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 · last 12 months

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

She always talked about the shaman.

And I always loved that, that she compared actors to shaman.

And it sounds a little self-important, but what it does is...

then it elevates being an actor.

I'm not just someone who memorizes lines and tries to make them sound convincing.

I'm someone that gets to play all kinds of roles in theater, in film, in TV, in spoken word, gets to use language and tell stories that help shape our culture.

And I was really fortunate with The Office because

those genius writers wrote the words that I got to use to help shape culture.

I remember when we were, I was talking to Greg Daniels early on.

I'm like, what do you hope to do with The Office?

And he goes, you know, American comedy is really bad right now.

I want to move American comedy like one degree in the right direction.

It's like steering the Titanic.

You have to move it by one degree and then it ends up going in the right direction.

And guess what?

He succeeded.

More than a degree, you reinvented American comedy.

Amazing.

So...

As I allowed myself more and more to be a shaman, I'm like, oh, you know, I've got a platform because I'm an actor.

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