So when you go into a show, your biggest sensitivity is that everyone thinks the only reason you’re hired is because you were free, whereas everyone else they had to pay good money for them. I don’t know how much people were actually thinking about that or whether that was just in my head, but it was just one of these subtle ways that I felt that I was a little bit less-than the other writers.
But it’s tricky, because the program is incredible, and it got me into the business and many other people who now have nice careers in Hollywood. It’s a complicated thing, and that’s why I wrote the movie Late Night, because I wanted to talk about it.
On how The Office is having a resurgence in popularity with a younger generation thanks to streaming
It’s incredible. It’s funny how many 14-, 15-year-old kids will come up to me at the airport because they’ve binged [The Office] on Netflix and they’ve seen everything. I remember about three or four years ago, I got a call from one of my agents saying, “Hey, this young singer-songwriter would love to sample a section of one of your episodes. I think you wrote it, and then your voice is in it as Kelly. Do you mind if they do it? She’s, like, an L.A.-based indie songwriter.” And I said, “Yeah, sure, that’s fine.”
I just signed something — and it was Billie Eilish, and she wrote a song called “My Strange Addiction,” which is one of her big hits. And the song samples different parts of The Office because she loves the show so much. In fact, she would even say it’s not love, it’s like she’s obsessed with the show, and I think she’s seen the entire series from Season 1 to Season 9 all the way through like four or five times. So she wrote the song about it, and I’m sampled in it, and I didn’t understand who she was at the time. So it’s had this real impact on this younger generation.
