A Look Back on An Interview with Mike Schur

Summary

Podcast Summary: Office Ladies – "A Look Back on An Interview with Mike Schur"

Release Date: July 2, 2025

Hosts: Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey

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Introduction to the Episode

In this special episode of Office Ladies, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey delve deep into their rich history with "The Office" by featuring an exclusive interview with Mike Schur. Known for his dual role as writer and actor—portraying the lovable yet awkward Mose Schrute—Mike offers invaluable insights into the creation and evolution of the beloved sitcom.

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Meeting Mike Schur and His Journey on The Office

Timestamp: 10:50 – 16:34

The episode kicks off with Mike Schur expressing his admiration for Jenna and Angela both as actors and podcasters. He fondly recounts his initial skepticism about adapting the British version of "The Office" for American television. Despite his reservations, he narrates how his intense two-hour meeting with creator Greg Daniels changed his perspective, leading to his pivotal role as a writer and performer on the show.

Mike Schur (11:09): "I don't know if that guy's going to offer me a job, but if he does, I'm going to take it because I think he's going to teach me how to write."

Mike emphasizes the foundational lessons he learned under Greg Daniels' mentorship, describing the writers' room as a "strike force" that was both elite and exceptionally collaborative.

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Writing for The Office: A Masterclass in Storytelling

Timestamp: 16:34 – 23:59

Mike Schur delves into the intricacies of writing for "The Office," highlighting the rigorous process of scriptwriting and story development. He shares anecdotes about Greg Daniels pushing the writers to explore diverse character pairings and storylines, ensuring the show remained fresh and engaging over its ten-year run.

Mike Schur (19:01): "Greg was in lecture mode, and I would turn the page and start taking notes like I was in college."

He reflects on the challenges and triumphs of early seasons, including the pressure to produce quality scripts and the camaraderie that developed among the small writing team.

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Becoming Mose Schrute: Balancing Writing and Acting

Timestamp: 31:22 – 46:22

One of the standout segments of the interview focuses on Mike's transition from writer to actor, specifically his role as Mose Schrute. Mike candidly discusses the physical demands and humorous challenges of portraying Mose, from growing a real beard to performing grueling running scenes.

Mike Schur (35:00): "I was always a little bit like, this is torture. I always felt like it was a little bit of torture."

Angela Kinsey shares her memories of intense filming moments, including a particularly painful slap scene that left Mike momentarily disoriented.

Angela Kinsey (39:16): "You slapped me for real."

Despite the difficulties, Mike expresses gratitude for the opportunity, acknowledging how these experiences deepened his appreciation for the craft of acting.

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Creative Collaboration: Writers and Actors in Harmony

Timestamp: 46:22 – 62:10

The conversation shifts to the symbiotic relationship between writers and actors on "The Office." Mike praises Greg Daniels for dismantling traditional hierarchies, fostering an environment where the best ideas prevailed regardless of their origin.

Mike Schur (63:50): "Why would we not take the best idea? And that is very frequently, sadly, not how it works on other shows."

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey echo these sentiments, reminiscing about the open lines of communication and creative freedom that defined their time on the show. They contrast this with their experiences on other sets, highlighting how rare such collaboration truly is.

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Mike Schur's Book: "How to Be Perfect"

Timestamp: 73:21 – 76:10

Towards the end of the episode, Mike introduces his book, "How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question." He explains that the book stems from his work on "The Good Place", aiming to make complex ethical theories accessible and entertaining.

Mike Schur (73:28): "It's a summary of a lot of different theories and moral philosophy... explaining these ideas in a way that doesn't give you a headache."

Jenna and Angela express their excitement about the book, sharing blurbs from notable figures like Mindy Kaling who praised its brilliance and humor.

Mindy Kaling's Blurb: "As someone who worries that a deep dive into morality will ruin my fun and problematic life, I was certain this book wouldn't be for me. Boy, was I wrong."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Timestamp: 76:10 – End

The episode wraps up with heartfelt gratitude from both Jenna and Angela towards Mike for his contributions to "The Office" and the insightful interview. They encourage listeners to check out Mike's book, emphasizing its charitable contributions and engaging content.

Mike Schur (75:34): "You know right away that you've made the world a slightly better place just by buying the book. It's that easy."

Key Takeaways:

• Mike Schur's Dual Role: Balancing writing and acting on "The Office," bringing depth to his character Mose Schrute.
• Creative Process: Emphasis on collaboration, idea meritocracy, and the rigorous writing environment fostered by Greg Daniels.
• Challenges of Acting: Physical demands and humorous anecdotes from portraying Mose.
• Book Insight: Mike's approach to making moral philosophy accessible and engaging through his book "How to Be Perfect."

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Schur (11:09): "I don't know if that guy's going to offer me a job, but if he does, I'm going to take it because I think he's going to teach me how to write."
• Angela Kinsey (39:16): "You slapped me for real."
• Mike Schur (63:50): "Why would we not take the best idea? And that is very frequently, sadly, not how it works on other shows."

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For Listeners Interested in More:

• Mike Schur's Book: How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question – Available now with proceeds going to charity.
• Follow Mike Schur: Engage with his work across various television projects and his active presence on social media.

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Credits:

• Executive Producer: Cassie Jerkins
• Audio Engineer: Sam Kieffer
• Associate Producer: Ainslie Bubaco
• Executive Producer (Odyssey): Leah Rees Dennis
• Theme Song: Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton

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Thank you for tuning into this episode of Office Ladies. Join Jenna and Angela next week as they explore another iconic episode of "The Office", providing more behind-the-scenes stories and insider insights.

Transcript

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We were on the Office together and we're best friends. And now we're doing the ultimate Office Rewatch podcast just for you.

[Angela Kinsey]

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.

[Jenna Fischer]

We're the office lad.

[Angela Kinsey]

Please.

[Jenna Fischer]

Hello, everyone.

[Angela Kinsey]

Hi, you guys.

[Jenna Fischer]

We are really excited about this week's episode.

[Angela Kinsey]

It's kind of special.

[Jenna Fischer]

It really is. We got to interview Mike Schur. You guys know he played Mose on the show. He was also one of our original writers. We got to interview him and it was awesome.

[Angela Kinsey]

It was delicious. We loved it. We re listened to it and we're like, this needs to be a whole episode.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. We just had so much to talk with him about. But first, we're still going to give you fast facts.

[Angela Kinsey]

Always fast facts, guys. You know, Always fast facts.

[Mike Schur]

Oh, my gosh.

[Angela Kinsey]

And I feel like you're going to be like, in your 80s and you're going to be like, sitting in a corner mumbling like, fast facts, fast facts, fast facts. And they'll be like, what's grandma talking about? Oh, she used to do this thing called fast facts.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, these are Mike Scher. Fast facts. Fast fact number one. Mike was on the writing staff from season one through season four. He wrote 10 episodes, and here's what they were. The Alliance Office, Olympics, Christmas party, Valentine's Day. That was one of our hidden gems.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

In our re Listen. Branch closing, Traveling Salesman, the Return, the negotiation, the job. That's the one where Jim comes in and asks Pam on a date at the end.

[Angela Kinsey]

I know.

[Jenna Fischer]

And Dunder Mifflin Infinity.

[Angela Kinsey]

You know, Mike told me the negotiation was his favorite Angela Martin episode.

[Jenna Fischer]

Oh, really?

[Angela Kinsey]

She's like, getting titillated by hearing people recount the Jim and Roy scuffle.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, he said that was his favorite episode to write for my character.

[Jenna Fischer]

I felt like he just liked writing for your character a lot. Your character always had great moments in his episodes.

[Angela Kinsey]

They did. I loved it when Mike was assigned an episode.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, Mike also wrote the Accountants webisodes with Paul Lieberstein. He played Mose in 13 episodes of the show starting in season two. He talks a lot about playing Moe's in our interview. It's very fun.

[Angela Kinsey]

It is his love hate relationship with Moe's. Well, here is fast fact number two. I'm going to talk to you about shows he's created. I think you guys know the show that he started on SNL. He was there for six seasons. During his time on SNL, he produced the Weekend Update.

[Jenna Fischer]

Oh, yeah.

[Angela Kinsey]

From 2009.

[Jenna Fischer]

That's a big deal. That's prestigious position.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes, he did it from 2001 to 2004. He, of course, was a writer on the office until 2008. He then went on to co create Parks and REC, Brooklyn, 9 9. And he created the Good Place and Rutherford Falls with our very own Ed Helms.

[Jenna Fischer]

Wow.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah. His resume is full of other shows that he's also produced on and written for. I have to give a shout out to one Jenna, because I love this show. Did you know that he co produced the Comeback with Lisa Kudrow?

