because we
would have just filmed ourselves, right. And that's and that's
the thing. And it's like you have to give time,
at least even in editing. You have to give time
to be like, well, this camera could have moved now
and then been here, you know. I remember we're arguing

(16:02):
with Claire Scanlon who was another editor once because she
was doing something. She's like, donnaa and and Greg's like, no,
you can't. And there are not seven cameras in the room,
so you have to choose your angles and limbs. You know.
They were just I can't even remember what the exact
situation was, but we were like, yeah, no, and she
was like, Dave, do you do this? I said, yeah, yeah,
this is what I follow wed. You know, you have

(16:24):
to kind of do this thing. But we yeah, I
mean when you watch the cameras and you watch the editing,
you'll see, for the most part, we do follow these
these rules and there aren't you know, these shots in
typical coverage that you would see on another show. Right.
Do you did you work with the DP or camera
guys at all about this or was this just sort

(16:45):
of like understood, like everything just kind of works because
you both got it. Yeah, we got it. I mean
we would see what they would do and be like, Okay,
this is you know, and there will be some communication
like they would ask, hey, how's this working or how's
this and you know, the shan when we would you know,
someone would say something and you know, we started doing
like these slight pushions and it got fun. But sometimes

(17:06):
I felt like the show it would go a little
too much like this, and I said, oh, we're we're
pushing in. We're missing I think there was something once
with you where you were saying something and Angela was
next to you, and Angela had a sour look. The
camera pushed in so much on you, and in a
few of the takes you couldn't see her, like she
got framed out, and it was like you have to
kind of you know, I said, let's let's be aware

(17:29):
and and so easy on that. But for the most part, no,
I mean the camera, the DP and the camera work
Matt Randall Sarah. I mean, they were amazing what they
would get and the footage that we would we would
get in there, and you know, sometimes it was just
a lot of footage and it was like, all right,
how do we you know, mind through this and putting
the puzzle together? How do we get from this coverage
to this coverage and back? And you know, when you

(17:51):
are shooting multiple takes, obviously you know, having characters match
and what they're doing, and so it was always fun,
but sometimes it was hard. It's interesting. So Claire came
from reality. Claire came from reality and documentaries, documentaries, and
I think she may have done I mean, I don't
I think she had done some scripted. I'm not sure

(18:11):
how much comedy. And she came Actually it was like
season it was into season four she came in. Uh,
Dean Holland was leaving. So I so after after season one,
we got picked up for six episodes of season two,
so it was just me doing that and I said,
if we get picked up for more, we need to
get a second editor, and so we brought in Dean Holland,

(18:33):
who was someone who I had worked with before. So
it was me and him doing the episodes after that,
and then he was leaving with Mike Sure to go
do Parks and Wreck, at which point I said, Okay,
we need to bring in some editors, and so we
brought in Stu Bass again and Claire Scanlin. And Claire
just I mean, she hited out of the park right away.
I mean she just got it great, great sensibility. And

(18:54):
then season the next season it was just me and
Claire like we were, we were editing together and alternating
its UF and uh, yeah, she was great. She just
got it. A team player too. I'd help her out
with stuff, She'd helped me out. I mean just just yeah,
just great. Were there things that you felt like, either
with you or Dean or you and Claire you can

(19:14):
decide or maybe it was the same or different. Were
there specific strength that you had that you felt like
maybe you would take over this moment of an episode,
even if it was hers or vice versa. Do you
remember anything like that? No? I mean I will tell
you something funny about the finale, but no, there was
never anything like that. I mean we would just look

(19:34):
at each other's stuff, like she would show me her that,
I'd give her some feedback or notes. I'd be like,
try this, and she would look at mine and say, hey,
maybe if you do this. Like it was pretty open.
It was great having Claire. She did bring like a
sensibility and I think just being a female, like there
were things that just as a male like oh, I'm
I'm missing you know this kind of component, especially with

(19:56):
some of the relationship stuff that she had, I think
a more sense of of a sense about But I'll
say with the finale was interesting because I think I edited,
or maybe Claire edited the first half of the show,
and I edited the second half, and the first half
was like more I think, more comedy stuff, and the

(20:17):
second half was like more poignant stuff. I'm trying to
remember how we and and at some point Greg watched
the cut and we thought it was great. It was
long and it was great, and then he's like, all right,
I want you guys to switch and now I want
Claire to do this half and you do this in
and we were like, that's insane, that's he was brilliant.
I mean, it made sense like suddenly, now I was
reworking some of her scenes, she was reworking some of mine.

(20:40):
If you remember, at the end, we had this whole
thing with the plant with planty and you know, yes,
Claire brought up planty. Yeah, and it was the whole
thing with planting. You know, she had cut it out
and Greg said, no, no, you can't. You can't lose planning.
We lost planning. I mean ultimately Greg was like, yeah,
like it's got to go. And that's you know, and
Greg and I mean, what a brilliant screw up. Though
the finale was so great, so satisfying, I think as

(21:04):
a series ender, you know, just just everything, all the
things that were hit in there. You know, everybody had
their their moments. It was definitely one of those things
where where he had a switch. I'd have to I'm
trying to remember who did who did what, But I
remember like at the end, I was instrumental with the
end to some degree. I ended up shooting the building.

