Rainn Wilson says he was “mostly unhappy” playing Dwight Schrute on The Office.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Wilson was speaking with Bill Maher on his Club Random podcast when he revealed he was largely unhappy while filming the hit NBC sitcom as he wanted to be a movie star rather than work in television. “When I was in The Office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough,” Wilson said.
“I’m on one of the great TV shows,” he continued. “People love it. I wasn’t enjoying it. I was thinking about, ‘Why am I not a movie star? Why am I not the next Jack Black or the next Will Ferrell? How come I can’t have a movie career? Why don’t I have this development deal?’”
Will Ferrell and Jack Black Both Appeared on The Office
Black and Ferrell both appeared on The Office during the course of its run from 2005 to 2013. Black made a guest appearance in “Stress Relief,” the 13th episode of the series’ fifth season. In the episode, he appeared alongside Cloris Leachman and Jessica Alba in a fake film Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) were streaming on Andy Bernard’s (Ed Helms) laptop.
Ferrell, meanwhile, was introduced in the latter half of the show’s seventh season as Michael Scott’s replacement after Steve Carell announced he was departing the show. While Ferrell’s character did take over after Carell left, his stint as Dunder Mifflin’s manager was relatively short after a basketball-related injury sent him to the hospital.
Despite primarily being known as Dwight in The Office, Wilson appeared in several films while the show was still on the air, including 2006’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend, 2007’s Juno, 2009’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and 2010’s Super. Since The Office ended, Wilson has starred in 2014’s Cooties, 2017’s Smurfs: The Lost Village, 2018’s The Meg, and 2022’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
