Rainn Wilson Admits He Wasn’t Happy While Filming The Office: ‘It Wasn’t Enough’

When it comes to his run on The Office, actor Rainn Wilson didn’t realize he was in the good old days until he’d actually left them. Based on the original BBC series, The Office first launched on NBC in 2005. Created by Greg Daniels, the American adaptation was a tremendous hit, going on for nine seasons while scoring high viewership and numerous award wins. The show would end in 2013, and throughout its entire run, Wilson memorably starred as Dwight Schrute, one of the workplace comedy’s most popular characters.

In a new interview on the podcast Club Random with Bill Maher, Wilson reflected on his time working on The Office. He revealed that he wasn’t happy for most of the show’s run, as he couldn’t stop himself from always desiring something more. As Wilson tells Maher, he remembers how it wasn’t good enough at the time that he was starring on a popular series that was bringing in Emmy wins, as he was only wondering why he wasn’t instead starring in his own feature films. Of course, he now realizes how wonderful it was to have been a part of that phenomenon.

“When I was in The Office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough,” Wilson says. “This is what I’m looking at now, and I’m realizing now, like, I’m on a hit show, Emmy nominated every year, making lots of money working with, like, Steve Carell, and Jenna Fisher, and John Krasinski, and these amazing writers and incredible directors like Paul Feig. I’m on one of the great TV shows. People love it.”

With that said, Wilson continued, “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?’ … When I was on The Office, I was clutching and grasping at okay, I was making hundreds of thousands. I wanted millions, and I was a TV star, but I wanted to be a movie star. It was never enough. Humans have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, and never enough has helped us as a species.”

Related: Rainn Wilson Recalls Nearly Missing Out on The Office Casting

Rainn Wilson Had No Idea The Office Would Become So “Therapeutic” for Fans

What’s helped is how much fans have let Wilson know how much they’ve loved the show. Maher himself says he’s a huge fan, and the show has been “therapeutic.” Wilson admits that he never imagined hearing anything like that when he was first cast on the show, just hoping at the time that he’d make enough money to buy a new house.

“I think the word you used, ‘therapeutic,’ is really interesting because I can’t tell

you how many times a day online and in person I hear from people, ‘Thank you for

The Office, the laughter that it gave me, that it gave my family, healed us during COVID.’ When I signed up for The Office, it’s like, I want to buy a house, Bill Maher, I want to buy a house.”

You can check out the full interview with Wilson below.