Lotto with Mark Proksch

I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on the office together and we're best friends, and now we're doing the ultimate office rewatch podcast just for you.

Each week, we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you.

We're the office ladies.

Yes, are you guys ready to get lucky?

It's season 8, episode 3.

Way to go.

Would you like a summary?

You know, I would.

When the warehouse crew win the lottery and quit their jobs, the upstairs employees are left to pick up the slack until a new crew can be hired. Erin, Jim, Dwight and Kevin can't seem to figure out how to load boxes of paper into a delivery truck. It takes them all day and then they don't even finish.

All day.

Not just all day, but they become like Wile E. Coyote, trying to build some kind of device to load them. It's just it's bonkers.

In the meantime, a very depressed Daryl issues an ultimatum to Andy. He says, Fire me or make me manager.

Yeah.

And then the rest of the gang fantasize about what they would do if they had won the lottery, which causes a little friction between Pam and Jim. They have dueling fantasies.

Yeah, they don't get along in their fantasy lives.

They don't, which? Normally you would think that your marriage is even better and stronger in your fantasy life, but not so.

Or in your fantasy life, is it more clear? Because you have options?

Oh, oh, that's a very like, therapist-y thing to say, Angela.

We have wanted to talk to him for a while and this is not the last time we're talking to him. Because we have more to ask Mark about as the seasons progress.

And I know that we always say that everybody is so nice and amazing. But I think you're going to hear in this interview that Mark is like, at the top, yeah, he's the best.

He's 100 real deal, and here you go. Here's our conversation with Mark.

MArK Hello, welcome to office ladies.

Thank you guys for having me, I really appreciate it.

Well, we are so excited to talk to you. We are really enjoying Nate and Nate has some real fun stuff coming up and we just know the fans can't wait to hear from you.

Well, that's exciting. I've been waiting a long time to get my chance to talk on office ladies, so here we go.

Well, Mark, when your character was introduced, we told a little bit of your origin story, but I just want you to tell it again, in your own words, from the beginning. This is our favorite question to ask our guests How did you get your job on the office?

I quite honestly backed into it. I was unemployed, living in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, and I had this idea to make my friends laugh. Which was go on. Morning News shows as a character, and a character that would be inept and clumsy. But the main thing was that the anchors and the news station had no idea I was in character now. I had never taken acting classes or anything like that. I just thought it would be funny and so I would go on these morning shows as this yo-yo master, which is funny. K.

K. Strauss, the yo-yo master who was not a master of the yo-yo.

No, because I can't yo-yo, I'm not even a big fan of yo-yoing, and so I would get on and start rambling about my chaotic personal life. And finally, they would ask me to do a demonstration, and that would go horribly wrong. The idea was to do 10 or 11 or 12 of these. And if you watch them all in a row, you would get this kind of strange story arc about this guy's life. All told through two-minute, one-minute segments on morning shows.

Now I have to stop you because you're saying you never took any acting classes. Did you take, like improv or sketch comedy? No.

No, I never did any of that.

Or what about, like a writing class, because there is a real story arc there.

Yeah, it's.

I'm so fascinated by this.

Okay, so I did these appearances, and like I said, the idea was to do 10, 11, 12 and to get a story arc. And what I didn't expect was for people to start posting them on YouTube. And this was back in 2010, and so there were still videos that could really catch fire and become viral, and the Kay Strauss Morning Show appearances became viral.

Oh my gosh.

And all of a sudden, I'm talking to Toby from the office and a month later, they flew me out. I met with the writers and a month after that, I was on the show.

I mean, that's crazy.

The real crazy thing here.

Yeah.

The writer that reached out was my now wife, Amelie Gillette, who had just started writing on the show a couple weeks before all this blew up.

So you got an arc on the office and a wife out of this.

The Yo-yo.

The yo-yo idea that was just meant to entertain your friends. It's an incredible story.

You know, you don't hear too many stories like this anymore, you know, it's usually, oh, I was working for 12, 15 years. Yeah, you know, I started in commercials and what have you? And I feel kind of guilty because it was kind of overnight, almost.

So you had seen the office before you got cast, obviously.

Oh yeah.

What was it like to walk onto the set?

You know, the first person I met from the cast was Rain and....

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

I can't imagine what that was like.

Now you guys can say that because he is the sweetest, nicest, most genuine person.

I know he's just a good, good soul.

Exactly, and so, you know, it could have gone to one of two ways and after now. I've been acting for, you know, quite a few years now and I've, as a guest star, have gone on many shows. The cast is either welcoming or they can be a little cold and a little distance. Because here comes a new face, and that's time away from you as an actor and your character.

