March 9, 2021 • 50 mins
Brian is joined by The Office U.K. co-creator Stephen Merchant, all the way from London. Stephen talks about meeting the quintessential Hollywood producer, Ben Silverman, and finding just the right American counterparts to make The Office work on the other side of the Atlantic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Did you know that on the day Doctor King was shot,
the all block security detail normally assigned to him was
called off. They're the ones who would not allow him
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Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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Radio app wherever you get your podcast. We've all felt
left out, and for people who moved to this country,
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Learn how it Belonging begins with us dot Org brought
to you by the Ad Council. I'm Stephen Merchant. I
(01:27):
was the co creator of the British version of the Office,
and I'm an executive producer on the American version. Hello,
dear listeners, and welcome to another installment of The Office
Deep Dive. I am your host, Brian bom Gartner. Now
today I am thrilled to present you with a guest
(01:51):
from across the pond over in jolly old England, Mr
Stephen Merchant. Steve In was the co creator of the
original British version of the Office. He along with Ricky Gervaise. Now,
what the two of them did with that show was
(02:12):
truly groundbreaking and obviously was the inspiration and basis of
our show, but they have also had a huge influence
on comedy in general, both here in the US and
in the UK, where based on their accents I'm guessing
they are from. So you know, when we were setting
(02:35):
up these interviews, I was kind of thinking, oh, well,
I might get a free trip to London out of this, right,
I mean, I've I've got to meet with Ricky and
Stephen in person. Of course I gotta go to London.
And then a global pandemic happened. So sadly that was
(02:56):
not going to happen. But I feel very lucky, uh
that we got to speak by phone from our respective homes.
I think you guys are going to love this one. So,
without further ado, my tallest friend, Stephen Merchant, Bubble and squeak,
(03:19):
I love it. Bubble and squeaker, Bubble and squeaker cookie
every month left over from the NATT before. Yeah, how
(03:39):
are you doing? You know, I mean as well as
anyone can be expected to, you know, given the crazy circumstances. Yes,
you're you're in London, I mean London, and same lockdown
rules apply here as they apply restaurant. And yeah, just
you know, porting around, I mean in quite a relax outfit.
(04:01):
I think the demarcation between my sleepwear and my daywear
is very, very blurred. Ka. I know the people who
get dressed up to go to work at home, I
don't understand those people. I do encourage at least showering
before you start working. Really, Yeah, that's a good idea.
It's a good rule of thumb. Yeah, it's probably good. Um,
(04:23):
how did you know Ricky before you guys started the office,
or how did that come about? Well, so I met
Ricky Gervaise at radio station here in London. I had
wanted to get into radio. I always thought that being
like a radio DJ seemed like a very easy job.
You could do maybe two hours a day, and then
you would give you a lot of free time to
do other stuff, whether it was writing or stand up
(04:45):
or whatever other aspirations I had. So I was keen
to get into radio, and I am I was quite young,
I was in my early twenties, and I sent my
resume to various radio stations and no one cared. But
a new radio station was launching in London, and one
of the guys who happened to read my resume was Ricky,
who was just got a job there. And he had
never had any experience in radio. And it's not how
(05:07):
sweet talked his way into a job to air as
get this that the head of speech, the head of
job title, the head of speech. I mean, if you've
ever heard Ricky string of sentence together, often it's incoherent.
So I don't know how he got that gig. So
he immediately decided he needed an assistance. And so I
was available and keen and eager, and and so he
(05:28):
called me for an interview, and we hit it off,
and and I started working at this radio station together. Right,
he needed an assistant, but really he needed someone to
actually teach him speech. Oh and also someone who, as
he himself admitted during the interview, someone who will do
all the work for me. Um. And I was kind
of eager, and I didn't have a job, and I
(05:48):
had done a little bit of sort of amateur radio
and student radio, so I had a little bit of
an understanding of it. And so, you know, we we
hit it off very quickly, similar sense of humor, and
within short while we were sort of actually hosting a
radio show together on on the air, and just had
a good easy rapport, you know, and and a similar
sensibility and and we sort of very quickly realized we
(06:12):
you know, we had sort of a chemistry, right. And
then you obviously you you started working together. What were
the influences for you at the time to create the
UK Office. Well, at the time in the UK, there
had been a number of shows on the BBC and
other networks that were fly on the wall documentaries about
(06:35):
very everyday subject like there was there was one about
a driving school, driving school, Yes, and it was, yeah,
and so you know, it was just following normal people
doing driving lessons and driving tests and this kind of
a wave of popularity in the UK. And so when
we did our version, we had those sorts of shows
(06:55):
in our mind. And one of the unusual things about
those shows was that often partinking when they returned for
like a second season, the people within them had sort
of become moderate, moderately famous, right, So they were those
first kind of reality TV stars, and and they started
to act differently in front of the cameras or they
were aware of the cameras, and so I think that
(07:17):
was something that was always informing us, you know, the
idea that this documentary team, we're following this person in
the in the case of David Brent Ricky, who who
was also aware that he was being filmed and so
therefore was trying to give over a version of himself
that he thought the world would love to see. And
of course what he didn't realize was they are actually
(07:37):
looking at him and finding interesting different reasons than those
that he intended, right right, Yeah, that's very interesting. I mean,
now the skips ahead like you know, fifteen years or whatever,
but it's very interesting you know. That's one of the
things that Greg Daniels always said was that for the
characters on the American version of The Office, if they
(07:57):
ever saw themselves, like if it was ever really least,
it would change everything right. Well, in the in the
British version, we did, because the British version has fewer seasons.
We did when we returned for some Christmas specials towards
the end of the run, we did actually play with
the idea that the characters had seen the documentary it
aired and that they had various or particularly the case
(08:19):
of Ricky's character, had disgruntlements about the way they've been portrayed,
which is often the complaint you'd hear from real reality people,
right that, you know, and they kind of in a
certain way they maybe look like And so we were
playing with that idea, and I guess you had it
with sort of MTV is the real world, I guess did.
It was one of the pioneers. And in the UK
there was that show Big Brother, which I know is
(08:39):
still on in various versions all over the world, and
that just kind of hit the airwaves as well, and
those people were coming out of this this house as
reality TV stars so it was a big cultural thing
at the time. Right. Were there specific comedies or other
television that sort of informed the sense of bility, do
(09:00):
you or the sense of humor that you were looking
at at the time. Well, certainly This is Final Tap
was a big influence, and the Larry Sanders Show was
something that we often referenced. And there's actually been quite
a few if you had fake documentaries in movies over
the years, but there had been fewer of them on TV,
(09:21):
it seemed to us. And and you know, in a
way because it sort of originated because I happened to
get a job at the BBC. I was worried in
my radio job with Ricky that we might end up
getting fired rich I think we did. So I had
jumped ship and I joined the BBC, and while I
was there, I had a training exercise and they gave
me a camera team for a day and they said,
you want to go to film something? And I went
(09:42):
off and went to Ricky and I said, let's film something.
And what we filmed sort of became a prototype of
the office. And one of the reasons we did that
in a documentary style was because it was quick and easy,
you know, it didn't. It didn't need to have all
the kind of polish and refinement that you get on
regular TV. So in a way, we we you fell
into this format through circumstance, but because we pursued that,
(10:04):
and we became very obsessive about the reality of this
world and wherever the cameras being. How would the people
act in front of the cameras they knew it was
watching them. Would they be honest? Would Kim states at dawn?
Jim and Pam? Would they would they be honest with
each other about their feelings? For one, Well, of course not,
because the cameras are in their face and they don't
want to reveal their hidden secrets. And so it sort
(10:26):
of started becoming its own thing, which I think felt
at the time quite new on TV. But it wasn't
sort of like a you know, a grand design, and
we didn't sort of sit there and think what's fresh
and new. It just all these things kept suggesting themselves
to us because we were trying to make you feel
as realistic as possible, as though you could stumble on
(10:48):
the TV network and you'd find out and you might
think it was a real documentary. In fact, funny enough,
after the first episode aired, I was on a train
and obviously people have no idea who I was. I
was just a writer. And these two women were talking
on the train and I was sat next to them
and they said. One of them said, or did you
see that documentary on TV last night about this crazy
guy in this office? It was hilarious, And the other
(11:10):
woman said, well, no, I think I think that was
a new comedy and the first woman said, oh, well,
it wasn't very funny. Then I didn't understand. But but
what was interesting was that she had been fooled for
a second into thinking it was the real thing, which
was the biggest compliment that we could we could hope for, right,
I mean, I remember hearing that a lot over here.
(11:30):
Did how was it received early on? I think he
was sort of had very low viewership initially. Um. I
think there's been some good critical notices here and there,
but no one was really watching. I think it went
on in the summer, which is not a prime TV
time in the UK. And I remember they had done it.
We found this out many years later, but they had
(11:51):
done a test screening for the general public and it
had got the lowest test score ever The only thing
that beat him, that got the lowest test score was
women's lawn bowls, a very specific game played by I
guess women in the UK and they roll balls along
the lawn and that was the only thing that I
didn't even though that was on TV, but it scored
(12:13):
lower in the Office. And yet what happened was it
just started to pick up steam. It got word of
mouth recommendations from people, It started to win some awards.