(21:24):
The last shot you see of the dunder Mifflin building.
I went out with my little cannon point and shoot
and I shot the building. And because then we said,
oh we'll do this with Pam. She takes the painting away,
but at the end we go into the painting because
we needed like this just nice poignant ending. I go,
I got it. I got it, and we go into
the painting and it dissolves into the building and that's

(21:46):
the last shot you see. And so I shot this building.
And then even Matt so own r d P said
I'll shoot it also with our cameras we'll see you know,
and he shot it and it looked nice too. But
for some reason, like I got this lighting and or
Greg just he gets used to what he sees and
he's like, no, I like this one. And that was it.
That was the last shot. It dissolves from the painting

(22:07):
into this into the building. So how much after we
shot the finale did you do that? It was probably
a month and a half. Listen. We didn't finish the
show until the morning of I mean we were at
the mix till one in the morning, and at midnight,
I go, hey, Greg, I just realized the end titles

(22:28):
are going to run over the most poignant moments of
the show. And he goes, fuck. Howard had a call NBC.
It was midnight and we had a figure and you know,
ultimately like they ran a promo or something, you know,
because the week before I directed the one, the week
before the ARM, the penultimate one, the titles ran underneath

(22:52):
We had a promo for the finale, I think that
came after ARM, and so the credits just ran underneath
that promo. But here we are. It was like what
do we you know, what do we do? Because Greg
is like, we can't make it. You know, there's no
tag for the first run, and we didn't think about,
like we just it's just not something that would come
up in your head because normally we would run it under,
you know, a tag or something. But in this, the

(23:14):
end of this, it just ends. And so we got
clearance to get a promo or something fifteen seconds twenty
seconds and ran the credits under that. And then in
the re airs we pulled out Michael and Dwight dancing
to Rosalita at the wedding and that became the tag.
So it runs under that when you see it in syndication,
that's where the end of credits now run. That moved

(23:36):
to the end. I was the last guy there, so
I have video footage of It's sad when they were
tearing down the sets, like I was the only when
they're editing, like everybody else was gone, Like Greg wasn't
even there, Like I'm editing. I was doing whatever, like
the syndication cuts or you know, for season nine and
the DVD stuff for that. And and then I went through,

(23:58):
I I filmed, I did a walk through of the sets.
It's kind of sad, but I have this foot has
no one seen it. At some point if we do
another collective, you know, DVD or retrospective or something, I
have this footage to offer. Wow. It's a hard time

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(27:03):
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(27:23):
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Listen to Before Breakfast wherever you get your podcasts? So well,

(27:43):
you've worked in multi camp shows and you know, the
office not having any sort of laugh track or music
underneath underscoring stuff. Did that make your job harder? I
had done single camera also, did I could a show
called Andy Richard Controls the Universe with their music under
that there was, and I did another show called The O'Keefe. Yeah,

(28:04):
I mean everything had had music, um, but it made
it easier not to have to score things, to not
have to, you know, because especially I've worked on show
since like The Mindy Project and even now on on
a Space Force, you know, where like we have to
you spend a lot of time hunting for like temp
cues and things like that before the composer comes in

(28:26):
and does their thing. But yeah, I mean the office
just never needed it, like we didn't, you know. And
there were a couple of times where we slip things
in because they it felt like okay, the documentarian, like
at the end of dinner Party, we play Hunter's song,
and uh, it's because the document you can logically say
the documentarian would have taken it and played it like

(28:46):
it's their choice. Dinner Party is one that I wanted
to talk to you about. You cut that, Yeah, yeah,
and that was certainly one of probably the top two
episodes that utilized the cringe comedy factor more than anything else.

(29:07):
Did you respond to that kind of episode? I? Yeah,
you know, it was a different episode, and just that
they're at this house and you're seeing Michael acting, you know,
in a different way than he acts so much, you know,
more like just an elevated way of him acting than
at work. He's so happy to have everybody there, but
it's also so uncomfortable, you know. Um. And I love

(29:31):
the way he liked it. Doesn't he like trick Jim
and Pam to get yes? And? Uh, yeah, I love
the comedy. I had one I pitched one joke that
made it in where Michael goes and looks at his
TV and it's you know, it's really small and it's
hanging on the wall and we were sitting I was
sitting in Video Village with Gene and Lee, the writers,

(29:53):
and I go he should say, uh man, I love this.
I could just stand here and watch TV all day.
And Jean like yes, and he ran out and he
told Paul some people's favorite. Yeah. So I was like,
and I think it made it in Like I was
so happy he made it, like in one of those
like Jeff's or something or one of those quotes. But
that was my my quote because it was like, I

(30:16):
he just stood there, and I was like, that's what's funny.
He's like that, not that he would be sitting down
relaxing that he could be I could just stand here,
And it's funny because brought up that moment as one
of the times he could not laugh and specifically Steve
saying something like, oh and it can tilt and it
moves just and just kind of bangs the walls. Just
the slightest amount were wires hanging down. I mean that scene.

