Rainn Wilson on Why He Felt “Mostly Unhappy” While on ‘The Office’

Rainn Wilson is looking back on filming The Office and sharing why he felt “mostly unhappy” at the time.

In an interview with Bill Maher on Maher’s Club Random podcast, Wilson, who starred on the sitcom as Dwight Schrute for nine seasons, explained that he spent “several years” on the series feeling unhappy because it didn’t feel like “enough.”

“When I was in The Office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough,” Wilson told Maher. “This is what I’m looking at now, and I’m realizing now, like, I’m on a hit show, Emmy nominated every year, making lots of money, working with Steve Carell and Jenna Fisher and John Krasinski and these amazing writers and incredible directors like Paul Feig. I’m on one of the great TV shows. People love it. And I wasn’t enjoying it.”

He went on to explain that he desired a successful film career at the time: “I was thinking about, ‘Why am I not a movie star? Why am I not the next Jack Black or the next Will Ferrell? How come I can’t have a movie career? Why don’t I have this development deal?'”

He later added, “When I was on The Office, I was clutching and grasping at, OK, I was making hundreds of thousands. I wanted millions, and I was a TV star, but I wanted to be a movie star. It was never enough.”

During the interview, Maher had also admitted to Wilson how much of a fan of The Office he was, noting that it almost felt “therapeutic” to be laughing at the end of the day while watching his recordings of the show at the time.

“I think the word you use ‘therapeutic’ is really interesting because I can’t tell you how many times a day online and in person I hear from people ‘Thank you for The Office, the laughter that it gave me, that it gave my family, healed us during COVID,'” Wilson said.

He noted that when he originally signed up for the show, he was more concerned with being able to buy a house and “wasn’t thinking about giving laughter as a therapeutic remedy and a balm and a salve to a hurting populace.

“What an honor it was to be a part of something like that,” he said of the show’s impact now.

In May, Wilson debuted his Peacock show, Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss, in which he “traverses the globe searching for the secrets to the happiest societies on Earth.” He also released his book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, earlier this year.