It was rerun in the in the winter, and more
people started watching it. And then there was the moment
in time when DVDs were really big and was started
buying DVD players, and so I think that it started
(12:34):
selling a lot of DVDs because I think people were like, oh,
I can buy that guy I know in the office
that show called The Office. And so solely we sold
so many DVDs because he was called the Office and
people have a lot of work colleagues they need to
buy gifts for. It's a and then it and then
it just became a kind of here in the UK.
It became a little mini phenomenon. Yes, well in the
(12:56):
States too, we were getting I remember there were DVDs
coming over. But the DVDs in the UK were different
than so you had to make sure you've got an
America one that would play an American player. Yes, of course, yes,
my sister had an early one who was over there.
But yeah, I, um, did you think that adapting the
show when you started to first hear about this guy
(13:19):
Ben Silverman maybe wanting to adapt it for the U S,
did you think that was a good idea? Well, I remember, Ricky,
I was we must have been editing something because Ricky,
remember cam in the editing stree you said, I just
ran into this guy called Ben Silverman or Ben silver
gonna track him down and then pulled him and he
had this initial meeting about doing a version for the
(13:39):
United States, and I remember saying at the time, oh, well,
that would be great, but the chances of that working
are very slim. I when I was a kid, I
was a real fan of TV and Comma read a
lot about it, and I knew a lot about American comedy,
and I knew that they had tried to adapt very
successful British shows for America, and any of them had
(14:00):
failed for one reason or another, and so I was
aware that the success rate was very low and that
and that we shouldn't get too excited about this as
a sort of potential next phase of our careers because
I just I just thought, well, it's probably not going
to work out, even with the best will in the world,
So why not let's let them do it, and you know,
good luck to them, and it would be fun. And
(14:22):
I was a big fan, and I'm a big fan
of American comedy, and you know, certainly a big influence
on us was like Cheers and the idea of you know,
the Cheers bar is this kind of surrogut family, which
is very much what the Office is, I guess in anyways,
And so we were excited about the idea of it
being on American TV and having an American version, but
but also very realistic that it seemed unlikely it would
(14:44):
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(17:18):
and entertainers to victims, crime and law enforcement. We cover
all facets of the game. Gainster Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify
promotilist of activities. We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions
of these activities because after all, you played gamester games.
You are ultimately rewarded with Gangster prizes. Our Heart Radios
number one for podcasts, but don't take our award for it.
(17:39):
Find against the Chronicles podcast and my Heart radio app
or wherever you get your podcast. So that Silverman approaches
(18:01):
you about adapting the series for America, do you remember
the first time you met Bend. I don't think anyone
can forget. The first time they meet Ben Silverman. You know,
he isn't sort of as you well know, a kind
of force of nature. Um, just yeah, it's like a
man who has drunk, you know, fifteen espresso's just directly
before the meeting to just really get himself awake. And
(18:25):
he's often running, and he's whenever they do movies about Hollywood,
they always have like a producer character. It was like
a talk talk about a minute. You know what we're
gonna make, You're gonna starts kid, And he's kind of
like that. You know, Benny is like the kind of
Hollywood producer cliche that you see in movies. And yet listen,
it works. You know, he's dynamic and he and he
(18:46):
got the thing moving and it seemed like, you know,
before we knew it, we were having meetings in the US,
sitting down to talk with potential show runners and and
we were off to the races. Did you so, you know,
you you trust this guy Ben, and you meet Greg
and you feel like he understands it. Was there a
(19:07):
certain point that you thought that it might work for
American audiences or were you still being sort of realists
and skeptical that it would translate. You know, we were
very infused by Greg and Gregg came to London and
he sat with us and we kind of dissected the
British version and we tried to explain, you know what,
you know, the kind of socio economics standing of all
(19:29):
the characters, so he could kind of get his head
around where they would be equivalent in the US. Where
would you know, Scranton replace his slough and all these
other things which he had to kind of understand. And
he was very sensitive and thoughtful about that stuff, which
is exciting for us. But then it was obviously then
he's casting and could they find the guy that would
replace Ricky? And so I just remember each step of
(19:50):
the way we were kind of not suspicious or nervous,
but just thinking, oh, they still probably evaporate right well,
and the show struggled, you know, early on for you know,
people didn't get it, and it was so unlike anything
that was on television and in America we didn't have.
Also the shows that you were sort of directly mocking,
(20:11):
right there was like you know, MTV is the real world, right,
but those were all about sexy young people. There wasn't
driving school or shows like that that that you know,
it was sort of directly mocking. And I heard a
story as well that, you know, when we came back
and we were going to come back for a season
two and they only offered six more episodes, and it
(20:33):
certainly looked like they were, you know, because Steve had
four year old version. They were sort of keeping us
on life support because they didn't want to look like idiots,
but they still didn't believe in it. That NBC said, Okay,
you can do six, but you have to cut the
budget and everybody has to take less. And Ben went
first to you and Ricky and thought you guys would
(20:55):
say like no, like this is this was the deal
that we made, but that you were egg Ricky, everybody
said no, let's give it a shot. I mean, do
you remember was that just based on you wanting the
show to go on, or did you at that point
think that there was something that was brewing there. I
definitely remember thinking I was very pleased with what Greg
(21:17):
and everyone had done in that first season, but I
do remember thinking that I actually wanted them to break
away from the British version more. I still felt there
was a little bit of a feeling of like clinging
onto some of the vibes or elements, or or trying
to be a little too faithful to us. And what
was exciting was the more that the show was moving
away from the British version. And I think whether it
(21:37):
was a conversation with greg Or, but I certainly felt
that that was a plan that was starting to brew
for this second season, and I was very keen, and
I know Ricky was just to kind of you know,
we we liked everybody and we wanted to show to
do well, and whatever we could do to help and
keep it on the air was important to us. I mean,
the funny thing for us, you remember, is that we
were here in the UK, so this was before streaming services,
(21:59):
so we only saw the episodes on like DVDs because
they had to mail over to us and we would
watch them. And you know, what was weird to me
was that when we did our version, we were so
involved that obviously we never got to kind of enjoy
it as a viewer. You know, we only ever enjoyed it,
you know, in little fragments here and there. But when
we got sent these DVDs from America, it was like
(22:21):
someone had designed this show that was like on our prototype,
and we were getting to enjoy it as fans, you know,
we would just sit there and laugh and enjoy it,
and and it was weird. It was like some kind
of weird competition where you write in, hey, would you
make a show about this? And they sort of mail
into you every week, you know, And so we were
very keen just as fans. We were keen to have
(22:43):
it keep on the air. So you liked it, you
like you like I liked it? Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I thought everyone was gray and honestly I was. I
was all in. Yeah. In season two, you know, one
of the things that you know was done. You talk
about veering from the British show, and I think a
major thing that happened there in season two was the
(23:05):
decision to soften Michael Scott, right, to not make him
exactly like David Brynn. I mean, David Brent to me
is a genius character that had a shelf life, right,
like after twelve episodes, it's hard for him to still
have a job, right and to have the show, to
have the show continue, you know, softening and bringing out
(23:26):
more of the humanity of Michael Scott. Were you in
support of that. Well, it's funny because I think again
it goes to what the traditions are in our two
countries in terms of comedy, and I think for years
in the U came in particular, there's been this long
tradition of TV comedies celebrating losers and sort of laughing
(23:47):
and losers often losers who have a slightly malevolent quality
or a selfishness to them. So I think back to
in the in the sixties, but the biggest TV star
in the UK was a guy called Tony Hancock whose
character was a kind of sort of failed actor who
was kind of snobbish and would happily, you know, screw
someone over for an opportunity, and that was that was
(24:08):
a show that cleared the streets when that was on,
you know. And then John Ketu's Basil Faulty in the seventies,
the kind of sort of obnoxious hotel manager. So there's
a long tradition in the UK of slightly unlikable leading
characters in comedy. A plus combined with the fact that
somehow in the UK we tolerated that bitter sweetness, that melancholy.
(24:30):
I mean, there was a show on that was a
big show in the UK when I was growing up
called Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? And it had
a theme chong and the opening lyrics of the theme
song of this this is a sitcom? Remember where was? Oh?
What happened to you? Whatever happened to me? What became
of the people we used to be? I mean it
was all about failed opportunities and and miss chances and
(24:53):
lives a life that could have been lived and everyone.
So there's that sort of tradition in the UK, and
I think traditionally in the US that has not been
so much the case in network TV. And when you
think of friends, the friends teemed true for instances very different.
You know, I'll be there for you, You'll be there
for So I think it seems sensible to me that
if they could rewire the Office at all, it would
(25:14):
just be to maybe downplay some of those more sort
of cynical, sour British elements and just start up a
bit more of that American can do right optimism, which
I felt they did without I think losing the fundamental
DNA of what makes the show work right. Mike Sure
(25:34):
specifically talked about Greg mentioning the show in season two
could exist exactly the same as as in the season one.
