People: Everyone’s joining Rainn on his parade
His work as a mortician’s apprentice got him noticed. His turn as eccentric paper salesman Dwight Schrute made him famous.
Now producers can’t seem to get enough of Rainn Wilson. A star of NBC’s Emmy-winning comedy “The Office,” and an alumnus of HBO’s hit drama “Six Feet Under,” Wilson is being offered film roles for the first time in his 14-year career. And whenever “The Office” goes on hiatus, he takes them.
He plays a disarmingly normal science teacher in the family film “The Last Mimzy,” which opened Friday. He’ll be back to weird in “Bonzai Shadowhands,” a movie he wrote.
It’s a dream life for the 41-year-old Seattle native, who used to do odd jobs to supplement his acting career.
Q: How has “The Office” changed your life?
A: I get recognized a lot. When you’re an actor on a TV show that people love, and you play kind of a goofball, they instantly think that they’re your best friend. I’m there with my wife and kid, and they’re wanting to engage in having a buddy-buddy conversation. I try to be nice and grateful to my fans – my billions and billions of fans. But at the same time I like to keep my privacy going a little bit.
Q: How did you get involved with “The Last Mimzy”?
A: (Director) Bob Shaye sent me the script and offered me the role. For an actor who’s been struggling for 13 or 14 years professionally to all the sudden be getting scripts sent, it’s insane. I read it, and I was deeply and genuinely moved by it.
Q: Plus you get a chance to play a normal, hippie teacher.
A: There’s a particular brand of West Coast – and particularly the Pacific Northwest – of hippie type of character. I call them the healthy hippies. Hippies you always think of as kind of unwashed and really drugged out. But the healthy hippies, they go to the organic bakery in the morning, and they have a latte and a bran muffin. Then they have their kayaking lesson, and you know, their Birkenstocks, maybe an earring to be a little bit rebellious. … (T)hey’re not hippies per se. They’re just outdoorsy, alternative livers. That’s what I tried to tap into.
Q: You got all that background growing up?
A: My parents were hippies in Seattle. My name is Rainn. So it was all right there for me.
The birthday bunch
Movie critic Gene Shalit is 75. Singer Anita Bryant is 67. Singer Aretha Franklin is 65. Musician Elton John is 60. Actor James McDaniel (“NYPD Blue”) is 49. Actress Marcia Cross (“Desperate Housewives”) is 45. Actress Lisa Gay Hamilton (“The Practice”) is 43. Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is 42. Singer Katharine McPhee (“American Idol”) is 23.