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

I didn't even get rejected from that because I couldn't even get the audition.

That's how low on the acting totem pole I was.

But I took this comedy show that my friends and I had created in New York

which we called a slacker vaudeville, and it was these weird clowns in this kind of surrealist Pee Wee Herman landscape doing sketch comedy, and we brought it to LA in 1999, and I moved there, and then a lot of doors started opening, and then I started

slogging along in the world of television and film, and after a nice run on Six Feet Under, which was on HBO at the time, and that just opened a ton of doors for me, and it's been an incredible ride ever since.

Yeah, it has.

Okay, so tell us about your office audition.

How did that happen?

I had been cast in another TV show and I had my plane ticket and I was flying to Vancouver to go start shooting the next day.

And there was a TV executive that I knew and I was like, oh, hi.

And he was like, oh, I'm so excited.

We just got the rights to the British office to make the American version.

And I was like,

Oh, that's great, congratulations.

Oh, and inside I was kicking myself because I loved the English office.

So we had the table read and it went terribly.

And I got home and I got a call and they said they canceled the show.

tear up your plane ticket.

And I was like, yes!

So I picked up the phone, like, hey, they're doing this office.

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