The episode could be exactly the same, but just at
you know, of just a little bit of hope, just
a little bit of positivity for Michael Scott to make
(25:55):
people at least potentially see some good in m whether
it's giving him a love interest, you know, you're finding
out he's actually he's actually good at his job in
a way, you know, like those kinds of things. Well.
I also think what both of the characters have in common, though,
is that behind all of the things which make them
(26:15):
kind of dislikable unlikable, they're not bad people. They're sort
of just a needy people, right, And that's their great
weakness is that they want to be your friend, but
they also want to be your boss. And that's the
thing which I think is what you when you dial
into that. I think what you know, Steve Corral managed
(26:36):
to do and the writers did was kind of bring
that out more, bring out that kind of that he's
a little boy really in a world of adults. And
once you die into that and you see that there
is a kind of lonely sweetness behind it all, then
I think you start to kind of really root for
the character. And I think Steve in particular has such
a likable quality. But the more they could being into
(26:57):
that part of Steve, the more popular thing of the
character be well you you know, you co wrote The Convict,
you directed Customer Survey, and in both of those episodes
actually that we see a very vulnerable side to Michael Scott.
And it's interesting that those two episodes were two that
you worked on a lot. That in The Convict that
he's upset that his employees think that prison is better
(27:20):
than his office, and you start to feel, isn't it
ironic that I mean, I know, I don't want to
sort of play you know, partisan politics, but I mean
I think whatever side of the political spectrum you're on,
you'd have to admit that there is a great deal
of that in in the current president of the United States,
(27:40):
and you know, Trump has this weird neediness to be
loved but also feared and respected, right, and it's a
very weird mix, and it never leads to happiness because
there's such a dark well, however much validation you get,
it doesn't matter how many good with you you get,
They're only obsessed about the one bad with you. And
(28:03):
I think that's sort of what Michael Scott and Donald
Trump share. And you know, and I think that's the
thing which always has made me find him so funny
as a character, because there's this never ending well of
neediness and you just keep you can keep traveling in
the compliments and the praise and the laughter, and it
will never be enough. And for whatever reason, I just
(28:26):
find that both adorable and hilarious at the same time
less iforable in the case of Donald Trump. But say
my point, um, well, I mean talking about politics, but
not talking about politics. I mean, the British Office itself
started with the premise of redundancy, right like, it's something
that's a serious issue for people. I mean, the idea
(28:48):
of of not having a job, and you know, the
American Office in the end examined that as well, but
also took on serious social topics, gay issues, healthcare, race relations,
that small businesses going under corporate greed. You know, by
by the end of our run, looking at the financial
(29:09):
crisis was looking at real issues. How did you feel
like that played out in the American version. I think
our starting point had always been just being true, making
true observations about our experience of office life, and we
had virgin offices, so we were trying to kind of
be particularly accurate about that, the way people interact with
(29:31):
the behaviors, the strange little training exercises you had to do,
and the and the sort of bureaucracy of it, and
the fact that this group of people were just arbitrarily
brought together and were then forced to sort of get on.
And as we said in that one of our episodes,
you know, you spend more time with those people than
you do your own friends and family. And so that
was I think the jumping off point for us was like,
(29:51):
could we make something that felt very truthful and people
recognized their working life in the show. And I think
what you guys were able to do because of the
share run of your show was just broaden that observation
out beyond the sort of parameters of the office into
those bigger ideas of you know, of relationships and and
marriage and career and how the bigger world impacts on
(30:15):
the smaller world. And you know, and obviously they were
able to expand the repertoire of the characters and so
you know, all of the characters, including your own, we're
sort of able to be explored and deepen. So it's
just I mean, one of the things I've always loved
about American shows is you just have so much more
reading space than air time. Just really delve into everything. Hi,
(30:47):
I'm Hillary Clinton and I'm excited to be back with
a new season of You and Need both. You know,
when we started this podcast, we were going through some
tough times, and let's face it, we still are. But
I am a firm believer we're stronger together. So please
join me for more conversations with people who will make
you think, make you laugh, and help us find a
(31:09):
path forward. Listen to you and me both on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio, the studio that brought you
(31:32):
The Devil Within and The Shadow Grows, comes a new
true crime podcast, The Pink Moon Murders. The local sheriff
believes there may be more than one killer. It's been
four days since those bodies were found and there's no
arrest as it this morning. They were afraid it's face
it out in that area, what if they come back
or whatever. It scared me to death, Like it scared me,
(31:53):
I was very, very intimidating to live here, crazy to
think you go to sleep one night, maybe snuggling with
your loved one, and or wake up, or maybe you
wake up in a struggle for your life, which you lose.
Joint host David Raderman as he explores one fateful night
when evil descended upon small town, Ohio killed eight members
of an Ohio family in a pre planned execution. The
(32:14):
family was targeted, most of them targeted while they were sleeping.
The Pink Moon Murders is available on February twenty second,
and you can follow The Pink Moon Murders on the
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
(32:35):
one of my favorite authors of color and share stories
about how they found their voice, hone their craft, and
navigated the publishing worlds, 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
(32:56):
and pay homage to the women whose books we grew
up reading. And of course, I check in with members
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.
(33:18):
Listen to Well Read Black Girl on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(33:39):
The office you know as you created might be the
greatest example in television history of cringe comedy. How would
you define cringe comedy? I think one of my great
flows is I it never occurred to me in a
way that this, this cringe comedy thing would would be
(34:00):
a label. It was not an intention to make people squirm.
It was it was just that for us, it was
so much funnier when someone who was trying to be funny,
for instance, said a joke and then you just heard
the silence, and then you just sat in the silence
for as long as possible. That I don't know why,
Ricky and I just found that so funny. And like,
(34:22):
for instance, there was a thing we used to say.
There was often if you come back to old episodes
of The Simpsons, you'll see like one of the Simpsons
characters will give a speech in front of the town
and the speech will bomb and it will just cut
to all the townsfolk and you'll just here, huh and
to whats that was so funny and so are our
attempt After all, the kind of David Brent's bad chokes
(34:43):
was just to sit in that uncomfortable silence, and that
just made us die with laughter. And it was only
when we started hearing from people, oh that made me
feel really uncomfortable, or I had to watch it through
my fingers. Only then did it occur to us or
maybe this is not always as enjoyable for people as
it is for us. And I think maybe it was
(35:03):
like I think if you work on a horror movie,
because you know the blood is faith and the knife
is not real, you can just keep adding more violence
and more bloodshed, right, and this is great, and then
when you watch it with an audience and it was
just horrible. And I think for us it was a
bit like that, like we just it was so funny
to us and just keep turning the screw and making
this world uncomfortable that we didn't occur to us that
(35:25):
people would find it cringeworthy until they started telling you to.
And then of course we just doubled down and then
we're like, oh, well, now, well now we're going to
really lay it off. Well, right, like there is I
mean just calling a spade a spade, right Like, there
is a difference between trying to tell a joke that
bombs or the Simpsons speech and you know, like a joke.
(35:47):
I can't remember the character, but I just heard this recently.
It was pulled up. But like a character telling David
Brent she's going on holiday and he says, exploring yourself,
like that is more just that is well, I guess
I guess that. I think it was just it was
just stay true to the character and this kind of
(36:11):
this neediness and this attempt to be liked in this
attempt to make connections, but also like slightly lastivious or
I mean the big problem for him, for the Dif
Brent character to some degree, Michal Scotts, they just didn't
know when to shut up, right or they just didn't
know what to say. And they were all but they
always had to be talking. You know, sometimes silence is golden,
(36:31):
but not for them. They just have to speak. And
they think they are great joke tellers. They think they're
great in conversation. They think they have great personalities. They
want to show off for the cameras that are filming them,
and so they never shut up. And it's one of
the great disparities between people who are like that. They
just don't realize how they're coming across to the world. Right. So, again,
(36:53):
to go back to Trump, Trump thinks he's killing it.
Every time he opens his mouth, he thinks he's crushing it.
He never goes back thinks, oh, man, I some of
what I said there was really garbled and doubloky, and
that didn't make much sense. He's not thinking that, he's thinking,
why didn't they love that? That was a great speech?
What's wrong with it? That's the weird gap between those people.
They said they can't see themselves as the rest of
(37:14):
the world season. So to me, it makes perfect sense
that those people would would say those things. And yes,
it is uncomfortable, I guess because those people are on
I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's that in real
life we just sort of tolerate them, or we walk
away or we ignore them, and in the TV world,
we just forced you to sit and watch this person, right, right.
(37:36):
I mean, it goes to the idea that they just
that both characters are truly just misguided in their approach,
and certainly, you know, Michael Scott is played by Steve
korrell Is. It was one of my favorite jo I've
told people, one of my favorite jokes that we ever
did on the Office was Michael Scott really trying to
(37:57):
have a bonding moment with Oscar and really wanting to understand,
you know, his way of life, and and asking him
what term would be less offensive than Mexican than calling
him Mexican, and Oscar saying there's nothing offensive about Mexican.