(30:39):
We have tons of bloopers, like they could not keep
it together that episode. They could not keep it together,
but that that scene with the TV and you could
just see the wires and John be like, oh, I
see the you know, and you're gonna get the wires,
you know, you know, Like whatever, he was just talking
because it was like, it just looks so unprofessionally set up,
you know, Oh my god. And I think we were

(31:01):
on strike. The writers were on strike when that episode started. Yeah,
the timeline to refresh your memory is Dinner Party was
the episode that was completed before the strike, before the
stow that was written and we could have shot it.
And we showed up for work on that first day

(31:22):
of shooting and I believe they got a couple of
talking heads in and Steve said I'm not coming in.
That was and that was it. Yeah, what do you
remember about that time? I just was like, Okay, well
this is that's what we do. Listen. I'm a union guy.
I'm in the most picture editors guild in the d

(31:43):
g A. So I if the writers, you know, if
there's a strike, you know, I support my my brothers
and sisters and the other unions. I think I marched
a couple of days more and more just to see people,
you know, because it was like three or four months.
I was like, yeah, I was hanging out with Mindy
and uh, you know, Brent and Paul and you know,
just just marching. What was funny too, was like I
was going to direct that season. This was season uh four,

(32:06):
So I was going to direct that season. And I
remember when we came back, Kent said, I don't know,
you know what promises were made, and I said, it's okay.
Let's just because they didn't know how many episodes would
be left, and you know, and I was like, it's okay,
we just want to get back to work. I'll direct.
I'll get my first one at some point, I'm not worried.
And and I got mine, you know. I season five.

(32:27):
Early on in season five was when I got my
my first episode to direct. And was that your first directing?
That was my first directing? Was employee transfer of any television,
of any television? Yeah? And I had you know, I
had a huge Halloween you know, we had the Halloween opening.
You were Batman, you were the Joker. Yeah, there were

(32:48):
three Jokers. So I had this nice, you know, this
great fun thing with the costumes, and then uh and
then I had three stories. I had Jim and Pam,
Pam meeting Jim's brothers for the first time. I had
uh Dwight coming in wearing Cornell paraphernalia and pissing off Andy.
And then I had Michael Holly and Darryl driving and

(33:10):
you know, breaking up, and it was funny. I showed up.
Was my first day of filming, I think was that
and I was so I mean, I had so much
anxiety that night before, and I show up and I
go to crew parking and I'm on the bus with
the extras. You know, we're sitting, everyone's talking, they're excited,
and they're like, oh no, no no, no, no no, no no,

(33:31):
and then like and they're like, oh, I'm like, I'm
the director, and like the extras look, you know, their
faces just kind of dropped. But I'm like, I'm you know,
I'm because I'm a regular guy. I just I don't
know they tell me. And then I get there, like
oh no, you can park here. You don't have to
be at base camp. You could be here at as
I don't know, I get the call sheet. This was it.
No one specifically told me where to park, and but

(33:51):
it was so great. I mean, everybody was so supportive,
the cast, the crew. I have, you know, have a script.
Kim Ferry from Harry I think got everybody to sign
a script for me. So it's got cast and crew
and it it really means a lot. Yeah, what did
that mean for you to be given that opportunity by Greg? Oh,
I mean him at the world to be trusted. Uh listen.

(34:12):
In season one, I had started kind of helping out
Season one. He did the basketball episode was the first
thing he had directed, and he's like, I want you
on set with me. So I would be there and
sometimes he'd be back with video village and I he's like,
you yell cut when we got it, and you know,
I'm nervous, but I would yell cut sometimes. And I
designed a couple of the shots just discussing stuff with
him or was like, hey, I think if we do that.

(34:33):
You know, we needed like just more comedy bits, single
things to cut two and then cut more back to
the story. And and I remember the one bit that
I did was where Michael's like, Jim, Jim, Jim, give
me the ball, give me the ball, and he looks
away and Jim throws it and it's like, you know,
rockets past him and jim My bad. You know that
that that kind of thing Um and I had. Also

(34:56):
one of the things I had done was sometimes you know,
if we were sing a shot or something, I might say, oh,
we can just do you know in editing, we we
would That's a different thing. Is like rewriting and saying, hey,
if we just get a talking head here, we can
cut all of this out time wise and just come
in here. Claire talked about Yeah, one of the things
I did was the episode fun Run where um Michael

(35:19):
drives in and he hits So the first time, you know,
when we got the footage originally he came in and
he stopped short, and we panned to the right, you know,
off him, like a quick whip pant, and you would
just see Meredith laying there in the street, and it
would went back and I said, Greg, you have to
come see this. Like I said, it doesn't look like

(35:39):
he hit her. It looks like he stopped short and
found her just lying like as if she's passed out.
And so we're talking about reshoots and stuff, and I said,
I think I think we could do something where we
wouldn't even need Steve, like I can use his footage.
And so I have a version with our line producer
Ken Sipborneck where I said, we do this and Dan Beals,
who was a p A he was, he sat there

(36:00):
on the steering wheel, he had his sleeve. We did
a whip. I had Kent. We kind of threw him
against the windshield and then he would he bounced off
and rolled off, and then we whipped back and I
edited this so I had a version with with Michael
driving whipped off. You saw Kent hit the windshield, he
came off, whipped back to Michael, and Michael like looking,

(36:21):
you know, shocked, and they're like, all right, let's do it.
So then I was there, you know, with the I
guess second unit with UH with Kate Flannery, and I
would kind of slam her, you know, slam her onto
the windshield, so she would kind of fall hit the
windshield and and she would fall off and land on pads.
And uh, she says, because I got on the Tonight
Show or one of these talks because of that, she

(36:44):
got more popular because she got hit by Michael's car.
You know, it was one of one of those things
that's so so, you know, it was great to finally
be given the opportunity to say, hey, I really want
to direct, give me a shot. And I was happy,
like everybody, the response to employee transfer was was really positive,
so that was really rewarding to um what do you

(37:06):
think it is about you and Greg's relationship that makes
it work so well, and that you've continued to work
on other things with him after I think, I mean,
there's definitely a trust like he I think he you know,
he likes what I do. He likes the speed that
I'm able to do it. He knows. I'm talking to Mindy.