Well, you know, this episode We're breaking down is the lotto, but we all felt like we won the lottery ticket, you know, the minute we were cast. Yeah, so I love hearing that because that's how we felt on set. We were just really happy to be there and counted ourselves lucky every day. But Mark, we wanted to ask you if you have any favorite memories or behind the scene moment or anything you would want to share from your time on the show.

Gosh, there's so many, you know? Any time I could get one of you guys to break, I was a feather in my cap. Especially as, you know, a person just starting out in acting. I felt like, you know, there was a scene I remember with Jenna where she's grilling me.

I think it was in season nine. Vandalism. We're down in the warehouse. Yeah, it's one of my strongest memories of breaking.

And we just had so much fun and it's such a fond memory for me. That that moment, you know, the first day on the show, or my first time ever in front of a set, in front of a crew filming. I had to knock down a beehive that was in front of the office. And that was the first time I had ever acted in my life professionally or in front of a crew. And all of a sudden you're in front of 35 people, 40 people all looking at you.

Wow.

Well, I just remember all of us being very enamored with you in scenes. You were this character and you had this way about you. That was so unique and so deeply funny. It was so deeply funny to me, Mark, the way you did, Nate.

It was so earnest, yes, so earnest, and you had this in it.

And real.

And yes, you would do this thing that Steve did. That was really hard for me. You have a look that comes across your face, I can't really explain it, but Steve has it as well. And if I catch your eye when you kind of do this, it's this expression of like, huh?

Well, good Lord, that's high praise. Yeah, you know, it may just be my dumb face, but I'll take the compliment. thank you.

No.

It just I believed everything you were saying. That's what it is.

In rewatching the show, another scene that I remember that was just insane. That I got to be in with you as well was the the toilet paper machine scenes, where you had to unply and reply the toilet paper. Do you remember that thing?

Oh, absolutely, that was. That's one of the most reference scenes I get when people come up to me. But yeah, that I just remember being shown the contraption and how to work it. And I just thought, Wow, this is, this is a lot of work for a quick joke.

I believe it.

We have people like Wrote in that asked us how it was built, like they're just fascinated by all of it. And Phil Shea in the props department.

Yeah, you know, it's one of those things that I look back on. And I again, I think, gosh, what a show to just come in on that everyone's loving what they're doing. Every department was in love with the show. And you don't realize how rare that is until you start working on other stuff. And they didn't look at it as just a nine to five.

When people ask you about your time on the office, what are some of the most frequently asked questions, like, What do people want to know?

People would often ask, Did you guys break all the time? Was it always really fun to be on set? And I also get a lot of, you know, are the characters like that in real life? are the actors like their characters? Which is still fascinating today that we get these types of questions. Because, you know, you hear of stories of people writing into. I love Lucy being mad at Ricky for treating his wife that way.

Maybe a little.

Maybe a little is Brian dumb? It's like, No, Brian's a very smart guy.

Do you still get recognized as Nate?

I do, which is crazy to me, because I'm, you know, 10 years heavier and doughier than I was back then. The really surprising thing is the age, and I'm sure you guys are getting this as well, probably far more than I am. Younger people that come up to me, teenagers and people in their early 20s who love the show. We were in Italy just last week and I went into a wine shop there and it was a young guy behind the counter.

Well, you have some fun episodes coming up, so we are going to keep pestering you because there's one or two. I don't want to give it away, but Dwight Angela wedding moments that I want to ask you about.

Yeah, some of those episodes.

Nate, I thank you so much for coming on office, ladies, and sharing your story with us. You know, in my book that I wrote, which is The Actor's Life A Survival Guide, it's like advice for aspiring actors. You were kind enough to let me share your story in that book as well. Because I think like, there's a lot of people who are anywhere in the world and they have these artistic things inside of them that they want to express. And I think you're such a great example of just doing it, just expressing it for no even known goal, just because the world needs laughter and artists and creativity.

Oh, thank you, I really appreciate that. I truly, truly believe that if you do good work, if you have a point of view. And you're truly interested and passionate about your take on comedy or drama, or anything, or in acting. I wholeheartedly believe that the cream rises to the top and that people will take notice, especially nowadays. There's so many different ways to show your talent out there and show your creativity. Don't get disheartened by all the floxam and Jutsam that is out there.

Yeah, I so agree, I so agree. It's not just the idea, but it's a call to action. If you have it to try it, you know, and put it out there.

Absolutely.

Mark, Is there anything that you're working on now that we could share with our listeners where they could see you doing more stuff?

Yeah, I'm currently on a show called What We Do In the Shadows. We're going into our fifth, well, the fifth season's about to drop on FX, and we're going to be filming the sixth season in the fall. So that's what I've been working on.

Well, Mark, we just absolutely adore you. We definitely want you back on office ladies, and if there's ever anything we can give a shout out to or uplift, we're here for you.