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, sure, but like, what's
something less offensive than to call you Mexican? And to me,
(38:20):
that is like like he truly just doesn't understand. He's
not trying to be he's trying to be woke right
or PC, and he just doesn't get it. But that
moment of cringe is like, but I think, you know,
in some ways predated this conversation that everyone has now
about sort of foke culture and appropriational those other things.
(38:43):
And at the time, certainly when we began Average and
it was the beginning of sort of political correctness in
the workplace and political critics being a very big buzzword,
and people there are certain terms that supposedly you weren't
like to use anymore, and the you know, in schools,
you couldn't refer to the board, you have to refer
to the chalkboard, and you know, and then the only
system rules that manhole cover had couldn't be called they
(39:05):
had to be called maintenance cover. And there was a
lot of sort of reaction to that and people saying, well,
you're you're policing us, and you're policing the way we speak.
And so there were a lot of people trying to
be woke before they that term was existing and just
not understanding and failing. And the reason they failed was
because you shouldn't have to try. You should just hold
(39:27):
someone like a person, and you shouldn't see their color
or their sexuality or anything else. And that was the problem.
That was why they were hung up, is they couldn't
they couldn't see them as anything other than a gay person,
a Mexican person, you know, personal color, whatever. They couldn't
see beyond that that was and so they their heart
may have been in the right place, but they were
they were still treating people as other right and as
(39:48):
long as you do that you do. Yes, I heard
something recently that I did not know that before. Greg
decided to oversee and come back for the last season,
and he asked you to show run. Is that true?
I remember, Yes, I remember him talking to me about
(40:09):
the idea of being involved with those latest seasons or
that last season. Yes, and I and I was very flattered,
And that would have it would have been enormous fun.
I think for me it was probably like it would
have been going back to the well of something you know,
perhaps you know too late, or I moved on in
my head, or for whatever reason. I think I just
felt like it would it would just be weird, or
(40:29):
I just wouldn't I didn't feel like it would be
the right move for me. But my god, it would
have been a blast. Yeah. I mean directing that episode
of Customer Survey was one of the most fun I've
had in in all of my career. I mean I
was only really around for a handful of weeks, but
just being in the writer's room for the first couple
of weeks and then on the splore with you guys,
I mean it was just so much fun. I mean
(40:51):
it really was. But in a weird way. I didn't
have the kind of responsibility that you'd have if you
were show running. You know, I could kind of dip
in and and just part of the fun without as
much of the responsibility. How is the writer's room different
than like, say, the writer's room in the UK, or
or how was that experience different? Well, of course, in
the UK traditionally, you know, British comedies are normally written
(41:15):
by one or two people. There's very rarely a big
writer's room. We don't do as many episodes, so there
isn't the need. So the British version of the office
was just me and Ricky sitting in a room for
six months, you know, hammering out the episodes, whereas you know,
coming to the US it was Graham and you've got
twelve or fifteen brilliant minds all throwing ideas around, these jokes,
sort of pinging around. And I mean, to me, as
(41:36):
a sort of fan of comedy and student of comedy,
particularly American comedy, just being in that environment and seeing
a different way of working and it was such a
thrill to me. In fact, I remember I was sharing
some stories from my own experience when I first started
working and I had thought about how I worked at
a call center and I've done training, and the guy
who was doing the training assigned us. He would send
(41:58):
us into one room and we'd have to make pretend
be a customer, and we would call one of the
other trainees he was another room, and they would be
the person at the call center, and we, as the
fake customers, would have to try and sort of practice
with them on how they could answer a call. And
I remember that the guy wouldn't let me do it
anymore because I was I was too nasty a customer,
because I really just I just kept on improvising as
(42:18):
just the worst person to have because I figured, if
I'm going to do customer training, I better deal with
the assholes. I'm gonna need that information. And so I
remembered selling that in the writer's room, and Lee and Jeans,
who the writers, went off and wrote a version of
that and gave it to Jim and to Dwight and Michael,
and they put that in the show, and so that
was that. I remember that being a real highlight of
(42:40):
sort of this weird old fragment of my life suddenly
being transposed onto ev. Did you like the way that
the American Office ended that the story ended, I thought,
I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was lovely. Yeah,
I thought it was really satisfying. And you know, no
one was machine gunned down. There was something and I think,
(43:00):
I think so stressing. I also thought that, you know,
when when Michael Scott left, I thought that was a
beautiful episode as well. I thought there was some really
fine episodes, you know, when when characters were leaving or
when the show was really playing on the emotions. And
I think again, that's one of the things I loved
about American shows was that at their best, they're like
(43:21):
soap operas with laughs. And I don't mean soap opera disparagingly.
I mean in the sense that you are so invested
in these characters in this world, and you keep coming back,
and you care about them and you love them, and
you want the best for them, and you have opinions
about them, and and that was what you know, those
nine seasons did so sweetly and so successfully, I think.
And so by the time the show leaves the air,
(43:44):
it's like these friends of yours have all moved away.
I mean it's sort of it's sad. What are you
most proud of in terms of its legacy. Honestly, you
can't begin to understand. When I was growing up America
and American TV was so remote to me, so distant,
it was something I I adored. I mean, I watched
(44:06):
shows that I loved, American shows I love religiously and
pickly sitcoms like the ones I've mentioned, Mash and Roseanne
and Frazier and Cheers and Friends. I mean I never
missed an episode, you know. I was there when the
new ones started airing in the UK. I remember watching
the first episode of Friends that the evening it aired
in the UK. I was with it from the beginning.
I watched every episode I was in, you know. And
so to me to have been involved with the show,
(44:29):
which which is that for American audiences and for worldwide
audiences and is and it's taken to their heart in
the same way that I took shows like that to mine.
That's the biggest thrill for me. It's to be part
of that family of American TV comedy, you know, and
put in the lineage of those other shows is such
an overwhelming thrill for me. That's awesome. One last question,
(44:53):
very final thing that's said In the American version of
the Office is the talking Head by Pam To paraphray,
she basically says that she thought it was weird when
somebody came and wanted to do a documentary on these
people who worked in a paper company. But she says,
in the end, I think it was a good idea
because there's beauty in ordinary things, and isn't that kind
(45:16):
of the point. And I think that, you know, Greg
Daniels wrote that and to him that was the point.
Do you have an idea of what was the point? Well?
I think you know, like with any good any good arts,
if you can call TV sitcoms art, any good comedy,
and any kind of art, it's about making us feel
(45:38):
connected as people and and reminding us of the things
which connects us and the and the similarities we have.
And that's that's the great joy. That's the pleasure it
brings that the connectivity that it provides, and that's why
people love to laugh in a group in a comedy
club or in a movie there because they want the
shared experience of laughter is unifying. So to me, that's
(46:00):
what the show does is people they relate to the characters,
or they see a version of themselves or a version
of the person they could have been, or they say,
that's just like my brother in law, that's just like
the guy I work with. That stuff makes you feel
like there's other people that think like you, you know,
and they're living in the world and experiencing the world
like you, And it makes you feel less alone. And
(46:21):
that's that's why I'm a fan of stuff, and I
think hopefully that's why people are a fan of this show. Steven,
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to me for real. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I
hope you stay safe over there and stay home and
I don't know, sometimes soon we'll go to another Clippers game. Great.
(46:47):
H that's all for this week, everybody. I hope you
enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I mean,
is it just me or do British people sound way
smarter than other people? I feel smarter after hearing that conversation. Anyhow,
(47:10):
Thank you so much to Stephen for joining me. I
truly appreciate it, And to the rest of you. Tune
in next week to hear my conversation with the other
half of this dynamic duo, This comedic genius duo Ricky Gervais.
You won't want to miss that. And if you're liking
this podcast, well don't forget to subscribe or follow in
(47:35):
whatever podcast app you were using. I don't know, maybe
even leave us a review, rate us highlight if you're
feeling inspired. But until next time, everybody, please have a
great week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive
(47:57):
produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our producer is Emily Carr,
and our assistant editor is die Go Tapia. My main
man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song
Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,
(48:18):
and the episode was mixed by seth Olanski. Hello, this
(48:41):
is Christina Hutchinson and Karin Fisher. We're thrilled to announce
that our show, guys, We the Anti flut Schaming Podcast,
is returning to wide release. That's right, every Friday we
talked to one of our favorite comedians or an expert
in the field of sexuality, love and relationships to hear
what all the fos are about. Subscribe now and listen
to the Luminary original podcast. Guys, We've starting January one
(49:05):
on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. From the creator of The Bright Sessions,
comes a new fiction podcast for all ages. When a
fellow student vanishes, Max starts to look into the disappearance.
