Rainn Wilson

speaker

443 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 26 Jul

Rainn Wilson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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TED Talks Daily · Sunday Pick: The Office’s Rainn Wilson on meaning and happiness | ReThinking with Adam Grant · 26 Jul 2026 podcast

So I appeared younger, but I was older.

But by the time the office was really kind of off and running, I was in my early 40s.

And one of the great things about Dwight is you can't really put your finger on how old he is.

Sometimes he seems like he's 25 and sometimes he seems like he's 45.

So it's just kind of this general area.

But yeah, it was very interesting for me to achieve fame kind of in my 40s after a long, long slog of trying to pay my bills and be a professional actor.

That's what happened to John and Jenna and Mindy and BJ.

I'm kidding.

Well, it's something I've talked about a little bit recently and has been blown completely out of proportion.

I talked about how at times, not all the time, at times, I was very, very unhappy while doing The Office.

Here I am in a job that is beyond my wildest dreams.

Here I am making millions of dollars, making people laugh, I'm being nominated for Emmys, movies are being offered to me, development deals, all kinds of amazing opportunities that if you had cut back to six years before, it's me not even being able to get the Law and Order

A janitor, audition, let alone the job.

So it was an incredible transformation in my life.

And it did go to my head.

There were a lot of times when I was really wrestling with my ego and when I was very unhappy because it wasn't enough.

And it goes to that kind of essential human not enoughness that we're often dealing with where we can't just...

100% and absolutely be in total kind of grace and gratitude for the gifts that we have that are right in front of us, but we're always yearning and longing for the thing that's just outside of our grasp.

In this case, like, why didn't my movies work?

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