(37:27):
I got dinner. Mindy and my girlfriend and I had
dinner recently, and Mindy said something, she goes. Greg said
this about Dave. She goes, Dave's never political when it
comes to editing and making a show. Like, I'm not
sitting there. I never even occurred to me to be like, oh, well,
this writer wrote this joke, I'm gonna put this in,

(37:47):
or this one did this. I mean to me, I
just was doing what I thought, Hey, this is what
I think is funnier. This is what I think is
the best. So I think Greg appreciates that that. I'm
just like Dave is just gonna do what's funniest. If
it's an actor ad lib that's funnier than the scripted line,
that's what's gonna Dave's gonna put in and in Greg's
In fairness to Greg, Greg will go with that as well. Listen,

(38:10):
I've unlocked shows. We had a show Lice Claire finished
it with Greg and they cut out the last scene
like they ended it with Meredith saying, hey, let's go
get a drink. And I said, you cut out the
scene of them in the bar and and Greg's like yeah,
he goes, did you miss it? I go yeah, and
this is like mixed, it's ready to be delivered, you know.

(38:32):
And uh, Greg goes, all right, we'll do a version
of what you want and let me look at it,
you know, but try and don't have don't have this
stuff because I didn't like this in that conversation at
the end, I'm like, yeah, no problem, I'll take out
that stuff and I'll find some trims. It's not too disruptive.
In the rest of the show. It's like okay, And
that was it, and I re so I changed the episode.
We remixed. I mean, it was just it was, you know,

(38:53):
we just had to do a fix. We had a
picture fix in this and I remember Kate came up,
was really happy. She came to the edic. She's like,
oh my god, like and I was like, yeah, I
missed that scene. I didn't think I think we need
that scene. It's really nice. And the writer, the writer
was home sick and she gets a DVD delivered and
she's like, what's this The show already locked? Like what

(39:13):
is it? Like? She didn't know that I had unlocked
and relocked it. So she was so excited because this
was the scene that she wanted. Also, you know, there
was a staff writer and she was like, oh my god.
But I think that all goes to you know, with
Greg knows like I will always fight for what's best.
I will work crazy hours, and you know he will
always get my honest and best opinion. I'm never at

(39:35):
a point where I'm like I don't care like that,
never had I ate once in a while say that,
but the truth is it's not It's not true, and
I'll think about it. I'll think about edits and I will,
you know, get up early in the morning to oh,
I want to tweak this and fix this and how
can I make this better? And you know, there are
times where I've argued with him on stuff. I go,
we can why would we do this? Da da da da,

(39:55):
And He'll make a point. I'll be like, Okay, I
that makes sense. Like something times I just need that
or I need to know why. And there were other
moments where we had some long stuff. I remember being
with Jen Salata and there was a scene where Roy
is being nice to Pam and he gets her out
of a meeting and he helps her with her car
or something, and they're walking in the parking lot and

(40:16):
it's like, okay, we get it. And Jen wanted longer
and longer and longer. And I remember being in the
bag like a little shit there, you know, with Greg
and I go like this, I'm sitting there in front
of my own and I hold up my hand like this.
He goes, what are you doing? I go, this is
me at home, changing the channel, and he goes, all right,
make it ten seconds. And then, you know, so like

(40:36):
we got it. We go short because it wasn't like
this is just them walking. It's like we I want
to get back now to the other stuff, Like we
get it. They're walking. There's enough of a moment of them.
It's not like it was short. But I didn't need
twenty seconds of that, you know, things like that. So there,
you know, he yeah, but I think Greg appreciates it,

(40:59):
you know, because I'm like I'm honest, Why did people

(41:21):
respond to the Jim Pam story so much? Oh? I
mean she's adorable. I mean that's your perspective, that's the
that's my perspective. He's I mean, he is a super
sweet guy and he's sensitive and he's funny, and you know,
he's good looking. But she's adorable and and she's being

(41:43):
treated terribly by Roy and it's like, you want something
better for her, And that's it. That's what it all
comes down to. I think that's it. You know that,
and here's this guy that would be perfect for her
and they would be happy, and you just want to
see that. Yeah, I think that it a lot of
it has to do also with the editing work that

(42:06):
you guys did and the way the writers wrote the
story right, you couldn't get tired of them because there
would be whole episodes where nothing would happen between them,
so it just naturally happened slow. Um. I felt like
that gave it room to breathe and ultimately brought people
into that story because not only were they dying for

(42:27):
them to get together, they were they were dying to
see more of them, and they were intentionally withheld from that.
Do you think that's true? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean
I think definitely that it's It was the center of
the show, but off center, do you know what I mean?
It wasn't it would come in and and then go,
you know, back off a bit. It was I mean,
that's not The show has many components, so it was

(42:50):
like like an ensemble. It was like, here's one element
of the show. Here's another element, here's another element, here's
another element. So it wasn't like, hey, here's just a
show about you know, two people. I mean, look, they didn't.
We we played it. We timed everything nice too. I
think that there was a certain pacing to their relationship.
I don't know if anybody talks you about Casino Night, Yes,

(43:12):
there was a huge discussion. They talked about the huge discussion. Yes,
that's one of the things that I wanted to get
into with you because I was in the room where
the huge discussions. Yes, let's have let's talk about the
huge discussion. Now, which scene in Casino Night is this
when Jim Jim professes his love or the kiss when
he professes his love is uh? Originally, like the concept