Well, I really appreciate you guys. Having me on. This has been fun to reminisce, but also just has been so great to get to see you two, yeah.

Will you tell Amelie? We said hello as well.

Absolutely, she was excited, I was doing this, so yay.

We are back, let's jump right in. It looks like everybody has gone to get coffee, not at Dwight's caffeine corner. Where did they go?

ANGELA I love how they're walking up with these drinks, as if there is some business around the corner where they purchase these items. When we know that the only thing around that hedge is a junkyard.

Yeah, and a train track.

Yes, but you're right, they have come back with these, I guess, blended drinks and they're going to come upon Oscar. Who has noticed that there is a dog inside of a car and he is outraged?

He is ready to just go off. I mean, what classic snowboarder move? Leave your dog in the car with the windows up.

Yeah, probably didn't leave his weed in the car.

Nope.

Well, Oscar ends up smashing the window, but then not letting the dog out and then taping up the window. Oh, he's also smashed the taillight of the car for good measure.

Let's just pump the brakes for one second. Dwight pours his milkshake through the sunroof. This means the sunroof is open. This means, you know, not great, that the dog's in the car, but there's an open sunroof. The dog is not, in fact, enclosed, with no air.

We got a fan mail flurry about that, Angela.

Well, good.

Also, the sunroof is clearly letting in more air than Oscar's cardboard window, with holes in it. Yeah.

You know, Jenna, I had an alternate pitch for the title of this episode.

Oh, what is it?

So much, Sass.

So much, Sass.

Yeah, it starts with Oscar, it's going to continue, and I'm going to point out the sass the whole way through.

I will look forward to that. So, in addition to the fan mail flurry about the Sunroof being open, we got a lot of fan questions about this cold open. And I'm happy to say that Steve Burgess gave us all the answers. Are you ready?

Yes, go, Steve.

Our first question comes from Maddie, in College Station, Texas, who wanted to know. How hot was it on the day that the dog was in the car? And how was the stunt done to ensure that the dog did not get overheated? In real life, Steve told me that the weather that day was a sunny 88 degrees, however, we shot first thing in the morning, so it was a bit cooler.

Oh yeah, it probably would have been like in the 60s.

Yes, that's how the days go here in L.A. They start out cool jacket weather, then it's shorts and t-shirt, and then by evening you're putting that jacket back on again. Steve said that the dog was only in the car for the shots, that we see him, that he actually did not spend very much time in the car at all. Same thing goes for Brian, who gets in his own car.

Yeah, as Kevin.

He wasn't sure if we had pointed this out on a previous podcast, but Kevin's car was Veda's car in real life.

Oh, really.

Our script supervisor, Yes.

No.

This was a rented car from Cinema Vehicles, Steve said. The car did get pretty messy, They had to clean it up. They also had a glass guy who was standing by to put new glass windows in, but they were the Fakie glass windows, he said. We were able to do the glass breaking in only two takes.

Scooched over to the other side, Yeah.

Yeah, but at one minute, two seconds, it's very clear that there is no dog in there. And then, you know, even though it was tempered glass, that didn't have any sharp edges. They cleaned all that out and then put the dog back into the car for the rest of the scene. And that's how we did it.

There you go. Ultimately, you know, no one wants to adopt the dog, so they do leave the dog in the car with an open sunroof and the cardboard hole. Punchy things. And I just want to know whose car was that and who walked back to that car.

Wouldn't you come in the building and complain or file a police report? I mean, it's not going to be that difficult to figure out who vandalized this car.

First thing I would do is be like, Well, first of all, I would go into the, you know, the building and say, Hank, whose car is that? There's a dog in it? That's what I would do, first of all. No, not our office crew.

You wouldn't smash the window open with a tire. Iron, Angela.

No, no, I'd find who it was and then shame them.

That would have worked well for your episode. So much, Sass.

I know.

So much shame could be another episode.

So much shame back in the bullpen. We're going to find out that the warehouse has won the lottery. I mean, they won $950,000, it's about $100,000 a person and they all quit.

Well, $100,000 before taxes.

Well, that's true, that's true, but they quit, they're like, we're out of here, I mean, they come up and celebrate.

Yeah, we got a fan question from Eli and Avery W. from Lake County, B..C. At the very beginning. When the warehouse people win the lottery, they pick up meredith. Was that scripted?

You know what it was scripted? Here is what it said in the shooting draft. B-roll. The warehouse guys burst into the office cheering and hugging.

Oh.

Yeah, he didn't pick her up. Meredith just wanted to join in the party.

Well, Daryl's ex Justine is going to call him and congratulate him on his lotto win, but Daryl has to explain. He wasn't part of the lottery pool anymore. Because of his promotion, he doesn't participate. So now she would like Glenn's number.

