Rainn Wilson is best known as Dwight Schrute on The Office. But in Agoura Hills, he's a nice guy who happens to be a neighbor. On Monday, the Agoura resident appeared online answering questions about everything from existential angst to making babies.
Wilson was on Reddit.com, the self proclaimed "front page of the Internet," to promote his book Soul Pancake and an upcoming The Office spinoff called The Farm by participating in a question and answer exchange, dubbed AMAs (or ask me anything) on the website. The feature garnered well over 8,000 comments even though he was scheduled to be online only two hours.
Instead of concentrating on the promotion, which would have been ill-tolerated by the Reddit participants (it's happened...), Wilson addressed questions about The Office including working with his cast mates and the show's latest season, which was the first since Steve Carell left the cast.
"I think some mistakes were made in The Office last season creatively. That being said I think some of the best, most interesting and funniest stuff we've ever done was last season," Wilson wrote.
He gave advice about entering show business.
"My advice to starting in the business is to TRAIN! STUDY! APPRENTICE! There's this myth that 'I have talent' so I'm going to show up to LA and be famous. It's a craft that takes years (if not decades) to hone," he wrote.
He also acknowledged that he will forever be associated with his Office character.
"I will always be known for Dwight and I'm fine with that. I'm so (expletive deleted) grateful for the role," he wrote. "I have always been an actor, and I'll just keep acting and people will see my range BUT they'll still say, 'Hey, there's Dwight from The Office!' "
Wilson also wrote about his faith, his man cave and his favorite hot sauce—Tapatio—and he and his wife's work in Haiti helping promote education.
And, yes, he even managed to work in a plug for his SoulPancake channel on YouTube.
Before running to rehearsal for his television show, Wilson thanked everyone for participating.
"I love you guys, I really do. Thanks for being such cool fans of The Office and SoulPancake and Super and LIFE! I'm going to a table read right now for the next episode. Wish me luck. See you soon."