[Jenna Fischer]

And he wrote two episodes, and I loved that show, and I loved it. I found that out about him in the first season of the Office, and I was, like, enamored with him. Like, to me, that was, like, superstar status that he wrote that. Just amazing satire.

[Angela Kinsey]

It makes me want to go back and rewatch it. I had forgotten that he worked on it. And when I was looking up his credits, I was like, oh, I want to rewatch the Comeback.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, fast fact number three. Mike Scher wrote a book. It's called how to Be Perfect, the correct answer to every moral question. Here is how he described it to us in an email. He said, it's a book about how hard it is to be a good person and how we can use ethics and moral philosophy to try not to screw up all the time, but in a funny way, not, like in a homework way. The basic idea was to explain all the stuff I learned for the Good Place without giving everyone a headache. You guys, when we did this interview with Mike, our copies of his book had not arrived yet, but we have them now, and this is a truly special book. I started reading it, and I can't stop. Same. I'm, like, binging a book.

[Angela Kinsey]

Same. I love it. I couldn't put it down. I was reading it last night. This morning, I was like, I want to read more. Like, I woke up thinking about it. Do you know what I mean?

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah.

[Angela Kinsey]

So Mike is such an amazing writer. We already know that. But he takes this conversation of morality, and he makes it funny and interesting and relatable. For example, there's a chapter titled. And by the way, all the chapter titles are hilarious. But here's one that cracked me up. There's a chapter titled, Do I have to return my shopping cart to the Shopping cart rack thingy? It's all the way over there.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes. And then basically, what he does is he answers that question, and the answer is based on all of these ancient philosophers and, you know, ethics and morality.

[Angela Kinsey]

And your moral compass.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes. So listen, I think we should take a break, and when we come back, you get to listen to Mike Schur.

[Angela Kinsey]

And we get to find out so much about Mo's.

[Jenna Fischer]

It's a treat we promise.

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H E L P.com officeladies Mike Scher. Welcome to Office Ladies.

[Mike Schur]

I'm so excited to be here. I'm a huge fan of you as people, first of all, first and foremost, second of all, you as actors, and then third of all, you as podcasters. This has been such a delight to watch you do this thing to celebrate this show that we all made together. I'm so happy to be here. It's a real honor.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, Mike, thank you so much. We love you. We're so thrilled to have you here. And I know the fans are going to enjoy just hearing your voice. Voice. Jen and I both listened to you quite a bit before this, and we both found you really pleasing to listen to.

[Mike Schur]

Really?

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. We like your voice quite a lot.

[Mike Schur]

You listen to me in what context?

[Angela Kinsey]

Other podcasts, Interviews, Podcasts.

[Jenna Fischer]

We do our research here on Office Ladies.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, that's very nice of you to say, because I've always found my own voice to be slightly annoying, which I think maybe most people do, that you're like, it's the phenomenon of hearing your voice played back to you in this is how Old We Are is like on an answering machine message or something. If you were, you know, you'd be like, oh, is that what I sound like? I always feel like I sound a little annoying and nasally, but I'm glad to hear you say that.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, I felt that way about myself, too, and I sort of brushed it off. Like, oh, that's just. Everybody feels that way about their own voice. But then we recently rewatched an episode where Michael is trying to get Jim to say something bad about Pam, and he gets Jim to admit that Pam's voice is rather shrill sometimes.

[Mike Schur]

Yes.

[Jenna Fischer]

And I thought, oh, I guess maybe in the writer's room when forced to come up with something annoying about me, we settled on my shrill voice. So thank you so much.

[Angela Kinsey]

Which writer hated your voice?

[Jenna Fischer]

I don't know.

[Mike Schur]

I'm very, very pleased to say that I think I was gone by the time that was written. So I do not have to.

[Jenna Fischer]

It wasn't well played. Wasn't you? Well, listen, we always like to ask people when they come on the podcast, how did they get their job on the Office? And we know that you did double duty. You were a writer, but then you were also A performer. But let's start with how did you get your job as a writer on the show?

[Mike Schur]

So I was writing at Saturday Night Live from 1998 to 2004. My then girlfriend, now wife of 16 years, had moved out to LA permanently in like, 2002. And we were dating long distance. And in like, 2003, it was like, all right, if this is ever gonna really work, either she had to move back to New York or I had to leave and move to la. And it made more sense for me to move to LA because there are more jobs there. So I gave my, like, year's notice to Lorne Michaels and said I was leaving at the end of the year and got an agent for the first time in my life because I never needed one. And I was like, all right, I'm moving. And the first thing he told me was, you know, this guy Greg Daniels is adapting the British Office for American Television. And I responded, what a terrible idea. Disaster. You shouldn't do this. No one should do this. Because I was a huge fan of the British show. This is such a classic story, right? I. I was a huge fan of the British show. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I didn't think there was any way it would ever work in America, but it was like, well, you know, beggars can't be choosers. Like, I don't. I have to get a job out there. So I came to LA sometime in, I don't even remember, like, like winter, I think, like February on an off week at snl. And I had a bunch of meetings and one of them was with Greg. So most of the meetings I had with producers were pretty standard hour long chats. You know, hey, here's our. Here's our pilot. Watch the pilot and let's talk about the show. And I dutifully tried to, you know, say nice things about whatever they were working on. And then I met with Greg. And my meeting with Greg was two hours long, more than two hours long. And it was so different from every other meeting. It was, like intense and in depth and fascinating. In the middle of the meeting, he said, I'm very sorry, but my back is acting up. Would you mind if I lied down? And I said no. And so he lay on the floor on his back in front of me while I sat on his couch. So I think to an outside observer it would look very much like we were in, like, Freudian analysis where I was his therapist and he was like free associating. But he just asked the most incisive Questions, the most penetrating questions about the nature of storytelling and about the British show and why it worked and what he had to do to make it work here. And I left the meeting and I texted on my Motorola Razor, I texted my agent and I said, I don't know if that guy's going to offer me a job, but if he does, I'm going to take it because I think he's going to teach me how to write. And my agent sends me that text like every four years back to me. He sends it back to me and says, you were right, you were right, you're right. So Greg offered me the job and I happily took it. And I thought, this is obviously not going to work. It is a fool's errand to try to adapt this show for an American audience. But he's going to teach me how to write. And that's exactly what happened in that first season. You know, the only full time writers really were me, Mindy and bj, because Lester Lewis, the late Lester Lewis, and Paul Lieberstein and Larry Wilmore were consultants. And Mindy and BJ and I had never written anything. We didn't have any idea what we were doing. And Greg basically taught a class. He taught like the true professor he is. He taught a class on how to write. And it changed all of our lives forever. So that's my office origin story.

[Angela Kinsey]

Wow, that is so good, Mike.

[Jenna Fischer]

I remember you guys that first season. There were so few of you and how close you all became because of that.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, it was a tiny little. Greg used to call it a strike force. He was like, this is an elite strike force. Which I think was just him trying to boost our confidence because we had no idea what we were doing. But it was really, you know, it was. It was a very, very small group of people who were working really, really hard on a very small number of episodes. We only had. We only wrote five scripts. Like, you know, we each wrote. We actually wrote. We wrote six to make five. I'm not sure if you remember this, but we wrote, or even if you even knew this, Greg. One of the only things that Greg was able to squeeze out of NBC in that first year was he let us write one more script than we would shoot. And so we wrote one extra episode that I think he wrote. And then we just. We picked the best five out of the six that we had written and threw the other one away. And I wish I could remember what that other one was. There is a. There is a Lost.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, that'd be a good Question for Greg.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, there's A Lost Season 1 Office episode script out there somewhere that we just never. That we never produced. So it was. And it was like, you know, it was really intense work, and it was a combination of, like, story breaking, but also just like a master class in how to create television and what makes a good story. There were times when I've told this story before, but there are times when Greg was talking, we would be pitching, and I had a notebook where I would just jot down ideas. And there would be moments when Greg would say, well, let's talk about what. Let's just pause for a second and talk about what makes a good story. And then he would start kind of going through the list of things that he felt were crucial to good TV stories. And I would realize, like, oh, he's in lecture mode. Is the way I thought of it was lecture mode, which was a good thing. It sounds like a bad thing, but it was a good thing. And I would turn the page, and I would start taking notes like I was in college, and I would just write down as if he were an actual professor. And I had a test coming up, and I would start just writing down. And I still have those notes, and I still go back and look at them every once in a while to, like, remember, to refresh my memory about what he told us all about storytelling. It was that. That intense and that sort of foundational and meaningful to all of us.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, man.

[Jenna Fischer]

Wow.

[Angela Kinsey]

I do remember those early days about what a small collective we were. Even our table reads, do you remember? We would just pull up chairs on the stage where we were filming. We would just all grab, like, a desk chair and sit in a circle and read the script. And I loved that.