He's like, Oh, I have it right here. Click.

This is where he explains that they won playing his birthday, could you even imagine?

No, that would sting, that would sting a little bit, you know? This cracked me up, Jenna. Because there's been time to time that, you know, we'll go and get a lottery ticket, you know? Like, it hits a big number and the kids are like, this is kind of fun and we just get one.

It's very common.

We never win. And I was really curious, do most people play birthdays and anniversaries and special numbers? And I started googling and oh my goodness what lady, just the world of lottery and the numbers.

Wait, these are the most common winning numbers.

That are drawn, yeah, not necessarily all together, but these are the numbers that hit the most ready.

I'm going to get a pen and some paper, I'm going to write these down.

Look, I wrote them down for us and after this podcast today, I'm going to go get us a lottery ticket.

This is awesome.

OK, ready.

Yes.

22, 11, 9, 10, 4, and 19.

13, 17 and 24 are numbers I always play and those are like my favorite numbers.

Remember them for the Mega. Meanwhile, stay clear of 21, 45, 55, and 51 when choosing your first five numbers.

Why? Because they never get picked.

They're not as popular.

This is so weird because it's obviously totally random. Every number has an equal opportunity to pop up, so it is fascinating to me that there are certain numbers that pop up so much more than others.

Yes, and listen, most people that win, 70 of people that win the lottery did. Where the computer picks for you? Do you know what I mean?

Really.

Yes, 70 of winners didn't even pick their own numbers. So it is incredibly random. But this is what some data is showing and I'm sharing it.

This is fascinating to me. It's making me think that there's something in the balls. You know? There's like, a like, maybe a little, the way the balls were made, you know, the 69 ball.

I don't know that there's a conspiracy, but.

I'm not saying anybody planned it, I'm just saying, maybe it happened, maybe maybe. They're slightly, slightly, just ever so like a millimeter smaller or something, I don't know.

I don't know.

Has anyone measured them? I don't know.

Jenna, Have you ever known anyone that's won the lottery? like, really won? not like, just like $2 or something? No, okay.

Do you?

I know that I bring up 1-800-dentist a lot, I know, but guess what, a lot happened there.

$120 million.

Yes, yes, Jenna, she was an inspiring actress. Working at 1-800-dentist, like so many of us, because they had good hours if you wanted to audition. She played the lottery and her and another person who she didn't know won, so they split it.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, how are you doing? She's doing great.

She bought a farm she has, like, a, I don't know. I think she grows avocados or avocado oil. Yeah, can you imagine?

No, I wouldn't want to win that amount of money, I don't want that responsibility.

Yeah, well, you know, we have an office crossover to the lottery kind of, which is Jeff Blitz, our director, who we love, did a documentary about lotto winners. It's so good. It's called Lucky. It came out in 2010..

It is an amazing, amazing documentary.

Yeah, but kind of like what you were saying. There are some people that are like, the pressure of winning that, you know, it completely can derail their life, and some people know. But it's just very fascinating all of it.

Well, here's the thing I did. A whole deep dive on the lottery as well. I hate to bog everybody down with more lottery facts. But in this next scene, everybody starts discussing kind of what they would do if they won the lottery. Everybody's fantasizing about it.

Yeah, I called this the scene of sass and belly itching.

Please explain.

Well, at three minutes and 21 seconds. I'm standing behind Dwight and I just am scratching that fake pregger belly because it was so itchy and I am futzing with it through the whole scene.

Well, we had a fan catch from Kaylee Ian in Indianapolis, who had a wardrobe catch for this scene. Everyone is in purple Phyllis, Angela Kelly, Oscar, Aaron and Meredith are all wearing purple in this scene. So you can add purple to your Sass belly scratch observation.

Okay, well, the sass starts with Pam. She says to Jim, You know, he's explaining what he would do. He would, you know, live in Maine. And bike or kayak to work, or work at a bike shop and kayak anyway, lots of biking and kayaking.

I loved that line. I also noticed how it's Pam's dream to one day live in New York, and it's my dream too. I wrote that down.

I wrote that down.

I said, Jenna, you and Pam are aligned in this moment, although Pam brings back her dream of having a terrace.

She does, she needs to have, like a balcony off of her townhouse slash loft apartment in New York. Yeah, that's remember in boys and girls.

She wanted the terrace.

Yes, well, what's really funny about this is that I did not have the dream of retiring in New York when we shot this episode. So I have only later in life had this in common with Pam.

Yeah, well, there's still more sass to come because now Meredith is going to say, get a divorce, get a divorce.

Yes, well, here's the thing I got curious about, and it was a little bit because I remembered that documentary that you mentioned that Jeff Blitz did. Is winning the lottery really a good thing for your life?

