IPOD
RADIO
Paul Lieberstein of The Office
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Aug 14, 2006
I love talking to guys like Paul Lieberstein. Currently he is a writer/producer/actor on the hit NBC sitcom The Office. As Toby, the laconic and divorced human resources director of Dunder Mifflin he is constantly butting heads with the idiotic Dunder Mifflin Regional Manager Michael Scott [played by Steve Carell]. Lieberstein is already responsible for many of the series’ best episodes such as Dwight's Speech which includes Dwight’s Hitleresque rant and The Client where the office workers have a table read of Michael’s secret screenplay. But I first saw Lieberstein’s name as a writer/producer on the primetime cartoon series King of the Hill which is one of the greatest shows ever on television.
The Office third season premieres on September 21
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you shooting today?
Paul Lieberstein: Conan O’Brien was shooting a bit for the Emmys where he visits all the shows so we did that today.
DRE:
Did you produce and help write the bit?
Paul:
We did help write the bit so he had his writers there and our writers there. I had fun working with the other writers.
DRE:
But you’re not in it?
Paul:
No, I wasn’t.
DRE:
When do you start production on the third season of The Office?
Paul:
We started just a few weeks ago.
DRE:
How’s it going?
Paul:
Going great so far, other than being incredibly busy already. We got underwater so fast. That’s how it’s going to be when you have to do 14 episodes in 14 weeks. It’s a big deal for us.
DRE:
Is that because Steve [Carell] has another movie to do?
Paul:
Exactly.
DRE:
What’s his problem?
Paul:
He’s too funny is his problem.
DRE:
Actually Seth Rogen [of The 40 Year Old Virgin] said that Steve is not very funny when he’s not in a scene. Is that true?
Paul:
He doesn’t do tons of bits like some people but if you’re talking to him and he feels like it, he’s plenty funny. I think he just gets very professional and starts thinking about his character. He’s got his method which certainly works.
DRE:
How many episodes are you writing for this set of 14?
Paul:
Just one or two. We’re going to do one of mine next week and we have the first seven written. So we have to write the next seven and I may or may not do another one in that.
DRE:
What is your episode about?
Paul:
Dwight [played by Rainn Wilson] sensing an opportunity, decides that this might be the time where he makes his play to run the branch.
DRE:
When you write your episodes, does Toby get a bigger part?
Paul:
No, much smaller. I really give myself just one line.
DRE:
Would it be embarrassing to say “let’s make this episode all about Toby”?
Paul:
A little bit. I guess my mind jumps to other people first. As an actor, which is just a very small percentage of me, I don’t feel Toby while I’m writing. It’s the hardest of the characters to access.
DRE:
Is Dwight one of the best characters to write for?
Paul:
Yeah, when Michael and Dwight are in the same scene together, I think the show has a comic intensity that’s not rivaled very much.
DRE:
By the second season, The Office became one of the best shows on television right now. Every episode is hysterical. Was there a great fear of being cancelled before The 40 Year Old Virgin came out?
Paul:
I think that it went past fear into possibly an expectation. I honestly felt more delighted that we were getting to do another six episodes of the highest quality thing I ever worked on. It was like a treat and that America was getting it at all was awesome.
DRE:
The show is considered a hit and I just think that it is so bizarre that ten or 11 million people watching is what’s considered a hit nowadays. Is that just the way television is now?
Paul:
For a show that’s building, ten or 11 is a beginning but I think we have to become a bigger show. It’s going to have to eventually get bigger, although we have a very strong demographic with a very high income. TV has become so niche friendly now. The fact that Battlestar Galactica, which is so well done, can survive on The SciFi Channel just goes to show that audiences will find what they want to watch.
DRE:
Is the writer’s room on The Office much different than the other shows you’ve been on?
Paul:
It is one of the most pleasant writer’s rooms I’ve ever been in. It is so much fun. Everybody likes everybody, everybody is friends, there’s no politics and that is unusual on a set. So it’s a little bit like a cocktail party every day.
DRE:
It’s also unusual to have so many people that have big parts on the show be writers like you, BJ Novak and Mindy Kaling.
Paul:
Yeah, there’s often this wall between the writers and the actors on shows where you won’t talk about anything creative with an actor. So you’ll have these polite conversations but it’s like stepping on someone’s toes. But here, that wall’s been broken down completely though once in a while some toes get stepped on but on the flipside the creative energy is really making our show better.