(43:33):
was we would just see the aftermath of it. And
there was a huge discussion about no, no, no, we
should see you know, and and it was Greg and
Ken the actors were there and stuff, and it was like, yeah,
it's it's cool to do something as a documentary to
be like, oh, we're just capturing the moment after. But
there's something unsatisfying I think for an audience member to

(43:53):
not see a piece of this. And uh, I think
we made the right choice in letting them have a
conversation Asian. And you think it's and you think that's it,
Like you know, he says I'm in love with you
and she's like I can't. And then you think that's
you know, he's like I just don't want to be friends,
you know, and that's it. And you think, okay, we're done,

(44:14):
we're done. And then at the end, what a what
an ending? I mean you talk about a cliffhang or
what a what an ending that he comes in and
what a great kiss too? And I mean kudos to
the actors because it's you know, even in our small
world on the set, like there just was a sense
of pressure of like, like, here's a big moment that

(44:34):
we're dealing with, and they just they just fucking awesome,
you know, and it's such a great kiss and what
he does and what she does, and you know, it's
just and then that we stop and again it's a
timing thing of them. It's after and they look at
each other and then boom we go to black. You
know I can see, oh yeah, like the timing of it. Yeah,

(44:55):
because it's that moment of like where they look at
each other after like what now, and then we go
to black. And then the next season, Greg he had
that opening. Man, everything gets slowly revealed. You see this aspect,
this aspect and you see Pam doesn't have a ring,
Jim is in the now a different location, and it's like, well,

(45:16):
what happened? And then we find out, right, Um, did
you shoot two versions of Casino Night or what did
the discussion in that scenario happened beforehand? Did you cut
that multiple ways? No, we just we shot at the
way that ended up, and we just did version. I
mean you could have edited I guess a certain way
and and seen it like the aftermath, but that point

(45:39):
the decision was yeah it was and you saw it
and you were like, oh yeah, we want to see
this well. And we had other discussions like that on
other episodes. The proposal, I don't know if Greg this
this was. I was moving right into no, no literally
right now. I mean, um, so what I was told
and reminded about was, yes, the proposal the great sound

(46:00):
or no sound was it because it was written in
a way, you know, the production aspects of that where
we built this on a huge parking lot and we
had trucks eight wheelers doing figure eight to make it
look like they're passing, you know, so they have enough
room like cars passing driving by, and uh, Jim and Pam,
you know, the original concept was like that we couldn't
hear them. We would just see it, and then we

(46:22):
had a version where you would hear it, and ultimately, uh,
Greg went with the version where you can't hear them,
and then he changed his mind that morning that we
were wearing He's like, no, I've slept on it, and
I want to put the one where they can hear
them the morning that we're airing. Yeah, so then it

(46:44):
was like I think I think it was like that
morning He's like, okay, so we we did the one
where there you can hear them, and I think listen,
I think both of them were great versions, but I
think it's probably better to to hear. I mean, we
waited so long for this moment, it was probably better
to uh, better to hear and not just see it,
because you didn't want any kind of confusion of like

(47:05):
what happened. You know. I think that ultimately we made
the right choice. But I'll tell you this is they
didn't destroy the one with the no sound. And when
it was time to make the DVDs, they almost screwed
up and had that one and and Jake Aust was
our a P at the time, and he was like,

(47:25):
wait a minute, you know, like that almost got burned
onto DVDs they were doing QC and uh He's like,
I mean, some some heads rolled because it was like
this needs to be labeled and not you know, either
not here anywhere where it would get mixed in. You know.
You know, I've had a number of people talk to
me about that moment, and I will say to you,

(47:48):
I remember very very specifically the way that looked. I
remember him going down, I remember the rain, I remember
the eighteen wheelers going by right, and that's such a
spy shot. I don't remember what he said, Yeah, you
know what I mean? Like how it was. It's almost

(48:12):
irrelevant which choice, because like she's like, what are you doing?
He says, I can't wait anymore. And it's not I mean,
it's not about like the dialogue being like that sharp,
but it is having that help of that audio que
and and again there's plenty of other sound going on.
It's not like, hey, this is as clear as day,
but it was just at least you could could But
I understand what you're saying. Yeah, um, talk to me

(48:34):
a little bit while we're on the subject of sound
about Company Picnic and the decision to cut the sound
when you find out that Pam is pregnant. Okay, yeah,
so that was That was the episode where I made
my office acting ray bands guy, um um, I believe

(48:54):
it's guy wearing ray bands. Yeah. Uh. And it's funny.
I have friends and anytime it shows up. And I
have friends now whose kids watched the show and they're like,
that's Dave. You know they see me on there with
My one line was that your acting was my acting
debut on across any platform. That was your acting debut.