Yeah.

And according to an article on MoneyMarshmallow.

Wow.

So many of them go bankrupt, and they believe it's for the following reasons one, lack of money management skills, two, treating your lottery winnings as quote free money. And so, rather than spend it on things like paying off your debt or other bills, you do sort of like lavish, spontaneous spending, like buy a sports car.

Taxes, that's a big one.

Yeah, all right, that's it. That's what I learned about the lottery, and also can I give a shout out to my son who helped me deep dive the lottery? And he typed it all into my document.

How adorable, how adorable is that? Andy is really getting frustrated because no one is working, they can't focus because of this. Warehouse crew winning the lottery and Daryl is totally checked out.

ANGELA We had a fan catch from Miranda B in Florida who said the same thing, Yes, Miranda Andy. This is a seriously big ardor.

Yes, it's so strong.

Well, Phyllis says, Daryl, I sent you an email about it and he says, I haven't read it. For our work week, Do you know what that is? That is a reference to a real book by Tim Ferriss called The 4-hour Work Week.

Were you only work four hours for a whole entire week? Yes, how?

All right, I'll tell you, I read it. I read this book, Angela, when we were daydreaming about reinventing our lives and creating new careers for ourselves, where we worked the hours we wanted, when we wanted.

Yeah.

So here is a one sentence summary of the book. This is from an online review quote. The 4-hour work week is the step-by-step blueprint to free yourself from the shackles of a corporate job. Create a business to fund the lifestyle of your dreams and live like a millionaire without actually having to be one.

Ok.

So in the book, he encourages you to first think about the life you want, not the job you want. What life do you want? Do you want to be a person who can travel all the time? Do you want to be a person who lives in, you know, a little town in Italy? And then, once you figure out what you want your life to look like, then he says. Here's how you fund your life by doing as little work as possible, so that life is first and then job is second.

Ok.

I really enjoyed the book. But one of the things that he has in the book is that. You only answer your emails for, like, a scheduled period of time, you don't check your email all day. It's like a little minutiae thing. And that is why Daryl has not read his email from Phyllis is because he's following the advice in this book well, however, Daryl would have quit his job first.

I'm going to check it out, I'm not done with my SAS tracker.

Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to get us off on that.

Yeah, please, please, don't interrupt my important SAS tracker, you know? Andy says we're going to need a crew in the warehouse because Phyllis has got to fill her. Ardor and Aaron volunteers. No one else is volunteering, but Andy volunteers. Kevin and we're going to have some Kevin SAS.

You mean, when she goes up to Pam at reception with the old clipboard?

She's pranking Pam, you know, her big pregs, little pregs. prank. Pam's like, Oh, come on, this is a lottery pool. This isn't about guessing my baby's weight.

It's my mistake.

So much Angela Sas.

Yes, Angela had written down on the lottery pool that she thought Pam was going to have a 14 pound baby. Yeah, you know what, in real life, my son who was inside my belly for this scene when he was born, he was almost 10 pounds.

I know.

The nurses brought him in and they were like, is this a three month old or a newborn? I was like, I don't know why he's so large.

One of my favorite pictures is a picture of your son as a baby, next to my daughter as a toddler, and he's her size. I know that's so cute.

We put that in our book. I know I love it. Well, next up, Andy's going to go into Daryl's office, and Daryl is very despondent.

It's a very heavy smell. I probably should not have wanted a taco during this speech. It makes them not sound very, I don't know, appetizing, but after this speech, I just wanted a taco.

That's all I wanted. Did you get one?

No, no, and I've been thinking about it and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a taco today.

Well, don't eat it in an enclosed space.

Okay, noted.

I don't want you to have a taco smell that lingers. But Andy is going to say, why don't we look at some applicants? I mean, we need warehouse crew.

Yeah, yeah.

But I don't know, Daryl is just despondent.

Yeah, he's not being Daryl.

Well, speaking of warehouse crew, our new warehouse crew of Jim and Dwight and Erin and Kevin is going to get off to a real start. I guess a jolt.

A jolt I have to call bullshit. on this scene, I'm calling bullshit, I'm playing the card.

Oh my goodness.

Why such strong feelings? Because I think Dwight, who owns a farm and probably has multiple tractors and other kind of big farm machinery, would know how to drive a forklift and wouldn't drive it straight into a wall. So there you go. I don't play it very often, but I'm playing my bullshit card.

We got a lot of fan mail about this scene.

Did anyone else call bullshit?

No one else called bullshit, and I have to say, Angela, I accept your bullshit card. thank you, I have no retort.

I played it fairly.

You did, you played it well.

What was the fan mail flurry about?