[Jenna Fischer]

It was really intimate.

[Mike Schur]

There were so many cool things about that first season, including that the place where we worked was on this weird soundstage in the middle of Culver City or something. And so Hollywood soundstages are often these big, gigantic empty rooms where you put sets, and then attached to them usually or above them, are a suite of offices where the writer and the production staff works. But that suite of offices became the actual set. Like, the set that we built was modeled on the crappy offices where the writers were working and right down to the layout, like, Greg was in what would be Michael's office, and there was, like, a reception desk right outside it that became Pam's reception desk. And so we would do these drills. Greg would have us do these drills where he would go, like, okay, take a half an hour and, like, go sit at Pam's desk or go sit in Michael's office, or what will be Michael's office. Or go. Go sit where Jim sits and, like, just get a sense of, like. Like, what is your eyeline to Pam? Right? So he would put. He would put Mindy at pan. At Pam's reception desk, and he would put BJ at Jim's desk, and he would say, like, just sit there and, like, absorb the vibe of, like, imagine that you're in love with that person and that you have to, like, angle your chair in such a way so that you can catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of your eye or whatever. And it was fascinating. It was really interesting. And I remember at one point he had me go into work in Michael's office or what the office that would be the model for Michael's office. And I remember hating it because it was like, I was in this. I was far away from everything and all this, and I would see people talking through the windows, and I'd be like, what are they talking about? And I had the urge to, like, go out and, like, do what Michael did all the time, which was like, hey, what's going on? You know, like. And it was like, he was just so. He knew so much about what he wanted out of the show that he would. He would practice not just the skill of writing the characters, but the. The skill of, like, embodying them or emotionally connecting to them. And it was just. That's what I mean when I say it was professorial. It was. It wasn't just like, all right, what's episode two? What's the act break? What's the first act break for the season finale? It was really like, we had to embody the characters and understand them emotionally and socially in a way that I think led to great episodes, you know?

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, it's so interesting because when all the actors got there, then they did that to us, too. They made us sit at our desks and just sit there and feel it. We've talked about that before. And so I love that that started all the way back with you guys writing the episodes.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah. June of 2004, right from the jump. There were things like that that we did that weren't the typical things that you would do with a writing staff. Another thing he did all the time, which I thought was so smart, which I still do on shows that I work on now, is we would come into work one day and he would put all the characters names on a board, and he would Pick two of them at random. And he would give them to. He would say, me and Larry Wilmore, like, go come up with five story ideas for Oscar and Kelly. And then you, Mindy and Paul, go come up with five story ideas for Jim and Stanley. And for an hour, we would just pitch, okay, well, what the hell could a story be with Oscar and Kelly? But it led to some really cool stuff. And some of the little. The B stories and the C stories of that came in the first couple seasons were just brainstorming random pairings of people. He understood, fundamentally that one of the great advantages that the show had over other shows is that we had 20 people. Most shows have, whatever, six main characters or something. And so pretty quickly, you get tired of a story involving these two people or these three people. And he was like, that's not what this is gonna be. This is gonna be a. The whole point of the show is to observe, like an anthropologist, observe the comings and goings of a large number of people in the same office environment. So, like, go work on random pairings, and, like, sometimes really fun stuff would come out of it, you know, like, he just so thoroughly understood what made the show special and what the potential was for, how good it could be that he had all of these machinations. And he was always moving pieces around the chessboard with the writers in those early days, you know.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, I remember telling my dad, I was trying to describe this group of people and the show to my dad, who was not at all in entertainment. You know, he's a drilling engineer, but sometimes we could talk sports. And I said, dad, here's the deal. We have a deep bench dad. And it's like a basketball term. Like, our team is so good. There's so many layers to this team. And then when he came and, you know, Greg invited them to sit at a table, read at lunch, my dad was like, I get it. I get it.

[Mike Schur]

I get it now.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, I get it. Because there were laughs, I think, coming from him in all these places, you know?

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah, well, I was gonna say that in season nine, John and I were invited to be producers on the show to kind of help carve out Jim and Pam's final season. And we got to come into their writers room, mostly as observers. And Greg was running the show that season, and he was still doing those exercises. And it was fascinating, except in this case, it was more like homework. I remember the day started, and Greg said, okay, get out your homework. And the homework had been that everyone had to come up with five ideas. For. I can't remember what it was, but it was like for a Dwight and Stanley, cold open, go. And then you would just sit and listen. And then when there was an idea that piqued his interest, he would say, oh, oh, okay, you two go off, flesh that out. And then two people would leave the room, and then we would keep listening to the homework. And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, I would be so terrified to present my five ideas because sometimes it was just crickets. Like, you could just hear the ideas just die in the room. I mean, what an intense and vulnerable thing to pitch your creative ideas in front of, like, a room of people who are all judging whether or not you should follow that thread.

[Mike Schur]

Yes. One of his greatest strengths is that he is unafraid, I would say, of failure. And I think, I believe that that comes. I'm guessing that that comes partially from working at Saturday Night Live, because what you just described of, like, pitching ideas and having them bomb, right? That is the essence of working at snl. Except your failures at SNL are public. Like, you write sketches and there's a read through with the entire cast of the show and Lorne and all the producers around a giant table, and the audience is 150 people who work on the show. And by the way, a very famous person who's hosting the show, like, you know, Drake is reading your. Your sketch or whatever, and you. There are moments at SNL where, you know, your sketches are 12 pages long or whatever, and your sketch starts and you get to page two and, like, the joke of the sketch is sprung and no one laughs. And in your head, you're like, there's 10 more pages. Like, we have to sit here for 10 more pages, as no one finds my premise funny. And so for the first, I don't know what Greg's experience was. I've never really talked to him about his time there. But for the first, like, six months, you, it's. You fall into a deep depression. Like, it's just like, it's so embarrassing to fail that way publicly. And then the week goes by and the show happens, and then it's like, all right, it's Monday again. Do it again. And you, like, do it again, and you fail again, and you fail and you fail and you fail. And eventually, at some point, hopefully, you kind of figure it out and you write a sketch and it gets some laughs and you're like, okay, it's not the end of the world. Like, I'm still here. And then you get a little better and A little better. And that, like, that theory is. It's pretty brutal on your ego, but when you've already had it driven out of your ego from working at SNL, like 5. 5 Stanley cold opens. I can. Yeah, exactly. So I. That. And his theory is really like, this is a numbers game. Like, the way to get to the best ideas is you have to create a thousand ideas in order to find the two that are good. And he took that approach with everything. He took that approach when he was hiring writers. He took that approach when he was casting people. I mean, how long did the casting process go on for, for the show? Endlessly long. Endlessly, endlessly long. And that's just his. He's just the most thorough person when it comes to that. He doesn't settle for anything. He demands that you walk down. I mean, when we were breaking stories, we would get five sixths of the way down the line toward breaking a story. And we'd get to a point where he would realize it didn't work and he would go like, man, this doesn't work. Throw it away. Start over. And it's really exhausting. But also, the show lasted for 10 years and it was really good.

[Angela Kinsey]

And here we are still talking about it.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 17 years later.

[Angela Kinsey]

Wow.

[Jenna Fischer]

Angela, do you have a favorite sandwich? I'm not going to let you answer. I'm going to answer my own question.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, okay.

[Jenna Fischer]

I love Boar's Head Honey Turkey. This is my go to sandwich. It is my only sandwich. My son takes this sandwich to school. My husband eats this sandwich every day for lunch. We love Boar's head Honey Turkey. It is on our shopping list every single week. £1 boar's head honey turkey.

[Angela Kinsey]

You know, me and ham. I mean, my nickname was ham bone in high school, so I love some boar's head smoked, master uncured ham. Put it on a sandwich, eat it off a plate without any bread, roll it up with some cheese, I'm gonna eat it.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, they wanted us to talk about Boar's Head, and we sure are doing it. For over a century, Boar's Head has been dedicated to craftsmanship, hand trimmed meats, carefully selected spices, and authentic cooking techniques like slow roasting and fire grilling. And that is what makes every bite unforgettable.

[Angela Kinsey]

Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite at your local Boar's Head deli counter.

[Jenna Fischer]

Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905.

[Angela Kinsey]

So it's wedding season, kind of. Right. I don't know about you, but we have a few family members, like cousins getting married. And we're all traveling, all five of us, for a wedding coming up in a few weeks. And we got an Airbnb because we're like, you know what? We want a kitchen. We want snacks.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes. Well, it's also great for the host family because they're getting to make some extra money on the side. This is also summertime, time of summer travel. So, yeah, while you're away, your home could be an Airbnb.

[Angela Kinsey]

It's a great opportunity you might not even be aware of.

[Jenna Fischer]

I would be happy to have more people become host families because that just gives me more options. I might come stay in your house.