(49:15):
Oh no, no, no, I have acted before, I have
shown up. It's funny. I mean a Gilmore Girls episode
and uh, I have one line. I go, sure, but
it was such that sounds like a word, not an
that's a line of work. A matter of fact, as
when I edited that for my own acting reel, it

(49:35):
was so short. I had to add like to still
frames at the end because I'm on, you know, it's
a Guilmard Girls. They cut it so tight, and I'm like,
but uh, but I remember it was such an all
star day for me, like just being on the set
as an actor because I was an assistant editor. I
had taken acting classes to become better as a director,
so and then I was going out. I did I
did voice work. I'm on a cartoon. I did like

(49:57):
thirty four episodes of an animation show called the Shinzo,
which is a Japanese anime show, and speak Japanese. I
didn't speak Japanese. This was like the English every American version.
You're really good at the American version shows. Yeah, so
uh but uh, but I would say this. So the
Gilder Girls, like Melissa McCarthy was there. Lauren Graham is

(50:21):
in the scene and I think she was dating Matthew
Perry at the time, so he was there. It was
on the Warner Brothers lot and he was there like
just joking around. He did the slate a couple of times,
so it was like really an really a fun day.
But I have one one word. I go, sure, sure,
why did they not hire me? Alright? So sorry company,

(50:42):
Picnic Company Picnic the decision to not use sound there
when she you find out she's pregnant, Yeah, you have
to have sound. I don't think you really know what
happens if there's no mention in Paul. I think it
was like, no, I don't think you needed at all.
There was one version where it wasn't in, and I
was like, if we don't have that, like no one
pays attention to it, but it's in the back of

(51:02):
your mind, like we need to have some little crumb.
But uh, I think they're acting. Just played it like
you knew right away from their acting what what had happened.
And they never go back. You know, it's such a
sweet moment. Pam is like nodding, and Jim is like,
you know, oh my god. He gives her a big
hug and uh, and I think it's this joyous surprise
for the audience and they never go back to the game.

(51:26):
They never go back to the volleyball game or anything.
I'm Emilia on this podcast. I'm taking you on a search,
a search for love. Hard working Latina seeks cool, down

(51:48):
to earth guy slip. It's hard out there for a
girl to find Mr Right. I have to meet a
lot of Mr Wrongs. He'd invite me over to have
dinner with his family. I knew he didn't tell them
that it was transgender. Dating as a trans woman can
be complicated, but there were other reasons. I felt like
I couldn't always be myself, and he's asking me things

(52:11):
about my family, like my mom's in prison and my
grandmother was arrested for working with the Mexican drug cartel.
This scrumbs my love story. It's to show about the
things we set up for and the bits of ourselves
that make us who we are. Listen to Crumbs as
part of the Michael la podcast Network, available on the

(52:32):
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Hi. I'm Glory Adam, host of Well Read
Black Girl. Each week, I sit in close conversation with
one of my favorite authors of color and share stories
about how they found their voice. Hone their craft and

(52:52):
navigated the publishing world, and composed some of the most
beautiful and meaningful words I've ever read. We journey together
through the cultural moment where art, culture and literature collide,
and pay homage to the women whose books we grew
up reading. And of course I check in with members

(53:13):
of the Well Read Black Girl book Club. It's a
literary kickback you never knew you needed, and you're all
invited to join the club. So tell your friends, tell
their friends so we can be friends who love books.
Listen to Well Read Black Girl on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

(53:36):
Adoption of teams from foster care is a topic not
enough people know about, and we're here to change that.
I'm April Dinnuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption,
presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling,
real life adoption stories told by the families that lived them,
with commentary from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org,
slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt

(53:59):
us It's brought to you by the U. S Department
of Health that Human service as Administration for Children and
Families and the Act Council. Do you have a favorite episode? Um,

(54:20):
I have a few favorites, and there's some that I
haven't cut. I love Employee Transfer because it was my first.
I love ARM because it was my last, and I
had so many great things to do in there. I had.
I have Darryl dancing with everybody. Jim plays this video
for Pam and uh, you know, it was so sweet.
I'm the voice of the documentarian, you know, things like that,

(54:41):
and uh, Dwight gets to propose to Angela and he
cuts her off and and you know there's all this
stuff with the with the kids. So I mean, I
love I love that episode. But uh, I love the finale.
The finale is one of my favorites. I love the negotiation.
I just think like that, you know, it is an episode.
Mike Sure wrote that one, And that to me is

(55:01):
like an like you could show that in a screenwriting
class and be like, look at this, Like it starts
out here and then there's a twist, and it goes here,
and then there's a twist and again, you know, and
it's just so funny, like he and it's just the
basic premises Michael wears he buys a woman's suit and
doesn't realize it and where that ends up going. You know, Um,

(55:21):
I love Booze Cruise and I didn't edit Booze Cruise.
I I love Michael dancing that he does a motivation dance,
and I love that as we call it, like the
seconds of silence, seconds of silence outside with Jim and Pam. Well,
even you talking before about that specific moment of the

(55:43):
end of Casino Night. I think my overwhelming memory of
you is you're an incredible artist and really know your job,
but you are also so excited. I mean to say
that you are fan. I mean I call myself a
fan of the show, right like I was. I thought

(56:04):
The Office was an excellent show. I'm a fan of
that show regardless of the fact I worked on it.
And I felt like for you, you were the same way.
Like you were excited by a great moment that the
actors gave, Like you were excited about something that cameras
did that looked cool that you were able to put
together and yeah, that that spirit was pretty awesome. Well,

(56:26):
it's funny we had we had this environment and post
because we would see things we had a whole different,
you know, like people quote the show, right, but we
would quote stuff, and you guys, by the time we
would get to set like three days later and be like,
oh my god, this is so funny. You guys don't
even know what we're talking about because at that point
you've had like seven other pages of dialogue to memorize

(56:47):
and things like that, you know. So it was like
I'd be like, going, oh my god, what Steve is
And I find myself like there are mannerisms that I do,
Like there are things that people will say to Michael
Scott and be like and you know, likes and and
I say that I do that. Even yesterday I said
something to Greg and I'm like, I'm doing Steve Carrell.
Like there was something where I was like, you know,