Well, first of all. Stephen M. from Ann Arbor, Michigan, noticed that Dwight fastened his seatbelt on the forklift and said, Why would a forklift need a seatbelt? How fast do forklifts go? Well? Guess what, Stephen? Forklifts always come equipped with seatbelts because they are considered a vehicle.

So if it tips over, you're strapped in, you might be awkwardly on your side, but then you can unstrap and crawl out once it's done crashing.

Moral of the story If you're ever in a forklift that's tipping over, don't try to jump out, like your chance of injury is much higher. But that is why they have seatbelts. And then we had a couple of questions. These are some folks that write in almost every week.

Fakie door It's a fakie door.

Well, now you're leading me perfectly into a fan question from Cameron C in California, who we hear from a lot, Hi Cameron.

Hi.

Cameron would like to know how did the forklift go through the door so easily?

Can I guess what it was made of?

Yes.

Like a type of styrofoam.

It was balsa wood, Steve Burgess said, that Rainn really drove the forklift into the door and just the bottom part had been replaced with balsa wood. That way, the top part would still like clang, like a heavy door. We were prepared to do two takes, but we only needed to do one.

There you go, Dwight gets off the machine after he crashes into the door and just calmly walks over and starts carrying the boxes by hand.

Yes.

I was very curious about what a box of 10 reams of paper weighs, which is about the size boxes that look like to me. The standard box you see, you know? And I looked up a box of 10 reams of paper and it says it weighs 20 pounds.

So picking up a 20 pound box is the thing that they've been avoiding, yes, this whole episode.

They're sliding across the floor, 20 pound boxes.

I mean, I could see how. After carrying several of those, it gets trying, and none of them are wearing those belts that the warehouse crew usually wears.

Yeah, yeah, the lift, the belt lift.

Yeah, the thing that helps your back.

Protects your back, yeah.

Well, Lady Andy and Daryl are going to meet with a group of potential new warehouse workers. But maybe we should take a break because I have some really fun finds about all these people we're about to meet.

Oh good, let's take a break and when we come back, let's meet the applicants.

Okay.

So, you guys know, to sort of commemorate the release of John Wick. 4. Jenna, you and I both posted the Zoom video of you and I podcasting from our closets. Where I told you I had watched the John Wick movies and you said, What are you talking about? Even though you had told me to watch them? We're not going to rehash it.

We won't, we won't, yes.

But when I called on Sam to be my backup anyway. Oscar saw our Instagram post, you know, he's rarely on social media, he saw our Instagram post. He got so tickled by it that it led to this text exchange. Are you ready?

Yes.

Good morning Angela on Instagram, you and Jenna did a funny bit about watching John Wick. I want to comment on it, but I can't find it now. How do I find it?

Okay.

This is what he commented on our John Wick video Ready Angela Kinsey hashtag Flashback Friday to miss Jenna Fisher?

Oh, thank goodness.

He walks along the beach and meets a woman wrapped in a cardigan with long white hair. She doesn't dye it because she doesn't play games. They kiss ever so gingerly, he pulls back because his lip is still a little busted up. They laugh quietly as they cradle, piping mugs of coffee.

I need that movie after seeing John Wick 4. I need a whole two hours where he just heels and sips warm coffee. I love it.

And falls in love, yes.

I love this idea. Thank you Oscar. All right, should we get back to this episode?

Yes, let's meet the warehouse interviewees.

Well, they're in the conference room, and immediately Daryl tells everybody in the room that the last warehouse workers won the lottery and quit.

Yeah, he's not pitching, working at Dunder Mifflin like at all. Like, he's like, you know what? Think long and hard about it. Because you know you're going to get here, then you're going to get stuck, then you're going to, you know, your life is over.

Well, we got some fan questions, Allie, from Topeka, Kansas, wrote in to say during the conference room interview. At 8 minutes and 30 seconds, Mike E. Winfield is in the scene. He is now a standup comedian, and my fiance and I saw a couple of his shows on a cruise last January. He is so funny.

That's a good deep dive.

I thought it was pretty good. Thanks. Well, you know who else is in that room, Amina?

Yes.

Amina Kaplan She's the one woman in the conference room and you do not realize it from this episode. But Amina is going to have quite the arc coming up in season 8, she's going to appear in 14 episodes.

Yep.

As Val. Spoiler alert.

We have to have amina on we do.

Because their romance is brewing.

I know.

She was the loveliest.

So sweet, yeah.

Well, as her storyline develops, we'll get her on the pod.

I have such fond memories of being on set with her. Well, Daryl doesn't know that romance is in his future. He's still very much down in the dumps. And he has a talking head where he says he's never been lucky and he doesn't just mean the lottery.

Yes, why is soy in everything?

Yeah.

I looked it up.

You looked up why soy is in everything.

Yeah, it's in everything, because it helps keep food moist.