[Angela Kinsey]

Especially if you're someone who travels frequently so your home is available more.

[Jenna Fischer]

It's true.

[Angela Kinsey]

And it's a little extra money. Some side money.

[Jenna Fischer]

Who doesn't like side money?

[Angela Kinsey]

You know what Oscar calls it? He calls it side scratch. Little side scratch.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host well, now I think we have to ask you, Mike.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, we do.

[Jenna Fischer]

How did you come to play Mose?

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

Something we understand you hated.

[Angela Kinsey]

You hated being Mo's, but we love Mose.

[Mike Schur]

Let me be just delineate here. Importantly, I love the fact that I played Mo's. I hated actually doing it because. For two reasons. So. So here's the story. The story was in the. In the. Greg always had it as part of Dwight Schrute's backstory that he. He himself was not Amish or. Or Mennonite or anything like that, but he was sort of Amish adjacent, that he had relatives. He was a Germanic. He was of Germanic descent, living in Pennsylvania. That is. That's. That alone is sort of Amish adjacent. So Greg always had it in the back of his head that there was a sort of cousin, a shrewd cousin farming community that was. That was either Amish or something in the Amish family. So there. In. In 2004, there was a reality show called Amish in the City.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes. Yes, I saw that.

[Mike Schur]

Yes. It was a terrible, terrible program.

[Angela Kinsey]

It was so hard to watch.

[Mike Schur]

It was so awful. And I. My wife and I watched it, and I was sort of trying to express how cringy it was to the writers room one day. The premise of the show was they took a bunch of idiot club kids from LA who were on spring break, and they were like, you guys are going to come stay in this awesome house in the Hollywood Hills. And they were psyched, and they were like, we're going to get so drunk and party and whatever. What they didn't know that also invited to stay in the house were a bunch of young Amish folks on Rumspringa who had been released for their year of exploration, and they were gonna live together. And then, you know, hot mess ensues. Hot mess ensues. Right? So one of the characters on the show who was Amish was named Moze. And Mose was this delightful, kind hearted, fragile egg who, what, tried his best to become friends with the idiot club kids from la. And among other ways that he tried this, where he fashioned his own wooden toys, like little. Like a little wooden airplane or a little wooden car. And like. Like he made them himself. He made them himself and he presented them to his new friends and they were just like, what the hell is this? Right. And so I was Rick, relating this story to the room about how, like, awful this show was. And Greg pointed at me with his giant finger, I remember it so clearly. And said, you're gonna play Mose. You're Dwight's cousin. You're Mose. And I was like, ha, ha ha. And he was like, no, I'm serious. That we're gonna do this. You're gonna play Mo's. And I thought it was a joke for a couple reasons. First, because I thought it was a joke. Second, because all of the other writers, as you may know, got to play essentially, like versions of themselves or significant characters in the show. Like, Mindy was in the show all the time and Paul was in the show all the time, and BJ was in the show all the time. And Greg was essentially saying, you are a joke and I'm gonna turn you into a joke. And then so the first time that we did it, it was in a photo. It was when Rain just says, I have a cousin. I run a beet farm with my cousin Mosey. It was in an episode I wrote. It was the one where Michael buys a condo.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes.

[Mike Schur]

And it was just a photo. And I was like, great, I'll put on a fake beard. And actually, I don't even think I had the beard for. But I'll dress up in these wool clothes and we'll take a photo and that'll be the end of it. But then the writers, my so called friends, got very excited about me playing Mo's and started writing me into episodes all the time. And it was the episode BJ wrote, the initiation where Dwight was trying to initiate Ryan into some kind of salesman fraternity by bringing him to his farm. And they wrote Mose into the show. And so Greg insisted for this episode that I have a real beard. He didn't believe that a fake beard, according to him, would look real. And I was like, listen, I don't grow facial hair very easily. It's going to take me a long time. He's like, well, you better get started. It was basically just hazing. That's all it was. So I grew a real beard for months and months and months. And in that time this show was nominated for an Emmy. And Greg and I and some of the other producers went around and had a bunch of like fancy Hollywood events that we went to. And in every one of those photos I have the disgusting wiry Mose beard. And then. So that episode was supposed to be the first one. We shot that in season three. But then there was a. I can't remember why. There was some kind of production issue or script issue or something and it got delayed like two or three more months so that I had to keep I. And I realized like, I remember like this sweating panic of like I was counting down the days until I could shave and I was like, oh no, now I can't shave now and then grow the beard back in time. So I had to keep it like another three months. And then by the time we finally shot it, it was like mid September, deep in the valley on that Disney Ranch Valley location where we shot Rain's Dwight's Farm. It was the day we shot that first episode. The high that day was 105. And I was wearing long johns and wool pants and a wool shirt and suspenders and these old work boots that were incredibly uncomfortable. And I had to run around and pretend to wrestle Ryan. And I was just like, I was like a ghost. Like I was just like running through. I was like a horror movie ghost running through the background of scenes. It took an entire day. I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning and get to Disney Ranch by 5:30. And I was like, well, at least I'll never have to do that again. And then the writers, my so called friends, wrote me into like a hundred more episodes. So I'm very honored and happy to have played a small silly role in the, in the history of the show on screen. But the actual act of doing it was always 105. They always. I was always shirtless on a seesaw or running alongside a car like a dog or in, in probably the scariest moment of my life, being slapped like, like being punched in the face essentially by Angela Kinsey. I know it was The. That was one of the most terrifying moments of my. Do you remember that? When we had to do that?

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes. I was gonna talk to you about it because Angela and Mo's had so many actual scenes together. And a lot of them are in the deleted scenes. I'm watching the DVDs. Some made it in, but, you know, a few really cracked me up. But I have to talk to you about that one first. I wanna say there was a deleted scene in the Surplus where I'm at Shrup Farms with Andy. We're wedding planning. Dwight is our wedding planner. We're trying to discuss a butter sculpture. And Andy's signing all these papers. And you're coming in the kitchen and I hiss at you like that. And then you run away. And we kept breaking at this. Cause it was so absurd. So there's that. That moment, like, what. What is Angela, Mose? What is their relationship? But then the episode he's talking about, I wanna look. Cause I wrote it.

[Mike Schur]

It's the finale. It's the series finale.

[Angela Kinsey]

No, that's when you kidnapped me.

[Mike Schur]

Oh, right, right.

[Angela Kinsey]

Right there. No. Okay. The episode was Free Family Portrait. And Angela is chasing who she thinks is Dwight in Dwight's car, but it's Mose dressed as Dwight because she wants to find out if Dwight's found out about her baby. Right, Right. And one of the things I remember, which is crazy in hindsight, Mike, is that you and I did our own stunt driving where we had to screech into a cul de sac and pull side by side, like really fast, turn on a dime. And then I fly out of the car because they didn't want to waste any time, lose all that footage. And I run up and I swing open the door, and it's Mose and not Dwight. And you won't tell me where Dwight is. And they wanted me to slap the shit out of you.

[Mike Schur]

Right. So what happened was we were like, okay, you and I just were like. So let's just like walk through how this happens. And you were kind of like, okay, so I'll come over here and then I'll get out here and you'll stand against the car and then I'll. And then I'll slap you. And you, like, just sort of moved your hand in. The fakie would be. You did a fakey. And I was like, okay, yeah, this seems. Okay. So we do the first take. We screech up. We do a good job of doing our own stunts, by the way. Yeah, me, we. You pull me out. You're like, where's. Where's Dwight? Where's Dwight? I'm like, I don't know. Or something. Or something. And then you slap me. But you slapped me for real. You hit me so hard. I spun around like a top and. And, like, hit the roof of the car and was like, my ears were ringing. And I remember, like, I was like, oh, I can't hear what she's saying to me because my ears are ringing so loudly.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, my God. Like, I'm so sorry. You know, Matt Stone told me. He was like, angela, you're gonna have to really hit him because we're pretty wide. It'll be. You won't be able to do the fakie.

[Mike Schur]

Yes. And. And I. And I. I also remember. This is not your fault. None of this is your fault. No, because. And I. Because I remember saying, no, really hit me because I'm six feet tall. You are not six feet.

[Angela Kinsey]

I am five one.

[Mike Schur]

Right? And I was like, no. I. I've. I hate it when there's, like, a fake slap on tv. I'm sure this will be fine. Just. Just really hit me. It'll be fine. I remember telling you that. Like, just really hit me. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. I had no idea that you were a mixed martial arts professional. And you hit me so hard. I really, like, lost my. I did not know where I was. I didn't know what was happening. My eyes went blank and my hearing dropped out, and I had no idea what was happening. It was wonderful. I'm so it. And that's the take they used, thankfully, because afterwards, also, I remember afterwards, you were like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. And I was like, no, no, no. I just didn't understand how strong you were.