DRE:
Didn’t BJ write an episode around the temp?
Paul:
The Fire episode. Yeah, he’s the fire guy. It did not come from him trying to promote his character. He had an idea about a fire drill. In the beginning we experimented in trying to tell that without a story at all and then the vignette started to build and this was one that came naturally out of it and took over. You can’t accuse him of self-promotion there.
DRE:
Toby and Michael had a real moment during the casino episode.
Paul:
Yeah, things with Steve are a little bit of a challenge because he’s so quick. When I give him anything, he then makes fun of me. If I tilt my head a weird way or arrange my lips, he will then do the same thing mocking me. There’s no way I can keep up with that. Very early on in the first season, Steve said that he discovered this giant amount of hate towards Toby just swelling up inside of him and he just started to feed on it as he would watch me. He taps into that very quickly for all our scenes and it’s a lot of fun.
DRE:
In the casino episode Michael went all in on the first in a game of Texas hold 'em and Toby had a pretty darn good hand, two Jacks, but it’s not even two kings or two aces.
Paul:
It’s pretty clear that Michael was bluffing. It was a ridiculous thing to do. There was a very subtle little bit there because Toby is just willing to call him out. There was another scene with a suggestion box meeting. One of suggestions was “You have bad breath” and Michael said that could be for anyone and Toby said “Aren’t these suggestions for you?” That was past anything Toby had done before in terms of trying to insult Michael. It was a lot of fun saying that one little line.
DRE:
I watched all three Office webisodes today. How do you like doing those?
Paul:
Mike Schur and I wrote the webisodes and it was fun writing for the other characters. If we write a storyline that’s just Kevin and Angela, it usually ends up on the cutting room floor. We come out with episodes are 36 minutes long and we have to take it down to 20 minutes. So it’s treat to have those storylines go on the internet.
DRE:
Another television character I think you can compare Michael Scott to is Peggy Hill on King of the Hill which you also worked on.
Paul:
I’ve never heard that comparison. That’s interesting.
DRE:
I spoke to Stephen Root [voice of Bill Dauterive] and I brought up how Hank Hill is getting more intolerant and he said “and Peggy’s become more of a dick.”
Paul:
I really liked writing for Peggy too. She has a complete lack of awareness of the stuff she was doing. She assumed greatness the way that Michael Scott assumes friendship and humor.
DRE:
What did you like about writing Peggy Hill so much?
Paul:
I liked how she adjusted reality to fit her needs. That’s a great trait in a comic character, to see things how they need to see them and then constantly come up against the world because they’re trying to make them see that.
DRE:
It makes me wonder what Greg Daniels [executive producer of both shows] is like.
Paul:
There’s a piece of Greg in every character we have.
DRE:
I assume it’s Greg that brought you into The Office. Did you first meet Greg on King of the Hill?
Paul:
No, I’ve known Greg for a very long time. Greg is my brother-in-law. He’s married to my sister Susanne Daniels who’s is the president of Lifetime.
DRE:
Wow, you’ll always have work then. It’s probably weird for you to talk about Greg, but what’s he like?
Paul:
It is weird. Greg’s amazing. He’s the most brilliant writer I’ve ever worked with. His joke ability is as strong as anyone’s. He’s become a great show runner as well. If you came to set and saw people’s attitude and how things are going, you’d know how respected and loved he is around here. He’s grown so much on this show and one of the things he’s done is let everyone take the gloves off. We spend an inordinate amount of time teasing each other. He doesn’t make every episode feel the same. That’s the real danger for a lot of shows. Writers write a little bit differently and he’s willing to take the best of what that writer can do and that makes it a lot more interesting for the audience.
DRE:
Is there a specialty that you have in terms “we need a certain type of joke here, does Paul have any ideas?”
Paul:
If they needed a really dark, twisted, suicidal joke they might come to me.
DRE:
So you’re famous for you dark twisted suicidal storylines?
Paul:
I have been pitching them. I like the alternative dark humor.
DRE:
At times Michael Scott seems to have real strong flashes of awareness. Are those the suicidal type moments?
Paul:
No, I don’t think Michael is suicidal at all. I think he loves life and wishes it were better but all his actions have to do with wanting to do more with life and go deeper into denial.