Oh.

Yeah, it's like a moistening agent. We had a fan question from Teresa M. in London, Ontario, Canada, who said I am curious, is there a story behind this soy allergy at the age of 35??

I was curious, too. I was really curious. I was like, did one of the writers develop a soy allergy? Did you find this out, Jenna?

Well, I reached out to Charlie Grandy, who wrote this episode, and he said it's not based on his personal experience. In fact, he's pretty sure that it was Paul who pitched that joke.

Does Paul have a soy allergy?

I didn't get a chance to reach out to him.

Well, I have some more sass for you.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, we're at reception. Pam is behind the desk, and Ryan says, Nice right back, where I like you. Oh, Ryan so much. Sass He might win the sassiest of the episode.

Well, Pam's going to give him some sass back, she's not going to take that.

And he drops it, he's like, retreat, retreat.

I personally loved getting to sit behind the reception desk again.

Aw.

It was so fun.

Oh, I didn't even think about that.

Be back at my old haunt.

Did you feel like you were back home? A little bit, a little bit, yeah.

The desk still hit my knees in an awkward way.

Yeah, just how you liked it.

It was an awkward height, that desk.

Well, back in the conference room, Andy is now in charge doing the interview process with the warehouse people because Daryl bailed and it's a hot mess. He wants to know if they have a degree or in warehouse sciences, possibly. And Val is like, Are you serious?

Listen, speaking of a hot mess down in the warehouse, these guys cannot move paper. I mean, it's really ridiculous, but Kevin's going to come up with this idea. He remembered how his sisters used to butter him up and slide him across the floor.

Yeah, the linoleum.

Yes, but Jim and Dwight kind of shoot this idea down, and then Erin, Oh my gosh, so funny.

I laughed so hard when she grabs him by the arm and says, Drop it.

Drop it. They don't like it, I like it, but they don't like it.

So drop it.

So funny.

Where did that come from?

I don't know she's so funny in this episode, though.

I know.

Well, you know, all of those potential warehouse workers upstairs, they have left, so now Andy has to find a whole new crew of applicants. He's going to start by asking Oscar who is the strongest person in Scranton? and Oscar immediately, says Bruce. Kenward works out at Planet Fitness.

Well, I like that. His first thing is bulker definition. Yeah, like, what do you want? I looked up to see if there was a Planet Fitness in Scranton and there is.

Oh, okay.

There you go, well, Andy is going to find three new fellas to interview, and one of them is Nate, one of them is Gideon and one is Bruce Kenward, the buff guy.

Yes, we start with Gideon. Gideon was played by Beric Hardley. He's a comedic actor, he's been in a ton of stuff, studied at UCB.

Really.

In addition to being a performer, he is also an artist, and he makes and sells these handmade vintage light boxes. So like a little wooden box, yeah, and then it has a little button and a light turns on it.

We need one that says, Awesome ladies, I know.

I want to order one. His work is beautiful, he also has, like, amazing sculpted art, he's so talented. He also wrote a movie that he stars in, called Spell.

I mean, you know, I imagine them being accommodating, they sound very friendly on their website.

Well, Beric, we are going to be placing an order for an office ladies handmade light box. But seriously, guys, check out this website. I'm so like, inspired, impressed and charmed by it. Beric. It's b-a-r-a-k last name, hardly h-a-r-d-l-e-y dot com.

I'll put it in our stories, too.

Perfect.

Beric Also Hear me out here, maybe you could come on and tell us all about the Penis Museum.

Right?

Yes, first hand account.

You went all the way to Iceland. We want to hear about it, all right? So the other person in the room who isn't Nate is Bruce Kenward, he is the guy in the tank top.

Yeah.

We got a fan question from Dottie D in San Francisco, California, who wants to know what does the guy's shirt say in the group interview? It's been driving me crazy for years. Yes, he's wearing a shirt, and it's like, pixelated.

Yeah, he made it you guys, he made it himself.

Yeah, Steve Burgess said. It was scripted and we made that shirt for him to wear, and it was always, from the very beginning, intended to be blurred. Angela, I believe you pulled the character description from the script, which includes the notation for the t-shirt.

Yes, this is exactly how it was written. In the script, Andy interviews his new candidates Nate, a bearded hipster, Gideon, and Bruce Kenward, a buff built, beautiful man. Wearing a tank top and flip flops, his tank top is pixelated on the front.

There you go, Dottie.

This isn't the only time we're going to talk about balls in this episode. I thought about naming it Sass, and balls, Oh, but I went with so much sass.

We talk about balls again in this episode.

Yes, we do.

I will wait for it.

That's my ball tracker, I have a Sass tracker and a ball tracker. It was a busy episode for me.

What is your life? What is your life? What is my life?