Her investigation draws her deep into the dark woods around
Hastings and even deeper into the secrets and lies. The
(49:25):
course through the veins of this sleepy town, This New
Y a mystery from writer director Lauren Chippen, is an
audio drama with heart and wit that involves the audience
in a way no fiction podcast ever has. Listen to
MAXI Miles on the I Heeart radio app, Apple podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Arden Marine
from Insatiable and will you accept This Rose Podcast? And
(49:45):
I'm Julianne Robinson, an Emmy nominated director of Bridgeton. And
we are the hosts of Lady of the Road, a
funny and inspiring podcast where we have conversations with influential
women about their lives and we get self help advice
because we are always looking to improve ourselves. True story,
we talk about money, health, relationships, you name it, from
inspiring women like Joan Jet, Nicole Buyer, Lauren Lapiz, Rtta
(50:07):
and more. Listen and subscribe to Lady of the Road
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Did you know that on the day Doctor King was shot,
the all block security detail normally assigned to him was
called off. They're the ones who would not allow him
to stay at any hotel with balconies. This was all about.
(00:20):
This is the MLK tapes. The first episodes are available now.
Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. The Gangster Chronicles podcast is
a weekly conversation that revolves around the underworld and criminals
and entertainers to victims, crime and law enforcement. We cover
(00:41):
all facets of the game. Gainster Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify
from modilicit activities. We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions
of these activities because after all, she played gamester games.
You are ultimately rewarded with Gangster prizes. Our Heart radio
is number one for podcasts, but don't take our award
for it. Find against the Animal's podcast and my Heart
(01:01):
Radio app wherever you get your podcast. We've all felt
left out, and for people who moved to this country,
that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that.
Learn how it Belonging begins with us dot Org brought
to you by the Ad Council. I'm Stephen Merchant. I
(01:27):
was the co creator of the British version of the Office,
and I'm an executive producer on the American version. Hello,
dear listeners, and welcome to another installment of The Office
Deep Dive. I am your host, Brian bom Gartner. Now
today I am thrilled to present you with a guest
(01:51):
from across the pond over in jolly old England, Mr
Stephen Merchant. Steve In was the co creator of the
original British version of the Office. He along with Ricky Gervaise. Now,
what the two of them did with that show was
(02:12):
truly groundbreaking and obviously was the inspiration and basis of
our show, but they have also had a huge influence
on comedy in general, both here in the US and
in the UK, where based on their accents I'm guessing
they are from. So you know, when we were setting
(02:35):
up these interviews, I was kind of thinking, oh, well,
I might get a free trip to London out of this, right,
I mean, I've I've got to meet with Ricky and
Stephen in person. Of course I gotta go to London.
And then a global pandemic happened. So sadly that was
(02:56):
not going to happen. But I feel very lucky, uh
that we got to speak by phone from our respective homes.
I think you guys are going to love this one. So,
without further ado, my tallest friend, Stephen Merchant, Bubble and squeak,
(03:19):
I love it. Bubble and squeaker, Bubble and squeaker cookie
every month left over from the NATT before. Yeah, how
(03:39):
are you doing? You know, I mean as well as
anyone can be expected to, you know, given the crazy circumstances. Yes,
you're you're in London, I mean London, and same lockdown
rules apply here as they apply restaurant. And yeah, just
you know, porting around, I mean in quite a relax outfit.
(04:01):
I think the demarcation between my sleepwear and my daywear
is very, very blurred. Ka. I know the people who
get dressed up to go to work at home, I
don't understand those people. I do encourage at least showering
before you start working. Really, Yeah, that's a good idea.
It's a good rule of thumb. Yeah, it's probably good. Um,
(04:23):
how did you know Ricky before you guys started the office,
or how did that come about? Well, so I met
Ricky Gervaise at radio station here in London. I had
wanted to get into radio. I always thought that being
like a radio DJ seemed like a very easy job.
You could do maybe two hours a day, and then
you would give you a lot of free time to
do other stuff, whether it was writing or stand up
(04:45):
or whatever other aspirations I had. So I was keen
to get into radio, and I am I was quite young,
I was in my early twenties, and I sent my
resume to various radio stations and no one cared. But
a new radio station was launching in London, and one
of the guys who happened to read my resume was Ricky,
who was just got a job there. And he had
never had any experience in radio. And it's not how
(05:07):
sweet talked his way into a job to air as
get this that the head of speech, the head of
job title, the head of speech. I mean, if you've
ever heard Ricky string of sentence together, often it's incoherent.
So I don't know how he got that gig. So
he immediately decided he needed an assistance. And so I
was available and keen and eager, and and so he
(05:28):
called me for an interview, and we hit it off,
and and I started working at this radio station together. Right,
he needed an assistant, but really he needed someone to
actually teach him speech. Oh and also someone who, as
he himself admitted during the interview, someone who will do
all the work for me. Um. And I was kind
of eager, and I didn't have a job, and I
(05:48):
had done a little bit of sort of amateur radio
and student radio, so I had a little bit of
an understanding of it. And so, you know, we we
hit it off very quickly, similar sense of humor, and
within short while we were sort of actually hosting a
radio show together on on the air, and just had
a good easy rapport, you know, and and a similar
sensibility and and we sort of very quickly realized we
(06:12):
you know, we had sort of a chemistry, right. And
then you obviously you you started working together. What were
the influences for you at the time to create the
UK Office. Well, at the time in the UK, there
had been a number of shows on the BBC and
other networks that were fly on the wall documentaries about
(06:35):
very everyday subject like there was there was one about
a driving school, driving school, Yes, and it was, yeah,
and so you know, it was just following normal people
doing driving lessons and driving tests and this kind of
a wave of popularity in the UK. And so when
we did our version, we had those sorts of shows
(06:55):
in our mind. And one of the unusual things about
those shows was that often partinking when they returned for
like a second season, the people within them had sort
of become moderate, moderately famous, right, So they were those
first kind of reality TV stars, and and they started
to act differently in front of the cameras or they
were aware of the cameras, and so I think that
(07:17):
was something that was always informing us, you know, the
idea that this documentary team, we're following this person in
the in the case of David Brent Ricky, who who
was also aware that he was being filmed and so
therefore was trying to give over a version of himself
that he thought the world would love to see. And
of course what he didn't realize was they are actually
(07:37):
looking at him and finding interesting different reasons than those
that he intended, right right, Yeah, that's very interesting. I mean,
now the skips ahead like you know, fifteen years or whatever,
but it's very interesting you know. That's one of the
things that Greg Daniels always said was that for the
characters on the American version of The Office, if they
(07:57):
ever saw themselves, like if it was ever really least,
it would change everything right. Well, in the in the
British version, we did, because the British version has fewer seasons.
We did when we returned for some Christmas specials towards
the end of the run, we did actually play with
the idea that the characters had seen the documentary it
aired and that they had various or particularly the case
(08:19):
of Ricky's character, had disgruntlements about the way they've been portrayed,
which is often the complaint you'd hear from real reality people,
right that, you know, and they kind of in a
certain way they maybe look like And so we were
playing with that idea, and I guess you had it
with sort of MTV is the real world, I guess did.
It was one of the pioneers. And in the UK
there was that show Big Brother, which I know is
(08:39):
still on in various versions all over the world, and
that just kind of hit the airwaves as well, and
those people were coming out of this this house as
reality TV stars so it was a big cultural thing
at the time. Right. Were there specific comedies or other
television that sort of informed the sense of bility, do
(09:00):
you or the sense of humor that you were looking
at at the time. Well, certainly This is Final Tap
was a big influence, and the Larry Sanders Show was
something that we often referenced. And there's actually been quite
a few if you had fake documentaries in movies over
the years, but there had been fewer of them on TV,
(09:21):
it seemed to us. And and you know, in a
way because it sort of originated because I happened to
get a job at the BBC. I was worried in
my radio job with Ricky that we might end up
getting fired rich I think we did. So I had
jumped ship and I joined the BBC, and while I
was there, I had a training exercise and they gave
me a camera team for a day and they said,
you want to go to film something? And I went
(09:42):
off and went to Ricky and I said, let's film something.
And what we filmed sort of became a prototype of
the office. And one of the reasons we did that
in a documentary style was because it was quick and easy,
you know, it didn't. It didn't need to have all
the kind of polish and refinement that you get on
regular TV. So in a way, we we you fell
into this format through circumstance, but because we pursued that,
(10:04):
and we became very obsessive about the reality of this
world and wherever the cameras being. How would the people
act in front of the cameras they knew it was
watching them. Would they be honest? Would Kim states at dawn?
Jim and Pam? Would they would they be honest with
each other about their feelings? For one, Well, of course not,
because the cameras are in their face and they don't
want to reveal their hidden secrets. And so it sort
(10:26):
of started becoming its own thing, which I think felt
at the time quite new on TV. But it wasn't
sort of like a you know, a grand design, and
we didn't sort of sit there and think what's fresh
and new. It just all these things kept suggesting themselves
to us because we were trying to make you feel
as realistic as possible, as though you could stumble on
(10:48):
the TV network and you'd find out and you might
think it was a real documentary. In fact, funny enough,
after the first episode aired, I was on a train
and obviously people have no idea who I was. I
was just a writer. And these two women were talking
on the train and I was sat next to them
and they said. One of them said, or did you
see that documentary on TV last night about this crazy
guy in this office? It was hilarious, And the other
(11:10):
woman said, well, no, I think I think that was
a new comedy and the first woman said, oh, well,
it wasn't very funny. Then I didn't understand. But but
what was interesting was that she had been fooled for
a second into thinking it was the real thing, which
was the biggest compliment that we could we could hope for, right,
I mean, I remember hearing that a lot over here.