[Jenna Fischer]

Oh, my gosh. Muggers, beware. Okay, Angela Kinsey.

[Angela Kinsey]

I do remember I felt so bad. And I remember saying I was trying to, like, think, why. Why. Why was that so hard? Maybe it was the momentum, because I'm running. I was, like, trying to, like, think about. I don't know where the ninja came from.

[Mike Schur]

Mike. I think that slapping is just, like, a more shocking thing than youth. I've never been slapped in my life, I'm proud to say. And so I. I think I just greatly underestimated the force of the blow that was about to hit my face. But this is all part of this larger conversation of why it wasn't fun to play Moze. It's because not only was it always a sight gag, but also, like, the. Sometimes the writers would write actual lines for me, and then in the edit, it would always be like, yeah, it's funnier if we don't hear from Mose. Right. So they would cut all the lines, and then it was like, what is the most humiliating way that we can use him? And it was like being slapped be, like, in an outhouse with his pants around his ankles while the door is slamming closed. Like, it was just. It was Greg's and the writer's way of just, like, enjoying tormenting me. So now when I look back, I'm. It's. I'm so happy that I did it. But at every time, I had to, like, leave the writers room, a place where I knew what I was doing, and go be a performer where I did not know what I was doing. I was always a little bit like, this is a. This is torture. I always felt like it was a little bit of torture.

[Jenna Fischer]

Mike, do you get recognized for being MO's very often?

[Mike Schur]

There are certainly times when I am recognized for that, yes. I mean, I'm older. I'm. I'm 17 years older, and my hair is a lot grayer. And so people don't. Don't recognize me as often as you would think they would, given how popular the show still is. But I will say that my son went to a basketball camp a couple summers ago, and I went to pick him up from the camp. And my son had just watched the show. I think he was 10 or 11, and he had just watched the whole show, and he was very excited to tell people that I wrote Ford and that I played Mose. And so I went to pick him up from the camp, and one of his counselors, I walked over to where the kids were, and one of his counselors saw me coming, and he just broke into this huge smile, was like, hey. And I was like, all right, this guy knows that I was most. And like, kind of tell when people recognize me. I did also, when the pandemic first hit, I. I did a fundraiser for L. A Regional food bank, which is a charity I really like. The L. A Regional Food bank gives out food to a lot of people in L. A County. And I said, like, all right, I'm going to try to raise money for L. A Regional food bank, and I'll match donations up to. I can't remember what it was, some $25,000 or something. And very quickly, donations started pouring in. And then, like a true moron, I said, if we raise $50,000 by the end of the day, I will shave my head. And that. And it was a joke, but that caused donations to really pour in and to the point where, like, it was like, within an hour, we were at, like, $50,000. And so then I was like, oh, I see. I see the game. The game is humiliation, right? Like, if I just. If I offer humiliation, like, we'll raise more money. So then I put it up as a poll and said, would you rather have me shave my head or grow the mos beard? And grow the mos beard won in a landslide. So I had. So over the. In the. Early. In, like, May, April, May, June, July of 2020, I spent, like, again, like, three months growing the beard out and then shaved my mustache, so I just had neck beard. And around that time, I got recognized. Even with masks. I got recognized, like, every. Everywhere I went. Like, that was a big. That was like a big Mohs moment. Because it was right when the pandemic hit, everybody was streaming the show. Like, the popularity of the show really surged. And then also, I was walking around with the beers. So that was a. There was. That was a real high. High frequency Mohs sighting, I would say.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay. We've talked a lot about the crazy things you had to do as mo's that were sort of torturous. Was there any moment being mo's that you had fun? Was there a scene? Was there one moment that you really enjoyed?

[Mike Schur]

It was always fun. Like, even when I was being tortured, it was always fun. Cause I really, like. I revere actors in a very sort of childlike way. I fundamentally don't understand how actors do what you do. I find it to be the most difficult of all of the performing arts, by far. It's so much harder than writing. I think. It's harder than directing. And that was really hammered home to me. Even when I was doing this ridiculous sight gag and had to say a few words here and there, I was always like, God, I. I'm so much worse at this than I am in my head. Which is why I'm a writer. Like, what a writer is. Right. I know. I know what it should be. I just don't know how to actually do it myself. So I. There were times when. For example, do you remember the episode where. Of course you do. The episode where. Where Jim and Pam are excited because Schrute Farms has become a B and B.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes.

[Mike Schur]

And they go and check in. It's the one where I run along the side of the car like a dog at the beginning. Right?

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes. I want to mention quickly, Mike for anybody. John Krasinski was not driving slow. I was in the car, and I. I remember that it was 100 degrees that day because that's the day that John thought it would be really funny to prank me and put the car heater seat on because we weren't allowed to have the air conditioner for sound. And I was, like, so hot. But then you were running next to the car, so I thought, well, I can't complain about being hot, because, I mean, look at Mike out there, like, running his hardest. And John was, like, going fast. I mean, I. I don't know how.

[Angela Kinsey]

You did it, how you're in a cast.

[Jenna Fischer]

I don't know how you did that.

[Mike Schur]

That was the hardest. That was the hardest acting I've ever done. And all I was doing is running because I was in those wool clothes and I was wearing those work boots. And John was driving, like, 15 to 20 miles an hour on that dirt road, and I had to keep up. And I. But also, I had to run up to the window, disappear behind the car, and then run fast to catch up to the other side of the window.

[Jenna Fischer]

Exactly. And also, you weren't allowed to use your arms.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes.

[Jenna Fischer]

Your arms were like. So you. There was, like, a lack of momentum that you could create because you were only using your bottom half.

[Angela Kinsey]

I want to reach you at Dunderpedia, the fan website, how they explain Moses running. They say Mose proceeds to run away in his usual running with his arm swinging no higher than his waist style.

[Mike Schur]

I don't know where that came from. I like one of the early. One of the early Moe's appearances. It was like Mo's runs in. To the. I think it was in the. In the initiation. Like, Mose runs into the room. And I don't know why, but I just did that really awkward run. That's not how I run when I'm running.

[Jenna Fischer]

I hope not.

[Mike Schur]

I just did that for some reason. And then it just became the thing that I. That Mo does. But what Jenna's saying is true, though, because after I ran and caught up to the car, I then had to run past the car. I had to speed past it and run, like, a hundred yards all the way over to where the farmhouse was. And I knew I wasn't on camera anymore because obviously the camera is. What's interesting is not. Is not. Excuse me. What's interesting is not Moe's running anymore. What's interesting is Jim and Pam reacting to this weird dog person that just ran alongside their car. But they made me run all the way, like a hundred yards every single time. And we did like 11 takes of that. And I. Gosh, I've never been more sore in my life than I was the day after that because I didn't know that I was going to have to run a hundred. I was going to have to run a dozen hundred yard sprints.

[Angela Kinsey]

You were like an Olympic contender. You like outran a car.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, it was the. It's the most athletic I've ever been. I would say it's the most, the. The highest level of athletic achievement in my life.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, we have it on camera. It's for all time.

[Angela Kinsey]

Forever. Forever. Documented proof.

[Mike Schur]

There's proof that I used to be a good runner.

[Jenna Fischer]

But I'm sorry, because you were gonna say something about that episode that you enjoyed.

[Mike Schur]

So there was a scene that. I don't even know if it made it into the episode. I don't think it did. But there was a scene where Jim and Pam, in that episode, at night, Pam hears Dwight kind of moaning and sad because Angela has broken up with him, I think. And then in the morning, Dwight's gone and in Jim and Pam come down and are being Moses, serving them breakfast bacon, tons of bacon, nothing but bacon. And there was, it was actually, it was the closest I ever came to having a scene because there were like. It was like a page of dialogue where I was serving you and you were, you were saying like, I think Jenna, you say like, Mose, do you know where Dwight is or do you know where is she? Is he sad about Angela or something? And we actually had an exchange where I, like, had to memorize lines and, like, know what my cues were. And I remember thinking, like, I'm not. This isn't. What I'm doing is not per se good. But I'm enjoying the process of learning what it's like to be an actor and to actually try to be aware of the camera, be present in the scene, listen to what you're saying, and respond with the lines that were written for me. And it was weirdly kind of thrilling. And I was like, this is never going to make it in. I'd worked at the show long enough to know that we didn't have time for this weird dumb mosque Jim Pam scene. But. But I really did have fun doing it because it felt like. I think it gave me a greater appreciation just for, like, what. How hard it is to do that. How hard it is to just be in a scene, have lines that you have to have memorized and know how to say them. Properly and in an interesting way, while there are cameras on you, while there's people in the room, it's just a very difficult skill. I think that the world of television and movies would be better if every writer were forced to act sometimes and if every actor were forced to direct and if every director were forced to write. Like, if we all switched positions every once in a while just to remind ourselves. Like, the other skills that are involved in making TV are. Each of them is so hard. It's so specific and so hard. So I really did like that. I liked acting in those scenes just as a way to, like, remind me of how difficult a skill it is.