(57:10):
like like doing these things. But I remember I used
to call everybody by their character name, or at least
the one like the writers like Mindy. I'm sure you
know people call you Kevin because they, you know, just
out of like Kevin. But I used to like deliberately,
like I got into this mindset where I had nicknames
for Paul, Like I would call him tob larone. Like
things that Michael Scott didn't even call him. I would

(57:31):
call make up nicknames for Toby and uh, you know,
I mean I was just a huge fan of all
you guys. I mean just I just I yeah, I
love the show, and I was so glad to be
working on stuff from season one, just these dark endings.
Like people some people, you know, they say, oh, they
didn't like season one, or they like it later once

(57:51):
they see where season two and three are, they can
go back and they appreciate it more. I loved it
out of the gate. I was like, oh my god,
this like it's a it coom that doesn't end on it.
It's not tied up in a bow at the end
of the episode, and like they all hate Michael at
the end of the healthcare I mean Greg's favorite moment,
you know, was I still have my vagina. Remember you know,

(58:13):
a vagint is different from a uterus. I still have
my vagina. I mean I remember, I remember for the
rap party, the hundred yeah we have. But we had
the rap party, and so you know, we would make
the gag rail and we show you know, we would
put bloopers and we would show the crew. And then
I did something different. I said, oh, I'm going to
do a highlights of a hundred and I did, and
we did account for like episode one here just a

(58:35):
quick line, just a quick thing to identify, and we
got all the casts, like everybody had a had a moment.
But it was like finding what is this kind of
you know, something that just says, here's a line from here,
Here's a line from here, Here's a moment from here,
here's you know, Michael hitting Meredith with the car, here's uh,
you know, I mean, just these little things, and it
was it's so and it's on the DVD. I mean,
it's just great to see like just this thing. And

(58:57):
I remember everybody like just getting excited in lighting up,
but like just at this kind of thing and what
we had done, you know. Yeah, so it's crazy. So
you won two Emmy's. I won two Emmy's on the
Office for the job and for the finale. Yeah, I
co won those with Dean Holland and I for the
job in Claire Scanlon for the finale, Yeah, and to

(59:20):
ACE American Cinema Editor Awards as well. Um, you were
the most honored department on the show, right, No actress one,
two writers won you know the show one once. It's
just interesting to me, you know. Well, especially what was
really rewarding was the finale to be reward you know,

(59:42):
because we had we were not the fresh new show
at that point, so it was really rewarding to to
win the finale. And like I said, we won the
Emmy and the American Cinema Editor Award in case Eddie
for that um but but especially you know, with the Emmy,
I just think it was our peers. You know, you know,
you have editors, and so it's editors voting on editors.

(01:00:05):
So I think there's they recognized what you were doing.
I think they recognize it. And I think, listen, there's
so much of it is like, oh what what is
kind of hot and popular? You could be the best
editor in the world. If you're not working on, you know,
a show that has all these pieces that isn't in
the zeitgeist to show, you know, you're not going to
get that recognition, you know. And so with with The Office, though,

(01:00:26):
here was something that we were doing that was fresh
and new and such a great script. And look, we
lied to everybody too about Steve, and I remember Greg
felt really bad about lying to people because he was
lying to family and friends, and I was like, I
remember writing something. I said, Greg, I said, listen, in

(01:00:46):
today's day and age, everything gets spoiled. It's not like
it used to be that you could have this surprise.
I said. So, this is what we're doing, is we're
giving people something. Because we even had hit the footage
of Steve Trance for we didn't have it done at Universal.
We had it done secretly somewhere else. Did you know
he was showing up to set that day? I knew

(01:01:07):
that he was showing up, I think a day or
two before. Somebody spilled the beans to me. But I've
talked to a number of people who didn't know until
the assistant directors said Stevens in the makeup trailer. There
were some people who did not know until until then.
I'm so curious as to who from the cast didn't
know that day because I knew. I mean because I
came to set that day because I knew, Hey, he's

(01:01:28):
coming at this time. So Claire and I went to set,
so Steve agrees to come. It's a big secret. It's
kept from the network. And so even after he shot
his scenes, you took it somewhere else. So we get
the footage transferred, like we get the video is transferred
and you know, it's it's basically it's taken on digitally

(01:01:50):
and then it's put into the Abbot's It's like in
files that are put into the Abbots. And normally we
do all our stuff at Universal on the Universal lot
was where we would transfer, and that's where we would
we did not. We took his scenes and we got
them transferred somewhere else. And what you made them sign
like non disclosure or they were friends or something or yeah, yeah,
little Timmy's basement, Like what do you actually it was

(01:02:14):
Eric Culjin who was our ap. His father worked at
another level. It was level three. I mean they do
big shows and stuff like that. So we took it
there and we had a transferred there like in a
room where it was like okay, this is where it's
gonna be transfer. Like we just didn't want We didn't
want NBC execs to have access to the dailies, because

(01:02:36):
they can there's a way I think where they can
access you know, the footage, they can look at dailies
and things like that. We didn't want that because we
didn't want them ultimately to promo Steve Carrell returns because
Steve didn't want that, and there was also as a surprise.
It's like there's just enough footage of him as a
surprise that you're like blown away. My mom cringes it