DRE:
I think people don’t tell Peggy Hill why she is that way because deep down she might be a good person, but I’m not too sure about Michael.
Paul:
I think Michael has a great heart.
DRE:
Really? That’s interesting. I would have thought you felt the opposite.
Paul:
I think he intends the best but he’s so insecure and misguided. His social skills just never developed. I don’t think he ever had a close group of friends in his life. That’s why he needs the office so much. I think he legitimately wants the best for everyone, especially himself. It’s the quest for goodness that leads to dark areas.
DRE:
I can find almost next to nothing about you on the internet, where’d you grow up?
Paul:
I grew up in Westport, Connecticut.
DRE:
Were you always into comedy?
Paul:
I always loved it. My brother and I discovered Steve Martin’s albums and we would memorize lines and say them back and forth to each other. Comedy was where it was at for us.
DRE:
Had you written anything before you got to college?
Paul:
I was doing creative writing but it wasn’t too much comedy. I actually did my first episode of television in high school. Me and some friends discovered a television studio right in the middle of our high school. It was this multi-camera set up so we wrote and produced a television episode. I don’t even remember what it was about. I think it was called “Hotel New Jersey.” It was a spin-off of Hotel New Hampshire which at the time I hadn’t even read so I don’t know why I picked that.
DRE:
I read that you went to Hamilton College in New York.
Paul:
Right but I didn’t write anything at Hamilton College. I got completely sidetracked. It was very conservative. I got mixed up in that bad element and thought I wanted to be a financier of some kind and most places were smart enough not to hire me. I got a job with Pete Marwick as an auditor. After six months I was ready to get out of there because I was going to either kill them or myself.
DRE:
Was it then when you moved to LA?
Paul:
No, I stayed for another year and wrote spec scripts, trying to get a job.
DRE:
What spec script got you a job?
Paul:
I had a writing partner and we wrote a spec Simpsons episode which got us a job on Clarissa Explains it All.
DRE:
I loved Clarissa Explains it All.
Paul:
We only stayed there a season. We split up and I wrote a few more specs which then got me my next job on Weird Science and a show I can’t even remember the name of and then The Naked Truth with Téa Leoni.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
I love talking to guys like Paul Lieberstein. Currently he is a writer/producer/actor on the hit NBC sitcom The Office. As Toby, the laconic and divorced human resources director of Dunder Mifflin he is constantly butting heads with the idiotic Dunder Mifflin Regional Manager Michael Scott [played by Steve Carell]. Lieberstein is already responsible for many of the series’ best episodes such as Dwight's Speech which includes Dwight’s Hitleresque rant and The Client where the office workers have a table read of Michael’s secret screenplay. But I first saw Lieberstein’s name as a writer/producer on the primetime cartoon series King of the Hill which is one of the greatest shows ever on television.
The Office third season premieres on September 21
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you shooting today?
Paul Lieberstein: Conan O’Brien was shooting a bit for the Emmys where he visits all the shows so we did that today.
DRE:
Did you produce and help write the bit?
Paul:
We did help write the bit so he had his writers there and our writers there. I had fun working with the other writers.
DRE:
But you’re not in it?
Paul:
No, I wasn’t.
DRE:
When do you start production on the third season of The Office?
Paul:
We started just a few weeks ago.
DRE:
How’s it going?
Paul:
Going great so far, other than being incredibly busy already. We got underwater so fast. That’s how it’s going to be when you have to do 14 episodes in 14 weeks. It’s a big deal for us.
DRE:
Is that because Steve [Carell] has another movie to do?
Paul:
Exactly.
DRE:
What’s his problem?
Paul:
He’s too funny is his problem.
DRE:
Actually Seth Rogen [of The 40 Year Old Virgin] said that Steve is not very funny when he’s not in a scene. Is that true?
Paul:
He doesn’t do tons of bits like some people but if you’re talking to him and he feels like it, he’s plenty funny. I think he just gets very professional and starts thinking about his character. He’s got his method which certainly works.
DRE:
How many episodes are you writing for this set of 14?
Paul:
Just one or two. We’re going to do one of mine next week and we have the first seven written. So we have to write the next seven and I may or may not do another one in that.
DRE:
What is your episode about?