[Jenna Fischer]

Now I have a question.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

Because of your experience with mo's, and knowing everything that would go into some of the physical comedy bits that you were asked to do as a writer, does it ever get in your head when you come up with a really great gag? Do you think to yourself, oh, no, I'm going to have to put this actor through this horrible thing. And, like, does it ever, like, affect your writing?

[Mike Schur]

It really does. And, and, and I have found myself talking to actors a lot where I. And saying, like, we have this idea for this silly thing. Are you cool with this? They always say yes. Like, actors are incredibly adaptable people, by and large. They're always happy to. Or in my experience, I've been always happy to say, like, oh, yeah, that sounds fun. The one. One time I didn't do this, and I wish I had, although it was fine, nothing bad happened. But there was a scene in the show, the Good Place, that I created where William Jackson Harper played a character who was sort of a. He's sort of a tortured soul. He wants to be sort of morally perfect, and he believes that such a thing is possible. And there's an episode where he's sort of going through a. An existential crisis, and he's just sort of walking around lost in a daze, and he, like. He goes into. He's like, walking around and some sprinklers go off and they just soak him. And he just kind of stands there and just gets soaked by the sprinklers. And then he just kind of, like, takes his shirt off and just kind of keeps walking. And then you cut to him and he's in a grocery store shopping, shirtless. And then. Excuse me. And then, like, a woman comes over and is like, sir, you have to wear a shirt in here. And he just grabs, like, a shirt off a rack and just puts it on and smiles and keeps walking and it turns out that William Jackson Harper is, like, cut. Like, he's. He's like a very, like, physically fit person, which I did not know, like, that I'd never seen him with his shirt off before we shot that scene. But him taking his shirt off caused the Internet to, like, explode because it was like, oh, my God, the, like, the dorky philosophy professor guy is also jacked. And. And I mean, it was. It was only good for him. Like, I like that everybody was happy with the result, but it. I was like, oh, my God. I never asked him if it was okay that I wrote this thing where he takes his shirt off. Like, I should. I should ask actors that more. Like, I should say, are you okay with this? And I think if there were, It's a. It's a gendered thing in a way. It shouldn't be. Right. Like, if it. Obviously, if there had. If it had been a woman, I would never in a billion years have written any scene where a woman disrobes in any way without clearing it with her first. There would have been a million discussions and meetings and whatever. And it didn't occur to me that a man might also be uncomfortable with that. And so I remember thinking, like, I'm so happy that it was okay that he was okay with it. That, whatever. But I. But I also, again, and this weirdly comes from playing Moe's and all the ridiculous. I had to pick up cow patties and throw them at Rainn Wilson and do all sorts of humiliating things. No one ever asked me if I was okay with any of it. And I do think that those conversations should happen more often. Even when you don't think there will be any problem with this. I think there should be generally more communication between writers and directors and actors to just say, like, hey, just want to make sure you're cool with this. If you're not, it's totally okay. We can write something else. So anyway, I don't know if that answers your question or not, but.

[Jenna Fischer]

Well, it's really interesting because as an actor, I feel like this comes up a lot in television because you agree to play a character, but you don't know what is going to be written about your character beyond the pilot episode.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, right.

[Jenna Fischer]

And so there could be years and years and years of stories, and they are a surprise to the actor every week. And so with a movie, well, I can see the movie script. If there's like three weird sex scenes or like a weird scene that makes me uncomfortable, I can just say, oh, I. This isn't the part for me.

[Angela Kinsey]

Right. You know the whole story.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

I know everything that's being asked of me when I accept that movie role. But when you accept a television role, you don't know what's going to be asked of you. And I've always thought that that communication, you know, this came up on our show later when they came up with the really funny idea that Pam would have a male lactation consultant who would be massaging her breasts in front of Jim. And that Pam and the lactation consultant would find this very clinical. And that Jim was trying to also find it clinical.

[Angela Kinsey]

Trying to be cool.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. But was also like, this handsome man is massaging my wife's breasts right now. And. And I remember they came up to me and said, we think this is really funny, but we imagine that it would be weird for you to have a total stranger that you met that day come and handle your breasts. And the joke only works if they're actually touching your breasts. So what if your fiance Lee played the role and then it's someone who's already massaging your breasts. Massaging your breasts. And I was like, well, he does massage them. So that is true. And so it was great.

[Angela Kinsey]

So then it was just weird for John.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. Then it was just weird for everyone else because we were super comfortable.

[Mike Schur]

Well, I think that's, that's first of all good for them for obviously bringing that up. But also like that there is an enormous leap of faith that you're taking as an actor when you sign onto a TV show. Right. You're so. You're really like, you're using a very small amount of data, which is usually like a pilot script and maybe a meeting with the show creator or the showrunner. And you're extrapolating over potentially 10 years and 200 episodes of like, am I putting my faith and trust in this person? And is it going to be rewarded? Or are there going to be constant battles and fights about creative directions and things that they asked me to do that. And, and the, and that this is part of why being an actor, I think is so difficult is you only. Your only advocate is yourself. Like, you don't have, you know, you maybe have an agent or a manager who can have your back in those moments. But it's like this idea of like the, quote, difficult actor, end quote. Like, I think that is a. A horrible misnomer that has come from now 80 years of actors being. Getting a new script every week and not having any idea what's in it. And those ideas coming from people who maybe haven't run a bunch of things by them and just being like, oh, man, now I gotta do this this week. And that and the range of how it can make an actor feel uncomfortable is enormous. It can be anything from, like, a strange man has to massage parts of your body that you might not want that person to massage all the way, to just creative decisions about the character, the choices the character makes, things that the character does that you don't agree with. It's just really hard. It's a very difficult thing, and the chance for it to go sideways is enormous. So the more communication there is between writers and actors, the better to bring this full circle. That's another thing that I remember thinking I could attribute to SNL a little bit with Greg, because Greg worked there. At snl, everybody does everything. Writers act and actors write. And it's very like community theater kind of feeling. And there's no division between actors and writers really at all. Like, it's all one big hodgepodge. And that was. Greg's whole theory was like, let's break down these artificial barriers between the writers and the actors. That's why he wanted Mindy and BJ and Paul to act in the show. It's why he gave the this season two finale where Jim and Pam, where Jim tells Pam that he likes her or is in love with her and that they kiss for the first time. Steve wrote that. He gave that to Steve. Like, that's traditionally the kind of thing that, like, he would write or like the. A co EP trusted writer would write that script. But Greg saw the big picture and he understood fundamentally that the more there was that we. He broke down the divisions between writers and actors, the healthier the organism of the show would be. And he was totally right.

[Angela Kinsey]

So true. I mean, Jenna and I have talked about that a lot on this podcast. Other shows that we have done since the Office, I did a guest star on a show and the writers room was in New York and we filmed in la. And I thought, wow, they never meet the writers, they never interact with them at all. And it's just been such a interesting and wonderful perspective to look back at how fortunate we were to have that sort of creative collaboration as our biggest job in our life.

[Jenna Fischer]

I've bounced up to writers on sets, at other jobs thinking that the way we had it on the Office was normal. And they seem terrified to speak to me. They are terrified that I am talking to them. They are afraid to say anything. I'll be like, hey, what's Up. What do you think? Like, next week, what do you think is gonna be like, how's this story gonna play out? And they're like, I don't. Don't want to speak to you.

[Angela Kinsey]

The first time I did a multicam after the Office, because I'd never done a multicam, all the writers were, like, huddled in a corner. You know, like, we're filming. It's like filming a one act play, and they're all in the corner because I knew this joke wasn't working and I had like a few ideas. So I went up to the huddle and I was like, hey, guys, I got like two or three pitches. And they were like, what? It was like a record scratch.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah, I know. And again, Greg's ethos was. Greg's ethos in a nutshell is best idea wins. And he doesn't care whether the best idea comes from a writer, an actor, a director, an accountant, a random person on the street who happens to walk by at the right moment and has a good pitch. Like, it was just, why would we not take the best idea? And so that fostered that sense of, like, everybody, give us all your ideas. Like, let's put all of the ideas into a pot and pick the best one. And that is very frequently, sadly, not how it works on other shows. And it's a shame because, you know, there were times when we would be battling about something in the edit bay, about an episode, and he'd have two alts and he would say, which one do you like? And all of the writers would choose version A. And he would go, like. And then he would call in, like, the accounting department.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah.

[Mike Schur]

And he'd be like, what, you want.