(11:30):
Did how was it received early on? I think he
was sort of had very low viewership initially. Um. I
think there's been some good critical notices here and there,
but no one was really watching. I think it went
on in the summer, which is not a prime TV
time in the UK. And I remember they had done it.
We found this out many years later, but they had
(11:51):
done a test screening for the general public and it
had got the lowest test score ever The only thing
that beat him, that got the lowest test score was
women's lawn bowls, a very specific game played by I
guess women in the UK and they roll balls along
the lawn and that was the only thing that I
didn't even though that was on TV, but it scored
(12:13):
lower in the Office. And yet what happened was it
just started to pick up steam. It got word of
mouth recommendations from people, It started to win some awards.
It was rerun in the in the winter, and more
people started watching it. And then there was the moment
in time when DVDs were really big and was started
buying DVD players, and so I think that it started
(12:34):
selling a lot of DVDs because I think people were like, oh,
I can buy that guy I know in the office
that show called The Office. And so solely we sold
so many DVDs because he was called the Office and
people have a lot of work colleagues they need to
buy gifts for. It's a and then it and then
it just became a kind of here in the UK.
It became a little mini phenomenon. Yes, well in the
(12:56):
States too, we were getting I remember there were DVDs
coming over. But the DVDs in the UK were different
than so you had to make sure you've got an
America one that would play an American player. Yes, of course, yes,
my sister had an early one who was over there.
But yeah, I, um, did you think that adapting the
show when you started to first hear about this guy
(13:19):
Ben Silverman maybe wanting to adapt it for the U S,
did you think that was a good idea? Well, I remember, Ricky,
I was we must have been editing something because Ricky,
remember cam in the editing stree you said, I just
ran into this guy called Ben Silverman or Ben silver
gonna track him down and then pulled him and he
had this initial meeting about doing a version for the
(13:39):
United States, and I remember saying at the time, oh, well,
that would be great, but the chances of that working
are very slim. I when I was a kid, I
was a real fan of TV and Comma read a
lot about it, and I knew a lot about American comedy,
and I knew that they had tried to adapt very
successful British shows for America, and any of them had
(14:00):
failed for one reason or another, and so I was
aware that the success rate was very low and that
and that we shouldn't get too excited about this as
a sort of potential next phase of our careers because
I just I just thought, well, it's probably not going
to work out, even with the best will in the world,
So why not let's let them do it, and you know,
good luck to them, and it would be fun. And
(14:22):
I was a big fan, and I'm a big fan
of American comedy, and you know, certainly a big influence
on us was like Cheers and the idea of you know,
the Cheers bar is this kind of surrogut family, which
is very much what the Office is, I guess in anyways,
And so we were excited about the idea of it
being on American TV and having an American version, but
but also very realistic that it seemed unlikely it would
(14:44):
it would succeed for whatever reason. Yeah, it's a hard
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Find against the Chronicles podcast and my Heart radio app
or wherever you get your podcast. So that Silverman approaches
(18:01):
you about adapting the series for America, do you remember
the first time you met Bend. I don't think anyone
can forget. The first time they meet Ben Silverman. You know,
he isn't sort of as you well know, a kind
of force of nature. Um, just yeah, it's like a
man who has drunk, you know, fifteen espresso's just directly
before the meeting to just really get himself awake. And
(18:25):
he's often running, and he's whenever they do movies about Hollywood,
they always have like a producer character. It was like
a talk talk about a minute. You know what we're
gonna make, You're gonna starts kid, And he's kind of
like that. You know, Benny is like the kind of
Hollywood producer cliche that you see in movies. And yet listen,
it works. You know, he's dynamic and he and he
(18:46):
got the thing moving and it seemed like, you know,
before we knew it, we were having meetings in the US,
sitting down to talk with potential show runners and and
we were off to the races. Did you so, you know,
you you trust this guy Ben, and you meet Greg
and you feel like he understands it. Was there a
(19:07):
certain point that you thought that it might work for
American audiences or were you still being sort of realists
and skeptical that it would translate. You know, we were
very infused by Greg and Gregg came to London and
he sat with us and we kind of dissected the
British version and we tried to explain, you know what,
you know, the kind of socio economics standing of all
(19:29):
the characters, so he could kind of get his head
around where they would be equivalent in the US. Where
would you know, Scranton replace his slough and all these
other things which he had to kind of understand. And
he was very sensitive and thoughtful about that stuff, which
is exciting for us. But then it was obviously then
he's casting and could they find the guy that would
replace Ricky? And so I just remember each step of
(19:50):
the way we were kind of not suspicious or nervous,
but just thinking, oh, they still probably evaporate right well,
and the show struggled, you know, early on for you know,
people didn't get it, and it was so unlike anything
that was on television and in America we didn't have.
Also the shows that you were sort of directly mocking,
(20:11):
right there was like you know, MTV is the real world, right,
but those were all about sexy young people. There wasn't
driving school or shows like that that that you know,
it was sort of directly mocking. And I heard a
story as well that, you know, when we came back
and we were going to come back for a season
two and they only offered six more episodes, and it
(20:33):
certainly looked like they were, you know, because Steve had
four year old version. They were sort of keeping us
on life support because they didn't want to look like idiots,
but they still didn't believe in it. That NBC said, Okay,
you can do six, but you have to cut the
budget and everybody has to take less. And Ben went
first to you and Ricky and thought you guys would
(20:55):
say like no, like this is this was the deal
that we made, but that you were egg Ricky, everybody
said no, let's give it a shot. I mean, do
you remember was that just based on you wanting the
show to go on, or did you at that point
think that there was something that was brewing there. I
definitely remember thinking I was very pleased with what Greg
(21:17):
and everyone had done in that first season, but I
do remember thinking that I actually wanted them to break
away from the British version more. I still felt there
was a little bit of a feeling of like clinging
onto some of the vibes or elements, or or trying
to be a little too faithful to us. And what
was exciting was the more that the show was moving
away from the British version. And I think whether it
(21:37):
was a conversation with greg Or, but I certainly felt
that that was a plan that was starting to brew
for this second season, and I was very keen, and
I know Ricky was just to kind of you know,
we we liked everybody and we wanted to show to
do well, and whatever we could do to help and
keep it on the air was important to us. I mean,
the funny thing for us, you remember, is that we
were here in the UK, so this was before streaming services,
(21:59):
so we only saw the episodes on like DVDs because
they had to mail over to us and we would
watch them. And you know, what was weird to me
was that when we did our version, we were so
involved that obviously we never got to kind of enjoy
it as a viewer. You know, we only ever enjoyed it,
you know, in little fragments here and there. But when
we got sent these DVDs from America, it was like
(22:21):
someone had designed this show that was like on our prototype,
and we were getting to enjoy it as fans, you know,
we would just sit there and laugh and enjoy it,
and and it was weird. It was like some kind
of weird competition where you write in, hey, would you
make a show about this? And they sort of mail
into you every week, you know, And so we were
very keen just as fans. We were keen to have
(22:43):
it keep on the air. So you liked it, you
like you like I liked it? Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I thought everyone was gray and honestly I was. I
was all in. Yeah. In season two, you know, one
of the things that you know was done. You talk
about veering from the British show, and I think a
major thing that happened there in season two was the
(23:05):
decision to soften Michael Scott, right, to not make him
exactly like David Brynn. I mean, David Brent to me
is a genius character that had a shelf life, right,
like after twelve episodes, it's hard for him to still
have a job, right and to have the show, to
have the show continue, you know, softening and bringing out
(23:26):
more of the humanity of Michael Scott. Were you in
support of that. Well, it's funny because I think again
it goes to what the traditions are in our two
countries in terms of comedy, and I think for years
in the U came in particular, there's been this long
tradition of TV comedies celebrating losers and sort of laughing
(23:47):
and losers often losers who have a slightly malevolent quality
or a selfishness to them. So I think back to
in the in the sixties, but the biggest TV star
in the UK was a guy called Tony Hancock whose
character was a kind of sort of failed actor who
was kind of snobbish and would happily, you know, screw
someone over for an opportunity, and that was that was
(24:08):
a show that cleared the streets when that was on,
you know. And then John Ketu's Basil Faulty in the seventies,
the kind of sort of obnoxious hotel manager. So there's
a long tradition in the UK of slightly unlikable leading
characters in comedy. A plus combined with the fact that
somehow in the UK we tolerated that bitter sweetness, that melancholy.
(24:30):
I mean, there was a show on that was a
big show in the UK when I was growing up
called Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? And it had
a theme chong and the opening lyrics of the theme
song of this this is a sitcom? Remember where was? Oh?
What happened to you? Whatever happened to me? What became
of the people we used to be? I mean it
was all about failed opportunities and and miss chances and
(24:53):
lives a life that could have been lived and everyone.
So there's that sort of tradition in the UK, and
I think traditionally in the US that has not been
so much the case in network TV. And when you
think of friends, the friends teemed true for instances very different.