Paul:
Dwight [played by Rainn Wilson] sensing an opportunity, decides that this might be the time where he makes his play to run the branch.
DRE:
When you write your episodes, does Toby get a bigger part?
Paul:
No, much smaller. I really give myself just one line.
DRE:
Would it be embarrassing to say “let’s make this episode all about Toby”?
Paul:
A little bit. I guess my mind jumps to other people first. As an actor, which is just a very small percentage of me, I don’t feel Toby while I’m writing. It’s the hardest of the characters to access.
DRE:
Is Dwight one of the best characters to write for?
Paul:
Yeah, when Michael and Dwight are in the same scene together, I think the show has a comic intensity that’s not rivaled very much.
DRE:
By the second season, The Office became one of the best shows on television right now. Every episode is hysterical. Was there a great fear of being cancelled before The 40 Year Old Virgin came out?
Paul:
I think that it went past fear into possibly an expectation. I honestly felt more delighted that we were getting to do another six episodes of the highest quality thing I ever worked on. It was like a treat and that America was getting it at all was awesome.
DRE:
The show is considered a hit and I just think that it is so bizarre that ten or 11 million people watching is what’s considered a hit nowadays. Is that just the way television is now?
Paul:
For a show that’s building, ten or 11 is a beginning but I think we have to become a bigger show. It’s going to have to eventually get bigger, although we have a very strong demographic with a very high income. TV has become so niche friendly now. The fact that Battlestar Galactica, which is so well done, can survive on The SciFi Channel just goes to show that audiences will find what they want to watch.
DRE:
Is the writer’s room on The Office much different than the other shows you’ve been on?
Paul:
It is one of the most pleasant writer’s rooms I’ve ever been in. It is so much fun. Everybody likes everybody, everybody is friends, there’s no politics and that is unusual on a set. So it’s a little bit like a cocktail party every day.
DRE:
It’s also unusual to have so many people that have big parts on the show be writers like you, BJ Novak and Mindy Kaling.
Paul:
Yeah, there’s often this wall between the writers and the actors on shows where you won’t talk about anything creative with an actor. So you’ll have these polite conversations but it’s like stepping on someone’s toes. But here, that wall’s been broken down completely though once in a while some toes get stepped on but on the flipside the creative energy is really making our show better.
DRE:
Didn’t BJ write an episode around the temp?
Paul:
The Fire episode. Yeah, he’s the fire guy. It did not come from him trying to promote his character. He had an idea about a fire drill. In the beginning we experimented in trying to tell that without a story at all and then the vignette started to build and this was one that came naturally out of it and took over. You can’t accuse him of self-promotion there.
DRE:
Toby and Michael had a real moment during the casino episode.
Paul:
Yeah, things with Steve are a little bit of a challenge because he’s so quick. When I give him anything, he then makes fun of me. If I tilt my head a weird way or arrange my lips, he will then do the same thing mocking me. There’s no way I can keep up with that. Very early on in the first season, Steve said that he discovered this giant amount of hate towards Toby just swelling up inside of him and he just started to feed on it as he would watch me. He taps into that very quickly for all our scenes and it’s a lot of fun.
DRE:
In the casino episode Michael went all in on the first in a game of Texas hold 'em and Toby had a pretty darn good hand, two Jacks, but it’s not even two kings or two aces.
Paul:
It’s pretty clear that Michael was bluffing. It was a ridiculous thing to do. There was a very subtle little bit there because Toby is just willing to call him out. There was another scene with a suggestion box meeting. One of suggestions was “You have bad breath” and Michael said that could be for anyone and Toby said “Aren’t these suggestions for you?” That was past anything Toby had done before in terms of trying to insult Michael. It was a lot of fun saying that one little line.
DRE:
I watched all three Office webisodes today. How do you like doing those?
Paul:
Mike Schur and I wrote the webisodes and it was fun writing for the other characters. If we write a storyline that’s just Kevin and Angela, it usually ends up on the cutting room floor. We come out with episodes are 36 minutes long and we have to take it down to 20 minutes. So it’s treat to have those storylines go on the internet.
DRE:
Another television character I think you can compare Michael Scott to is Peggy Hill on King of the Hill which you also worked on.
Paul:
I’ve never heard that comparison. That’s interesting.
DRE:
I spoke to Stephen Root [voice of Bill Dauterive] and I brought up how Hank Hill is getting more intolerant and he said “and Peggy’s become more of a dick.”