[Angela Kinsey]

To be the real accountant?

[Mike Schur]

Actual accountants? Yeah. Yes. Not. Not you and Oscar.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah, not me and Brian and Oscar.

[Mike Schur]

And he would go, which one do you like? And they would say, we like B. And he's like, yeah, I think B is better. And it drove us crazy sometimes. But he was like, you're not the audience, you're professional comedy writers. Like, of course you're gonna like this weird offbeat thing that we did. You know what the best example of this is? So Jim's proposal to Pam at the. At the gas station. Right. So three versions. I don't know if you remember this, Jenna. We had three versions. One of them was the car pulls over, the camera is across the street and is shooting super long lens, and all you hear is traffic whizzing by in the foreground, and you can't hear. They're not mic'd in this. In this version, the sound was off. So you saw Jim walk up and you saw Pam and. Haha. And then all of a sudden they're talking. You don't know what they're saying. Jim gets down on one knee, Pam reacts, and they. And then they hug and they kiss and it's over. And second version was. Or the. The final version was like, very traditionally shot. Like, you were right with them in the gas station, sort of looking in a classic TV coverage, and you could still hear traffic whizzing by in the background, but you couldn't really see it. And the cameras are right up close. And then there was a sort of intermediate version where you were a little bit further away, but you could hear what they were saying. And he screened all three of them. And the. The one that was where the camera was super far away and you couldn't hear a word. Gave me, like, the greatest goosebump feeling of my life. Like, I was like, that's so beautiful. It's so perfect for the show. It reminded me of the scene in the British Office where Tim takes off his mic and goes in and talks to Dawn. That was the sort of model of it where. And you don't hear what they're saying. And then he comes back out and grabs the mic and says, she said no, by the way. And. And it's terrible and sad. And I was like, well, that's. That's a home run. That's like the most beautiful. It's so perfect. It's the most beautiful thing ever. And he was like, yeah, we're not using that version. That was like, why? And he was like, because this is a moment that fans of the show have been waiting for for five, six years, whatever it was. And it's not. It's just fundamentally not fair to deny them the ability to hear Jim say, will you marry me? It's just mean. It's like, and. And this might be the most sort of, like, beautiful, artistic, you know, like, highfalutin version, but if. If what? What are we doing if we're denying fans the ability to hear Jim say, will you marry me? And hear Pam say, yes, that's just cruel. And I always fought him on all of those decisions, and he was always right. It's just like, at the end of the day, I was like, of course. Of course. You need to hear will you marry me? Yes, like that. That's such a foundational moment in the history of the show. And so he had that. He had that thing of, like, let's develop and explore every possible idea, let's walk down every path, let's pull every name out of the hat, and at the end of the day, we will choose the one that is the best for the show, not the one that's loved the most by the people who work on the show or the writers who write things or anything else. Just what is the best thing for the show? And that's why the show, over the course of its decade long run, had such an integrity to it. I think it's because it was always. The decisions were always made in terms of what's best for the show, not what a bunch of jaded writers thought would be the coolest thing or something like that.

[Jenna Fischer]

Do you want to ask Mike about the Christmas lights?

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, yeah, I do. This is such a hard pivot. But we. Okay, so in the first Christmas episode, which. Oh, my God, I just love that episode so much, I can watch it, like, every year. It's almost like, you know, what do you like to watch at the holidays? Oh, that. You know, Christmas vacation with Chevy Chase. I like to watch the very first.

[Mike Schur]

Christmas episode, Yankee Swap.

[Angela Kinsey]

I have had a Yankee Swap party for years inspired by that episode. I love everything about it. So there was this moment that we heard was inspired by your real life where when they put up the Christmas tree, the tiny, tiny Christmas lights, and Angela's so mad at Phyllis, she's so pissed off. And we heard that was, like, actually based on something in your life. Were there. Was. Is that true? And were there other moments like that, like, things that were in your life that made it into the show?

[Mike Schur]

Totally true. My first Christmas in la, my. My then fiance, now wife, jj and I got our. Our first tree as cohabitants. And we were so excited. We both love Christmas. We love, like, decorating the tree. We love everything. And we bought the tree and we took it home and we put it up and we played Christmas music. And we had bought these. My. In my house growing up, you always did only white lights. I don't know why. That was, like, what our family preferred. And JJ had been like, I like the big colored ones. They're so, like, cheery and happy. And I, for some reason, won the argument. I don't know why, but I was like, trust me, it looks great. It looks great. And so I went and bought those little tiny white lights, and I very carefully strung them around the tree and everything. And then we, like, were playing Christmas music, and it was like a big countdown. And I turned them on and you absolutely could not see any of them. They just say it was the saddest, the least, the least. It was the opposite of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting. And. And I was immediately humiliated. And I turned and my wife was just laughing at me so hard, like, just what a complete failure this was. And I immediately went out and went to the drugstore and bought big, big, big colored lights and came home and we strung them up. And so I. But I remember that, that feeling. And like, that episode is so much about, like, expectation versus reality. And so I was like, oh, that would be a good, like, little metaphor for what's about to happen to Michael Scott when he gets Phyllis's oven mitt. So I just, I put it in as like Greg was so into. And the show was so into those tiny, tiny, tiny observable moments of real life. And. And so I was like, well, that makes perfect sense. And my favorite thing about that is after they turn the lights on and Michael goes, not great, there's a quick pan to Angela, who just looks angrier than she has ever looked in her entire life.

[Angela Kinsey]

I know that episode gave me a full headache because I was just always so angry.

[Mike Schur]

Scowling. Just scowling everybody. Yeah. I mean, there that. So much of what happened in those first. In that. Especially in the first season and a half, seasons one and two, so much of that stuff was real observation about people's lives. All of the gifts that I invented for this was another great writing lesson that came from that episode. So in my original version, the person who had Angela, maybe. No, Oscar, had Creed, who had a. Toby.

[Angela Kinsey]

Toby.

[Mike Schur]

Toby, right. So Toby in the original version had a talking head where he was like, I don't know a lot about Angela. I know that she's religious. So I bought her this book. And the book was one of those sort of religious adjacent self help books, you know, like sort of like leading. Leading a spiritual life or something. It's one of those kind of hokey books. And Greg was like, I don't think that he should give her that book because we already know that Angela has that tendency or leans in that direction. And so you're not. The audience isn't getting any new information. And I was like, all right, well, like, what could it be? And then someone. It might've been Greg pitched that thing of a poster of babies who are dressed like adults.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yeah.

[Mike Schur]

And nobody could understand why. But it was the perfect thing. It was just such a perfect thing that it was like, you're learning more about Angela. Right. You've got a new piece of information about her character, but it's still very much in keeping with who. What we already know about her.

[Angela Kinsey]

Right, right.

[Mike Schur]

And then that. And then that poster became, like, basis of, like, four other stories over the course.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, yeah. It became a huge source of contention between Angela and Oscar because she hung it by her desk.

[Mike Schur]

Oscar had to wear it as a. As a shirt.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah, well, Angela in real life really likes animals who are dressed in costumes of other animals. I mean, it's very similar. It's very similar to liking babies dressed as adults, I think.

[Angela Kinsey]

I mean, animals dressed as any. Anything, really. Like, if. If on Halloween you dress your dog as a hot dog, I'm gonna be like, oh, my God, your dog's a hot dog.

[Mike Schur]

So we have two dogs, and this year they were ketchup and mustard.

[Angela Kinsey]

Ah, I love it. Oh, I would love to see a.

[Jenna Fischer]

Picture of that that lights up Angela's life.

[Mike Schur]

Animals dress like other animals. You mean, like. Like a. Like a dog dressed like a cow or like.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, yeah. Or like a teddy bear. That's. But it has, like, a bunny hat. Yeah, I know why. I don't know why.

[Jenna Fischer]

Mike, thank you so much for coming on Office Ladies today. This was such a treat. We want to tell people that you wrote a book.

[Mike Schur]

Yes.

[Jenna Fischer]

And the book is called how to Be Perfect. It comes out on January 25th. Tell us about it.

[Mike Schur]

So this book came out of the show the Good Place that I created, which was about. It's a. If you haven't seen it, it's very hard to explain it in one sentence, but it's essentially a. I pitched it as a show about, like, what it means to be a good person. And for the show, I read a lot of Ethics and Philosophy by a lot of very old, boring people. And I thought. I had this thought while I was researching it, which was that these people have such good ideas for how to be better people. Like, is all of these ethical theories, and this moral philosophy is like. It's like a how to guide for living a good life and being a good person on earth. But their writing is so tortured and boring that no one wants to read it. So maybe I could write a version where I sort of try to explain as best as I can what their theories are, but in a way that doesn't give you attention, headache, and make you sleepy. So that's what it is. It's sort of a summary of a lot of different theories and moral philosophy. The way that the book is sort of. Of organized is Like, I pose a bunch of boring questions or mundane questions that face us every day. Like, if my friend bought an ugly shirt and says, what do you think of my shirt? Is it okay to lie to her? Or can you? Or can you? Or do you have to tell the truth? And so it's questions like that that are just things that come up in everyday life. And then I try to explain what different moral philosophers and ethicists would say about those questions. So that's the idea. And it's on sale January. It's on sale now. You can buy it now from any online bookstore that you prefer. And also, all of the proceeds are going to charity. So you can buy it and know that you're doing something good in the world by having money go to charity.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, I love that.