You know, I'll be there for you, You'll be there
for So I think it seems sensible to me that
if they could rewire the Office at all, it would
(25:14):
just be to maybe downplay some of those more sort
of cynical, sour British elements and just start up a
bit more of that American can do right optimism, which
I felt they did without I think losing the fundamental
DNA of what makes the show work right. Mike Sure
(25:34):
specifically talked about Greg mentioning the show in season two
could exist exactly the same as as in the season one.
The episode could be exactly the same, but just at
you know, of just a little bit of hope, just
a little bit of positivity for Michael Scott to make
(25:55):
people at least potentially see some good in m whether
it's giving him a love interest, you know, you're finding
out he's actually he's actually good at his job in
a way, you know, like those kinds of things. Well.
I also think what both of the characters have in common, though,
is that behind all of the things which make them
(26:15):
kind of dislikable unlikable, they're not bad people. They're sort
of just a needy people, right, And that's their great
weakness is that they want to be your friend, but
they also want to be your boss. And that's the
thing which I think is what you when you dial
into that. I think what you know, Steve Corral managed
(26:36):
to do and the writers did was kind of bring
that out more, bring out that kind of that he's
a little boy really in a world of adults. And
once you die into that and you see that there
is a kind of lonely sweetness behind it all, then
I think you start to kind of really root for
the character. And I think Steve in particular has such
a likable quality. But the more they could being into
(26:57):
that part of Steve, the more popular thing of the
character be well you you know, you co wrote The Convict,
you directed Customer Survey, and in both of those episodes
actually that we see a very vulnerable side to Michael Scott.
And it's interesting that those two episodes were two that
you worked on a lot. That in The Convict that
he's upset that his employees think that prison is better
(27:20):
than his office, and you start to feel, isn't it
ironic that I mean, I know, I don't want to
sort of play you know, partisan politics, but I mean
I think whatever side of the political spectrum you're on,
you'd have to admit that there is a great deal
of that in in the current president of the United States,
(27:40):
and you know, Trump has this weird neediness to be
loved but also feared and respected, right, and it's a
very weird mix, and it never leads to happiness because
there's such a dark well, however much validation you get,
it doesn't matter how many good with you you get,
They're only obsessed about the one bad with you. And
(28:03):
I think that's sort of what Michael Scott and Donald
Trump share. And you know, and I think that's the
thing which always has made me find him so funny
as a character, because there's this never ending well of
neediness and you just keep you can keep traveling in
the compliments and the praise and the laughter, and it
will never be enough. And for whatever reason, I just
(28:26):
find that both adorable and hilarious at the same time
less iforable in the case of Donald Trump. But say
my point, um, well, I mean talking about politics, but
not talking about politics. I mean, the British Office itself
started with the premise of redundancy, right like, it's something
that's a serious issue for people. I mean, the idea
(28:48):
of of not having a job, and you know, the
American Office in the end examined that as well, but
also took on serious social topics, gay issues, healthcare, race relations,
that small businesses going under corporate greed. You know, by
by the end of our run, looking at the financial
(29:09):
crisis was looking at real issues. How did you feel
like that played out in the American version. I think
our starting point had always been just being true, making
true observations about our experience of office life, and we
had virgin offices, so we were trying to kind of
be particularly accurate about that, the way people interact with
(29:31):
the behaviors, the strange little training exercises you had to do,
and the and the sort of bureaucracy of it, and
the fact that this group of people were just arbitrarily
brought together and were then forced to sort of get on.
And as we said in that one of our episodes,
you know, you spend more time with those people than
you do your own friends and family. And so that
was I think the jumping off point for us was like,
(29:51):
could we make something that felt very truthful and people
recognized their working life in the show. And I think
what you guys were able to do because of the
share run of your show was just broaden that observation
out beyond the sort of parameters of the office into
those bigger ideas of you know, of relationships and and
marriage and career and how the bigger world impacts on
(30:15):
the smaller world. And you know, and obviously they were
able to expand the repertoire of the characters and so
you know, all of the characters, including your own, we're
sort of able to be explored and deepen. So it's
just I mean, one of the things I've always loved
about American shows is you just have so much more
reading space than air time. Just really delve into everything. Hi,
(30:47):
I'm Hillary Clinton and I'm excited to be back with
a new season of You and Need both. You know,
when we started this podcast, we were going through some
tough times, and let's face it, we still are. But
I am a firm believer we're stronger together. So please
join me for more conversations with people who will make
you think, make you laugh, and help us find a
(31:09):
path forward. Listen to you and me both on the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts. From Cavalry Audio, the studio that brought you
(31:32):
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(31:53):
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(32:14):
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(32:35):
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(32:56):
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(33:18):
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(33:39):
The office you know as you created might be the
greatest example in television history of cringe comedy. How would
you define cringe comedy? I think one of my great
flows is I it never occurred to me in a
way that this, this cringe comedy thing would would be
(34:00):
a label. It was not an intention to make people squirm.
It was it was just that for us, it was
so much funnier when someone who was trying to be funny,
for instance, said a joke and then you just heard
the silence, and then you just sat in the silence
for as long as possible. That I don't know why,
Ricky and I just found that so funny. And like,
(34:22):
for instance, there was a thing we used to say.
There was often if you come back to old episodes
of The Simpsons, you'll see like one of the Simpsons
characters will give a speech in front of the town
and the speech will bomb and it will just cut
to all the townsfolk and you'll just here, huh and
to whats that was so funny and so are our
attempt After all, the kind of David Brent's bad chokes
(34:43):
was just to sit in that uncomfortable silence, and that
just made us die with laughter. And it was only
when we started hearing from people, oh that made me
feel really uncomfortable, or I had to watch it through
my fingers. Only then did it occur to us or
maybe this is not always as enjoyable for people as
it is for us. And I think maybe it was
(35:03):
like I think if you work on a horror movie,
because you know the blood is faith and the knife
is not real, you can just keep adding more violence
and more bloodshed, right, and this is great, and then
when you watch it with an audience and it was
just horrible. And I think for us it was a
bit like that, like we just it was so funny
to us and just keep turning the screw and making
this world uncomfortable that we didn't occur to us that
(35:25):
people would find it cringeworthy until they started telling you to.
And then of course we just doubled down and then
we're like, oh, well, now, well now we're going to
really lay it off. Well, right, like there is I
mean just calling a spade a spade, right Like, there
is a difference between trying to tell a joke that
bombs or the Simpsons speech and you know, like a joke.
(35:47):
I can't remember the character, but I just heard this recently.
It was pulled up. But like a character telling David
Brent she's going on holiday and he says, exploring yourself,
like that is more just that is well, I guess
I guess that. I think it was just it was
just stay true to the character and this kind of
(36:11):
this neediness and this attempt to be liked in this
attempt to make connections, but also like slightly lastivious or
I mean the big problem for him, for the Dif
Brent character to some degree, Michal Scotts, they just didn't
know when to shut up, right or they just didn't
know what to say. And they were all but they
always had to be talking. You know, sometimes silence is golden,
(36:31):
but not for them. They just have to speak. And
they think they are great joke tellers. They think they're
great in conversation. They think they have great personalities. They
want to show off for the cameras that are filming them,
and so they never shut up. And it's one of
the great disparities between people who are like that. They
just don't realize how they're coming across to the world. Right. So, again,
(36:53):
to go back to Trump, Trump thinks he's killing it.
Every time he opens his mouth, he thinks he's crushing it.
He never goes back thinks, oh, man, I some of
what I said there was really garbled and doubloky, and
that didn't make much sense. He's not thinking that, he's thinking,
why didn't they love that? That was a great speech?
What's wrong with it? That's the weird gap between those people.
They said they can't see themselves as the rest of
(37:14):
the world season. So to me, it makes perfect sense
that those people would would say those things. And yes,
it is uncomfortable, I guess because those people are on
I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's that in real
life we just sort of tolerate them, or we walk
away or we ignore them, and in the TV world,
we just forced you to sit and watch this person, right, right.
(37:36):
I mean, it goes to the idea that they just
that both characters are truly just misguided in their approach,
and certainly, you know, Michael Scott is played by Steve
korrell Is. It was one of my favorite jo I've
told people, one of my favorite jokes that we ever
did on the Office was Michael Scott really trying to
(37:57):
have a bonding moment with Oscar and really wanting to understand,
you know, his way of life, and and asking him
what term would be less offensive than Mexican than calling
him Mexican, and Oscar saying there's nothing offensive about Mexican.
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, sure, but like, what's
something less offensive than to call you Mexican? And to me,
(38:20):
that is like like he truly just doesn't understand. He's
not trying to be he's trying to be woke right
or PC, and he just doesn't get it. But that
moment of cringe is like, but I think, you know,
in some ways predated this conversation that everyone has now
about sort of foke culture and appropriational those other things.
