Watching The Office

Because his movie, The Rocker, is opening today, August 20th; and because we want to acknowledge his work; and because we want a lot of people to watch this movie (and have Jenna free, now!) — we’re dedicating this day to Rainn Wilson.

Rainn Wilson plays Word Association. When he thinks of Michael Scott, he thinks “God”. When he thinks of Jim Halpert, guess what he thinks? And there’s a succeeding follow up to that, with this lengthy interview displaying his hilarious brand of humor.

• If you started a band tomorrow, what would you title the group and your debut album?
  I would call it The Rainn Wilson Band and my first album would be called, “The Rainn Wilson Experience.” And the first single would be called, “It’s All About  Me.”
• But it’s not a solo project.
  Oh, no, no. It would be a band. It’s all about the band.

Another interview for his film. He revealed he actually knows a bit about reading music and has played in a band in high school.

• “I had a little bit of experience when I went to New Trier Township High School (in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill.). There was a short-lived band I was in called Collective Moss. We only played two gigs. We were the world’s worst cover band. We were just awful. But I could read music and that’s how I learned the tracks for ‘The Rocker’. I would tape the ‘score’ on the drum set and learn to play that way. This made it easier for me to pick up the rhythm.”

Wanna see how good he is at playing drums thought? Watch this video. And read this interview on USA Today.

• “There is always this fear in Hollywood that, ‘Oh, characters need to be likable and relatable.’ And I don’t know if that’s necessarily the case. I think that characters need to be human and they need to be recognizable, but they don’t have to necessarily be likable,” he says. “That opens a whole world of comic possibilities. I enjoy playing essentially unlikable characters and really committing to it and digging in.”

Rainn Wilson isn’t ashamed of being a late bloomer, just like his character on The Rocker according to this article.

• During those formative years, he did everything from Shakespeare in the Park to experimental off-Broadway plays. But not once did the 42-year-old ever play the drums, so hours of training were required to master the rock bashing for his headbanger part in the movie. “When I first got the script I laughed out loud at the physical comedy.” While Wilson admits that growing up in a small town outside of Seattle he “was more into Violent Femmes and Black Flag than the Stones and Led Zeppelin,” he enjoyed learning the rock style of drumming. “There was a certain kind of free-spirited, freewheeling idiocy that I could relate to,” he says.

This isn’t related to the movie, but you probably wanna see this video of him, hosting a show called Book Chat.