[Jenna Fischer]

Just by buying the book, I am being a good person.

[Angela Kinsey]

That's right.

[Mike Schur]

That's right. That's the idea. Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

So you're really setting me up to succeed.

[Angela Kinsey]

I know.

[Jenna Fischer]

I like it.

[Angela Kinsey]

I like it, too.

[Mike Schur]

You know right away that you've made the world a slightly better place just by buying the book. It's that easy. It's that easy to be a good person.

[Angela Kinsey]

I love it. Well, this is what Mindy Kaling had to say about your book. She said, as someone who worries that a deep dive into morality will ruin my fun and problematic life, I was certain this book wouldn't be for me. Boy, was I wrong. It's so brilliant and funny and warmly written. You don't realize you're becoming a better person just by reading it.

[Mike Schur]

Yes, it was very nice of her to blurb the book. Her blurb is actually the one that made the COVID which I don't think I told you.

[Jenna Fischer]

Cover blurb.

[Angela Kinsey]

Oh, cover blurb. I found it online. That's fancy blurb right there. Well, I'm so excited to read it.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes, I have ordered my copy, and Angela has two, and we're gonna get them. And, Mike, thank you, because I. Well, I'm a huge fan of your Twitter as well. Yeah, I feel like you're very, very good at taking complex ideas or thoughts and making them really digestible and entertaining. You're also very good at breaking down baseball statistics.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes. I have found. I go to your Twitter if there's a big game on, because I'm like, oh, well, I know that Mike is going to explain this to me, because I don't know what all the hullabaloo is about.

[Mike Schur]

It's very kind of you to say. I often wonder who in the World is still reading my Twitter because it is either in ridiculous arcane sports data.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes.

[Mike Schur]

Or just screaming about something that a politician said. And it's like the, the Venn diagram for the two groups of people that, that, that want both of those things has to be tiny. So I'm glad to know that you two are still in the Venn diagram overlap of people who read my Twitter.

[Jenna Fischer]

I am. I don't understand your sports analysis.

[Angela Kinsey]

Not always. No.

[Jenna Fischer]

But I find it just sort of fascinating to watch your brain work.

[Angela Kinsey]

Yes. And we love data. Jenna and I have discovered one of the things we have in common is we love tracking things. We get very excited. Just, you name it, we track it on the show. Like, I became obsessed about every plant that was at front reception and I would document how every week there was a new plant. And that's something that I find fascinating about baseball is there's so many different stats, I don't understand them. But I will go to your Twitter. When there's a big game and people are talking about stats.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yes.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah.

[Jenna Fischer]

Pitches really break down the pitches.

[Mike Schur]

Yeah. Well, part of, part of what some people love about baseball and what some people hate about it is the amount of data that you can analyze. I love it because I'm the same way. I get nerdy about, like, about numbers and stats and stuff. But again, like, when I. When I go to my Twitter account and post like 11 consecutive tweets about, like, whether a certain pitch was a ball or a strike, I do have the thought of, like, who is this for? Like, like, who is reading this right now and enjoying it? But that's the joy of Twitter is you don't ever have to know if you don't want to know. You can just send it out in the universe and who cares?

[Angela Kinsey]

Well, we have one final wrap up question for you. We always ask everyone who is on the show or worked on the show if they took anything from the set.

[Mike Schur]

Okay. So unlike probably many of the people that you've interviewed, I left in the middle. Right. I was around for the first four seasons and then the beginning of season five, and then Greg and I started developing Parks and Recreation together. I worked out of the office offices like I was still around. But slowly over the course of season five, I receded into the background. So I didn't know, I think sort of intellectually understand that I was leaving, leaving. And so I didn't really think to grab anything specific from the set because it was like they were still being used.

[Angela Kinsey]

Right.

[Mike Schur]

We're still making the show, so I really didn't take anything. I have a couple things that I do treasure that are related to the show, one of which was when I left Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky went to Phil Shea, property master Phil Shea, and got his contact for who made the Dwight bobblehead that Angela had given to Dwight as a present. And they had a mike bobblehead made.

[Angela Kinsey]

Aw.

[Mike Schur]

And as like. It was sort of like a parting gift. And so I still have the mike bobblehead. The only problem is I used to wear glass. I wear contacts now every day. But back then, I wore glasses pretty often because we would often work until, like, you know, one in the morning, and my contacts would dry out. And the bobble. The mic bobblehead had had actual glasses on. And at some point, I think when we moved, the glasses broke off, which is a bummer. And I've often thought about trying to repair them somehow and put them back on. So I have a mic bobblehead, and I do have somewhere, and I don't even know where. There was a moment at which the everyone realized that the World's Best Boss Mug would be a thing that was going to matter for the run of the show. And Phil ordered, like, 24 of them just as. In case they broke or in case we needed more of them or whatever. And I asked him if I could have one, and he gave me one. So I have a World's Best Boss Mug. Not one that was ever you. It's not a famous one. It's not the one from the opening credits or anything, but I do have a World's Best Boss mug that is, technically speaking, from. From the set. I guess if you want to. If you want to stretch the definition of from the set.

[Angela Kinsey]

And you know what else you have is you have your binder with all your notes. That is amazing to me.

[Mike Schur]

I have that. I have a lot of notebooks that I still look at from those early days. Yeah. And I'm sure there's a couple other things here and there somewhere. Someone, I think after the finale, wardrobe asked me if I wanted to keep any of the Moe's clothes. And I believe what I said was, please burn them in a. Oh, my.

[Angela Kinsey]

Gosh, Mike, this was so fun. Thank you so much.

[Jenna Fischer]

Thank you so much.

[Mike Schur]

Thank you for having me. It's so nice to see you too. I'm so pleased that you are the official voice of the show. It seems very fitting to me that the world is seeing the show through your eyes.

[Angela Kinsey]

Aww.

[Jenna Fischer]

That's very kind of you to say. We're loving it. That was amazing. I love talking to Mike. I could talk to him forever.

[Angela Kinsey]

Me too. And he said to us, you guys, he was like, like, if you ever have any questions for me about anything for the office or other things, let me know. And I was like, jenna, how often can we text him?

[Jenna Fischer]

Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Mike, get ready for an email flurry.

[Angela Kinsey]

You love the flurry. I.

[Jenna Fischer]

It's cute. It's a flurry.

[Angela Kinsey]

I mean, instead of Jenna's blowing up your phone, she flurries up your phone.

[Jenna Fischer]

I'm gonna flurry it.

[Angela Kinsey]

Well, you guys, Mike's book is called how to be Perfect. The correct answer to every moral question. It is out now.

[Jenna Fischer]

And Mike really is giving away 100% of everything he's making on his book to five different charities. And the book is awesome.

[Angela Kinsey]

Well, that's our show this week, guys. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Office Ladies. Next week we have the promotion.

[Jenna Fischer]

Yeah. Jim gets a little mini office in the office.

[Angela Kinsey]

He gets a glass box. He does in the middle of the bullpen.

[Jenna Fischer]

It's strange and interesting and we'll take tell you all about it.

[Angela Kinsey]

See you next week.

[Jenna Fischer]

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

[Angela Kinsey]

Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.

[Jenna Fischer]

Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins, our audio engineer is Sam Kieffer, and our associate producer is Ainslie Bubaco.

[Angela Kinsey]

Audrey Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Rees Dennis.

[Jenna Fischer]

Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

[Angela Kinsey]

Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

[Jenna Fischer]

As a young adult, finding the right path to your future can feel overwhelming.

[Angela Kinsey]

It starts with Year Up United's tuition free job training program, Career Pathways.

[Jenna Fischer]

If you're without a bachelor's degree but have a high school diploma or ged, you can get skills first training to succeed in the industries you're passionate about, all while earning a weekly educational stipend to offset basic expenses.

[Angela Kinsey]

From there, you'll have access to internships and hands on experiences with Fortune 500 companies. And with Year Up United's job placement services and personalized coaching and mentorship, you can put your knowledge, skills and most importantly, confidence into practice.

[Jenna Fischer]

Apply to Europe United today and take the first step toward achieving the career you want. Visit europe.org to learn more.