(38:43):
And at the time, certainly when we began Average and
it was the beginning of sort of political correctness in
the workplace and political critics being a very big buzzword,
and people there are certain terms that supposedly you weren't
like to use anymore, and the you know, in schools,
you couldn't refer to the board, you have to refer
to the chalkboard, and you know, and then the only
system rules that manhole cover had couldn't be called they
(39:05):
had to be called maintenance cover. And there was a
lot of sort of reaction to that and people saying, well,
you're you're policing us, and you're policing the way we speak.
And so there were a lot of people trying to
be woke before they that term was existing and just
not understanding and failing. And the reason they failed was
because you shouldn't have to try. You should just hold
(39:27):
someone like a person, and you shouldn't see their color
or their sexuality or anything else. And that was the problem.
That was why they were hung up, is they couldn't
they couldn't see them as anything other than a gay person,
a Mexican person, you know, personal color, whatever. They couldn't
see beyond that that was and so they their heart
may have been in the right place, but they were
they were still treating people as other right and as
(39:48):
long as you do that you do. Yes, I heard
something recently that I did not know that before. Greg
decided to oversee and come back for the last season,
and he asked you to show run. Is that true?
I remember, Yes, I remember him talking to me about
(40:09):
the idea of being involved with those latest seasons or
that last season. Yes, and I and I was very flattered,
And that would have it would have been enormous fun.
I think for me it was probably like it would
have been going back to the well of something you know,
perhaps you know too late, or I moved on in
my head, or for whatever reason. I think I just
felt like it would it would just be weird, or
(40:29):
I just wouldn't I didn't feel like it would be
the right move for me. But my god, it would
have been a blast. Yeah. I mean directing that episode
of Customer Survey was one of the most fun I've
had in in all of my career. I mean I
was only really around for a handful of weeks, but
just being in the writer's room for the first couple
of weeks and then on the splore with you guys,
I mean it was just so much fun. I mean
(40:51):
it really was. But in a weird way. I didn't
have the kind of responsibility that you'd have if you
were show running. You know, I could kind of dip
in and and just part of the fun without as
much of the responsibility. How is the writer's room different
than like, say, the writer's room in the UK, or
or how was that experience different? Well, of course, in
the UK traditionally, you know, British comedies are normally written
(41:15):
by one or two people. There's very rarely a big
writer's room. We don't do as many episodes, so there
isn't the need. So the British version of the office
was just me and Ricky sitting in a room for
six months, you know, hammering out the episodes, whereas you know,
coming to the US it was Graham and you've got
twelve or fifteen brilliant minds all throwing ideas around, these jokes,
sort of pinging around. And I mean, to me, as
(41:36):
a sort of fan of comedy and student of comedy,
particularly American comedy, just being in that environment and seeing
a different way of working and it was such a
thrill to me. In fact, I remember I was sharing
some stories from my own experience when I first started
working and I had thought about how I worked at
a call center and I've done training, and the guy
who was doing the training assigned us. He would send
(41:58):
us into one room and we'd have to make pretend
be a customer, and we would call one of the
other trainees he was another room, and they would be
the person at the call center, and we, as the
fake customers, would have to try and sort of practice
with them on how they could answer a call. And
I remember that the guy wouldn't let me do it
anymore because I was I was too nasty a customer,
because I really just I just kept on improvising as
(42:18):
just the worst person to have because I figured, if
I'm going to do customer training, I better deal with
the assholes. I'm gonna need that information. And so I
remembered selling that in the writer's room, and Lee and Jeans,
who the writers, went off and wrote a version of
that and gave it to Jim and to Dwight and Michael,
and they put that in the show, and so that
was that. I remember that being a real highlight of
(42:40):
sort of this weird old fragment of my life suddenly
being transposed onto ev. Did you like the way that
the American Office ended that the story ended, I thought,
I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was lovely. Yeah,
I thought it was really satisfying. And you know, no
one was machine gunned down. There was something and I think,
(43:00):
I think so stressing. I also thought that, you know,
when when Michael Scott left, I thought that was a
beautiful episode as well. I thought there was some really
fine episodes, you know, when when characters were leaving or
when the show was really playing on the emotions. And
I think again, that's one of the things I loved
about American shows was that at their best, they're like
(43:21):
soap operas with laughs. And I don't mean soap opera disparagingly.
I mean in the sense that you are so invested
in these characters in this world, and you keep coming back,
and you care about them and you love them, and
you want the best for them, and you have opinions
about them, and and that was what you know, those
nine seasons did so sweetly and so successfully, I think.
And so by the time the show leaves the air,
(43:44):
it's like these friends of yours have all moved away.
I mean it's sort of it's sad. What are you
most proud of in terms of its legacy. Honestly, you
can't begin to understand. When I was growing up America
and American TV was so remote to me, so distant,
it was something I I adored. I mean, I watched
(44:06):
shows that I loved, American shows I love religiously and
pickly sitcoms like the ones I've mentioned, Mash and Roseanne
and Frazier and Cheers and Friends. I mean I never
missed an episode, you know. I was there when the
new ones started airing in the UK. I remember watching
the first episode of Friends that the evening it aired
in the UK. I was with it from the beginning.
I watched every episode I was in, you know. And
so to me to have been involved with the show,
(44:29):
which which is that for American audiences and for worldwide
audiences and is and it's taken to their heart in
the same way that I took shows like that to mine.
That's the biggest thrill for me. It's to be part
of that family of American TV comedy, you know, and
put in the lineage of those other shows is such
an overwhelming thrill for me. That's awesome. One last question,
(44:53):
very final thing that's said In the American version of
the Office is the talking Head by Pam To paraphray,
she basically says that she thought it was weird when
somebody came and wanted to do a documentary on these
people who worked in a paper company. But she says,
in the end, I think it was a good idea
because there's beauty in ordinary things, and isn't that kind
(45:16):
of the point. And I think that, you know, Greg
Daniels wrote that and to him that was the point.
Do you have an idea of what was the point? Well?
I think you know, like with any good any good arts,
if you can call TV sitcoms art, any good comedy,
and any kind of art, it's about making us feel
(45:38):
connected as people and and reminding us of the things
which connects us and the and the similarities we have.
And that's that's the great joy. That's the pleasure it
brings that the connectivity that it provides, and that's why
people love to laugh in a group in a comedy
club or in a movie there because they want the
shared experience of laughter is unifying. So to me, that's
(46:00):
what the show does is people they relate to the characters,
or they see a version of themselves or a version
of the person they could have been, or they say,
that's just like my brother in law, that's just like
the guy I work with. That stuff makes you feel
like there's other people that think like you, you know,
and they're living in the world and experiencing the world
like you, And it makes you feel less alone. And
(46:21):
that's that's why I'm a fan of stuff, and I
think hopefully that's why people are a fan of this show. Steven,
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to me for real. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I
hope you stay safe over there and stay home and
I don't know, sometimes soon we'll go to another Clippers game. Great.
(46:47):
H that's all for this week, everybody. I hope you
enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I mean,
is it just me or do British people sound way
smarter than other people? I feel smarter after hearing that conversation. Anyhow,
(47:10):
Thank you so much to Stephen for joining me. I
truly appreciate it, And to the rest of you. Tune
in next week to hear my conversation with the other
half of this dynamic duo, This comedic genius duo Ricky Gervais.
You won't want to miss that. And if you're liking
this podcast, well don't forget to subscribe or follow in
(47:35):
whatever podcast app you were using. I don't know, maybe
even leave us a review, rate us highlight if you're
feeling inspired. But until next time, everybody, please have a
great week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and executive
(47:57):
produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our producer is Emily Carr,
and our assistant editor is die Go Tapia. My main
man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song
Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,
(48:18):
and the episode was mixed by seth Olanski. Hello, this
(48:41):
is Christina Hutchinson and Karin Fisher. We're thrilled to announce
that our show, guys, We the Anti flut Schaming Podcast,
is returning to wide release. That's right, every Friday we
talked to one of our favorite comedians or an expert
in the field of sexuality, love and relationships to hear
what all the fos are about. Subscribe now and listen
to the Luminary original podcast. Guys, We've starting January one
(49:05):
on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever
you get your podcasts. From the creator of The Bright Sessions,
comes a new fiction podcast for all ages. When a
fellow student vanishes, Max starts to look into the disappearance.
Her investigation draws her deep into the dark woods around
Hastings and even deeper into the secrets and lies. The
(49:25):
course through the veins of this sleepy town, This New
Y a mystery from writer director Lauren Chippen, is an
audio drama with heart and wit that involves the audience
in a way no fiction podcast ever has. Listen to
MAXI Miles on the I Heeart radio app, Apple podcasts
or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Arden Marine
from Insatiable and will you accept This Rose Podcast? And
(49:45):
I'm Julianne Robinson, an Emmy nominated director of Bridgeton. And
we are the hosts of Lady of the Road, a
funny and inspiring podcast where we have conversations with influential
women about their lives and we get self help advice
because we are always looking to improve ourselves. True story,
we talk about money, health, relationships, you name it, from
inspiring women like Joan Jet, Nicole Buyer, Lauren Lapiz, Rtta
(50:07):
and more. Listen and subscribe to Lady of the Road
on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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