Ah.

And this is his only on-camera credit. He is a trainer and he has trained some very big name actors for very big name movie roles. He has worked with Matt Damon several times, for example, on the Jason Bourne movie, as well as The Great Wall. But he was also a trainer for Brie Larson on Captain Marvel and was one of Bradley Cooper's trainers for American Sniper. Bradley Cooper had more than one trainer.

Okay, this is a total tangent, but since you brought up the great wall that Matt Damon was in.

Yes.

I just saw him interviewed and he was saying his teenage daughter likes to kind of mess with him. She doesn't want to watch any of his movies that are considered really, really great, fine movies, she only wants to watch the Stinkers.

I saw this interview.

And she was talking about the wall and saying that she had seen the wall and he says, it's the great wall. And she was like, No, dad, dad, there's nothing great about that movie.

Well, listen, the final person in the room is Nate. And he is going to explain to us that. While he does not technically have a hearing problem, he does have trouble understanding certain sounds in certain situations. And we got a lot of mail about this.

Is this a real thing?

Yes, it is. Well, as you know, my sister is hearing impaired, she wears hearing aids in both ears. And one of the issues that she has is in deciphering and understanding individual words in large group situations. Or like at restaurants. So if she's sitting at a big table in a restaurant and there's a lot of background noise, it's really hard for her to focus on the speaker.

I find this all very interesting and something I wouldn't have thought about until you started sharing it.

Well, I really appreciate all the mail we got from people and I always like it when people see themselves represented. Yeah, this is a real disorder, and so I thought it would be cool to bring it up.

Yeah, I'm so glad you did. Back in the warehouse, they finally decided to go with Kevin's plan. I guess they're going to grease the floor and slide boxes to the truck. There was a deleted scene where Jim says, I can't believe. In all the years the warehouse was here, they didn't just simply back the truck up into the warehouse and then you could just easily load it.

I did notice that.

Yeah.

Well, Steve Burgess had mentioned in his breakdown, that deleted scene. You just mentioned rain really did drive the truck into the wall. Rain did all his own stunts for this episode.

It's a big truck.

He was very keanu in this episode.

Yes, he was.

Well, Angela. In this scene, at around 16 minutes, a bunch of boxes look like they careen into the camera operator.

Yeah, I clocked it at 16 minutes, 43 seconds. Looks like it takes out the camera guy.

Well, Ali G from Topeka, Kansas, would like to know if this was scripted or just an actual accident.

Well, Ali, I was very curious as well. I went to the shooting draft. Here's what it said. B-roll Jim and Dwight. Place a box of paper on a garbage can lid and slide it on a finished track, which stops well short of the mark.

Hey amazing.

It was scripted.

Well, Steve Burgess said that he seems to remember that. No matter what we did, they could not get the boxes to really slide very well, he said. It was really, really hard. They did use like a kind of silicon grease on the ground, but the friction was too much, the boxes would not slide. They had to cheat this so much.

You know, if you really watch carefully whenever they try to slide them, they don't go very far.

I know, I know clearly. In the script, they imagined that these boxes could just go like flying all the way out the door. No, they were never going to travel that far.

Jim and Dwight are going to have a joint talking head where they say they have to move these boxes. So sadly, this has become the best idea. I mean, clearly they can't believe they're following Kevin's idea, but while they're talking about this, Kevin slips on grease behind them and falls down really hard.

Yeah, Steve Burgess said that the stunt coordinators put a big old mattress back there and that Brian really did do that. Fall himself. Good job, Brian. It looks so painful, but he fell on a soft, cushy mattress.

Well, now we're going to find out some new information about Daryl, which is he has decided he would like to be fired.

Yeah, and he's trying to introduce him to the new warehouse crew down there in Hank's corner, what's it called caffeine? Corner, Run by Hank.

Caffeine Corner, owned by Dwight.

Right, Daryl's like, I don't want to meet these people. In fact, I just want to be fired. And Andy kind of pushes back and I guess, like, re-inspires Daryl to love his job again.

Yeah, well, Daryl gives him an ultimatum. He says, Fire me or make me the manager. I earned it, and Andy pushes back and says, No, this is my job, I earned it.

Well, listen, can I get out my bullshit card for a second? Can I play my bullshit card? I call bullshit? On this? Andy, I could give you the same speech you're giving Daryl. You are no more qualified for this job than Daryl is.

I accept your bullshit card. I think it is well played.

Thank you.

Next up, we have a ball tracker.

Please, what is it?

Daryl has a talking head where he says, You know what? My future won't be determined by seven little white balls, it will be determined by two big black balls because I control my destiny.

You're right ball tracker, huh?

Ball tracker.

Daryl and Andy are going to walk to the warehouse and they're going to see.