Paul:
I really liked writing for Peggy too. She has a complete lack of awareness of the stuff she was doing. She assumed greatness the way that Michael Scott assumes friendship and humor.
DRE:
What did you like about writing Peggy Hill so much?
Paul:
I liked how she adjusted reality to fit her needs. That’s a great trait in a comic character, to see things how they need to see them and then constantly come up against the world because they’re trying to make them see that.
DRE:
It makes me wonder what Greg Daniels [executive producer of both shows] is like.
Paul:
There’s a piece of Greg in every character we have.
DRE:
I assume it’s Greg that brought you into The Office. Did you first meet Greg on King of the Hill?
Paul:
No, I’ve known Greg for a very long time. Greg is my brother-in-law. He’s married to my sister Susanne Daniels who’s is the president of Lifetime.
DRE:
Wow, you’ll always have work then. It’s probably weird for you to talk about Greg, but what’s he like?
Paul:
It is weird. Greg’s amazing. He’s the most brilliant writer I’ve ever worked with. His joke ability is as strong as anyone’s. He’s become a great show runner as well. If you came to set and saw people’s attitude and how things are going, you’d know how respected and loved he is around here. He’s grown so much on this show and one of the things he’s done is let everyone take the gloves off. We spend an inordinate amount of time teasing each other. He doesn’t make every episode feel the same. That’s the real danger for a lot of shows. Writers write a little bit differently and he’s willing to take the best of what that writer can do and that makes it a lot more interesting for the audience.
DRE:
Is there a specialty that you have in terms “we need a certain type of joke here, does Paul have any ideas?”
Paul:
If they needed a really dark, twisted, suicidal joke they might come to me.
DRE:
So you’re famous for you dark twisted suicidal storylines?
Paul:
I have been pitching them. I like the alternative dark humor.
DRE:
At times Michael Scott seems to have real strong flashes of awareness. Are those the suicidal type moments?
Paul:
No, I don’t think Michael is suicidal at all. I think he loves life and wishes it were better but all his actions have to do with wanting to do more with life and go deeper into denial.
DRE:
I think people don’t tell Peggy Hill why she is that way because deep down she might be a good person, but I’m not too sure about Michael.
Paul:
I think Michael has a great heart.
DRE:
Really? That’s interesting. I would have thought you felt the opposite.
Paul:
I think he intends the best but he’s so insecure and misguided. His social skills just never developed. I don’t think he ever had a close group of friends in his life. That’s why he needs the office so much. I think he legitimately wants the best for everyone, especially himself. It’s the quest for goodness that leads to dark areas.
DRE:
I can find almost next to nothing about you on the internet, where’d you grow up?
Paul:
I grew up in Westport, Connecticut.
DRE:
Were you always into comedy?
Paul:
I always loved it. My brother and I discovered Steve Martin’s albums and we would memorize lines and say them back and forth to each other. Comedy was where it was at for us.
DRE:
Had you written anything before you got to college?
Paul:
I was doing creative writing but it wasn’t too much comedy. I actually did my first episode of television in high school. Me and some friends discovered a television studio right in the middle of our high school. It was this multi-camera set up so we wrote and produced a television episode. I don’t even remember what it was about. I think it was called “Hotel New Jersey.” It was a spin-off of Hotel New Hampshire which at the time I hadn’t even read so I don’t know why I picked that.
DRE:
I read that you went to Hamilton College in New York.
Paul:
Right but I didn’t write anything at Hamilton College. I got completely sidetracked. It was very conservative. I got mixed up in that bad element and thought I wanted to be a financier of some kind and most places were smart enough not to hire me. I got a job with Pete Marwick as an auditor. After six months I was ready to get out of there because I was going to either kill them or myself.
DRE:
Was it then when you moved to LA?
Paul:
No, I stayed for another year and wrote spec scripts, trying to get a job.
DRE:
What spec script got you a job?
Paul:
I had a writing partner and we wrote a spec Simpsons episode which got us a job on Clarissa Explains it All.
DRE:
I loved Clarissa Explains it All.
Paul:
We only stayed there a season. We split up and I wrote a few more specs which then got me my next job on Weird Science and a show I can’t even remember the name of and then The Naked Truth with Téa Leoni.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