(01:02:59):
at Michael Scott like she you know, so much of
the time, like she would cringe. But man, she watched
that finale moment. She would rewind and watch him showing up,
you know, that reveal fifty times. She's like, David, I
can't stop watching it, you know. I mean, it's just
such a great moment with the reveal. It's like I
can't be your best man, but you know. And and

(01:03:20):
so we were secretive about it, and and Greg I
remember Gregg felt bad about lying and I was explaining
to him about spoilers. I'm like, this is not harming anyone.
And it's like a surprise party if someone asked, like
are you throwing me a surprise party? And you say no,
and the two hours later surprise, Like that's what this is.
And Greg I remember he said he felt better, he
felt better about that, you know about it. It It was like,

(01:03:42):
I know it's hard, but that's what it is. Like
we're we're you know, we have to keep it a secret.
And if everybody keeps it a secret, it's a secret.
Like that's we're all in it together. Because even you know,
I remember, you know Ken kopp Is like the day
before was like, no, Steve's not in it. He you know,
he decided that he ended, he had his exit and
all this and it's like, yeah, we're just flying. It's

(01:04:04):
a white, little white lie like that's it and and
it all comes out right. Um, how how did you
working on the Office change your life? God? Well, it
just was like being you know, like I said, I
had worked on Seinfeld, but I was a small part
of that show, and it was it was very late.
I joined late. I was not instrumental in making that

(01:04:26):
show anything. I just I was lucky to be a
part of it. But being part of the Office was
like you know, coming in right after the pilot and
getting to you know, tweak the pilot a little bit,
but you know, just just coming in though from diversity
day and and being instrumental in like helping shape the show,
really being part of the creative process. I didn't write

(01:04:49):
you know, scripts or anything like that, but Greg would
always listen, like if you have pitches if you have
any ideas, and sometimes you know, hey this would get in.
That would that would get in, you know, and sometimes
like I said, I'd rewrite a jew oak in the
edit bay and we would okay, we'll go shoot it.
Or I would right even the bones, and then I said,
have the writers, you know, have them just make it better,
like right right, a Sharper joke and stuff like that.

(01:05:12):
Um and yeah, So I mean it changed my life,
like just being a part of that show. And and
obviously I mean it's nice like to be on something
that's popular and people like, oh you work on the office,
like you know, like it's still to this day people
are always you know, surprised and throw. I mean, I went,
I was wearing a jacket under Mifflin Saver one of

(01:05:32):
the season, you know, jackets wrap jackets, and I was
getting coffee and uh, the brist was like, I love
your jacket. What you gonna say? I worked on the show.
Oh my god, I love this show. Please tell every
you know. I mean like still to this day, people, uh,
people are you know more and more actually I should say,
you know as as do you feel too, because like

(01:05:53):
I said, there's another there's a whole generation of of
people with their kids. I get Facebook messages all the
times where they're like, just when my kids are watching
the show, they love it. They've binged it three times.
You know. Even my god son I got he wanted
for Christmas a dunder Mifflin hoodie. I had to buy
one from NBC dot com. Do I have anything anymore?
I'm like all my swag and autograph stuff. You know,

(01:06:15):
he's watched the episodes, he sees me. He hears my
voice as the documentary, and he sees my name in
the credits, and we talked stuff. And people are always
asking me about trivia. And I'm pretty good my memories.
Like I said, I'm I slip a little bit with
with people's names. And I don't know if that's just
age or if like the hard driver is full and overloaded.
I've got one, I've got I've got one for you.

(01:06:37):
This is fun. So people they'll come up. You are
pretty good with trivia. In fact, we all call you
the encyclopedia. I have one question. This is my one,
all right, all right? I was told a while ago
it is a name one though, so I'm trying careful. Um,
This was like the finals of some trivia thing someone won.
They told me the question. I've just decided I'm adopting

(01:06:57):
this question. When someone says they know trivia and I
asked him this question. Okay, you ready, this is for
one billion dollars. What is Gabe Lewis's middle name? Beverley?
That was like the right spirit you Now, I think

(01:07:20):
the Leslie David Baker. I've had a lot of people
say Leslie. I'm trying to think. Is Susan Susan Susan
Gabriel Susan Lewis's there? You go have you? But thank
you for playing was really really entertaining. Um, dude, thank
you so much for coming in. You're you're the encyclopedia

(01:07:44):
and your knowledge and your passion for the show. You know,
I think the show in a lot of ways, what
made it special was how much people cared. It wasn't
about ego. It was truly about making the best show
that we could. Yeah, what can you say? I mean, Yeah,
the show has changed my life in so many ways,
and it's just you know, I love being a part

(01:08:06):
of it. I still love being a part of it,
and uh, I just love that we we have this,
this bond because of it. Yeah, all right, thank you Dave.

(01:08:29):
What can I say? I could just stand here and
listen to you on a podcast all day. Thank you
so much for coming by. It was so great to
see you and to well to hear from you, and
to all of you out there, Thank you for listening
to another episode of the Office Deep Dive. I hope
you have the best week possible and to cap off

(01:08:53):
that amazing week, you can come back next Tuesday to
hear part two of my conversation with our wonderful writer
Jen Salanta. The Office Deep Dive is hosted and executive

(01:09:14):
produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Lang Lee.
Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer. Our producers are Diego
Tapia and Liz Hayes. My main man in the booth
is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed
by my great friend Cree Bratton, and the episode was
mixed by seth Olandskip Hey Dana Goodyear here. Have you

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