Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Part 16

I did not know at the time that this year with Greg, Paul, B.J., and Mike would be where I essentially learned how to write comedy. This small group wrote the first six episodes of that first season of The Office. They were, and are, four of my favorite people in the world. They are also the four funniest people I know. I have fought bitterly with them, too-I mean real fights, knock-down-drag-outs-which I'll rationalize to mean they are my true friends. I won't say anymore about them, because none of them are lacking in confidence, and honestly, they're like three compliments away from becoming monsters.

WRITER FIGHTS, OR DON'T FIGHT WITH GREG DANIELS!

Writer fights are always exciting and traumatic, and I get into them all the time. I am a confident writer, a hothead, and have a very thin skin for any criticism. This charming combination of personality traits makes me an argument machine on our staff. A halfway compliment my friend and The Office showrunner Paul Lieberstein once paid me was that "it's a good thing you turn in good drafts, because you are impossible to rewrite." Thanks Paul! All I heard was "Mindy, you're the best writer we've ever had. I cherish you. We all do."

This was taken between takes of "The Dundies," the season two premiere, which I wrote. We shot from dawn until late at night in a former Chili's restaurant in the deep San Fernando Valley. I am taking a ladylike nap on the floor while Paul Lieberstein writes notes on a script. (photo credit 14.2)

I tend to fight with Greg the most. My friend and fellow Office writer Steve Hely believes it is because I am emotional and intuitive and Greg is more cerebral and logical. Or, as I think of it, I am a sensitive poet and Greg is a mean robot. Our fighting is legendary. One time, late at night, our script coordinator, Sean, and our head writer, Danny, both brought in their dogs, and upon seeing each other, they got into a violent, barking fight. Paul Lieberstein glanced over and joked, "Oh, I thought that was Greg and Mindy."

What do we fight about? I wish I could say they were big, smart, philosophical issues about writing or comedy, but sometimes they're as small as "If we do that cold open where Kevin dumps a tureen of chili on himself, I will quit this show." We did that cold open, by the way, and it was a hit, and I'm still working at the show. I can get a little theatrical. Which makes sense, because, after all, I came up through the theater (said in my snootiest Masterpiece Theatre voice).

I will tell you about the worst fight we ever had. In a particularly heated rewrite session for the season-three episode "Grief Counseling," I was arguing with Greg so much, he finally said, in front of all twelve writers, "If you're going to resist what I'm doing here, you can just go home, Mindy."

Greg never sends anyone home, or even hints at it. Greg is the kind of guy who is so agreeable I frequently find him on our studio lot embroiled in some long conversation with a random person while his lunch is getting cold in his to-go container. And he's the boss. I would never talk to anyone if I were boss. I would only talk to my attorney and my psychic. So, anyway, my very nice boss had just hugely reprimanded me. Greg suggesting I go home unless I adjusted my att.i.tude was the harshest he'd ever been to anyone in the three years I'd been on the show. There was silence. No one looked at me. People pretended to be absorbed in their phones. One writer didn't even have a phone, so he just pretended to be absorbed in his hand.

I was so embarra.s.sed and angry I got up, stomped out the room, stole a twenty-four-pack of bottled water from the production office, kicked the b.u.mper of Greg's car, and left the studio.

This is what I get for trying to make the show better? I'm funnier and a better writer than every single one of those a.s.sholes, I thought, angrily. I pictured myself accepting the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center, and all those other writers watching from home, with the hope that I might acknowledge them, and I pointedly wouldn't. Instead, I'd thank Thalia, the Greek muse of comedy. I'd freaking thank Thalia over those guys. I drove to a nail salon in a mini-mall a mile away and angrily sat down for a manicure.

"Senora has the day off?" the woman soaking my nails asked me, congenially.

"Nope! I got kicked out of work!" I replied. She stopped what she was doing.

"Oh, you fired?" she asked, concerned.

Hearing her say "fired" sent a spiky shudder down my spine. I looked at my soaking cuticles. I saw the soft hands of a babied comedy writer who had never known a hard day's work. Did I really want to be unemployed? Did I want to jeopardize this amazing job I had dreamed about having since I was thirteen? Did I really want to be a receptionist at my mother's ob/gyn office, where I would need to learn Spanish?

I immediately stood up, dried my hands, handed some cash to the puzzled woman, and raced back to work. I quietly entered the writers' room and sat down.

My friend and fellow writer Lee Eisenberg looked at me quizzically and texted: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

I texted back: THE BATHROOM.

Greg did not acknowledge my absence, or find out that I'd kicked his car, and it blew over. The bottles of water remained mine, bwah ha ha! That evening, when I had my nightly chat with my mother on the way home from work, I made the mistake of telling her about what had happened. I was hoping to get consoled for a bad day at work. Instead she yelled at me. "Are you crazy? You owe everything to Greg Daniels!" Mom always says "Greg Daniels," as though there were a few people at work with the first name Greg and I might not know who she was talking about. (There aren't.) "Greg Daniels took a chance on you and changed your life! Don't fight with Greg Daniels!" Dad got on the phone from the upstairs line, as he always does. He agreed with Mom. "I know you get upset, Min. But you have to be professional." I am still trying to follow this terrific advice, only somewhat successfully, five years later.

The season six writers and editors.

STEVE CARELL IS NICE BUT IT IS SCARY

It has been said many times, but it is true: Steve Carell is a very nice guy. His niceness manifests itself mostly in the fact that he never complains. You could screw up a handful of takes outside in 104-degree smog-choked Panorama City heat, and Steve Carell's final words before collapsing of heat stroke would be a friendly and hopeful "Hey, you think you have that shot yet?"

I've always found Steve gentlemanly and private, like a Jane Austen character. The one notable thing about Steve's niceness is that he is also very smart, and that kind of niceness has always made me nervous. When smart people are nice, it's always terrifying, because I know they're taking in everything and thinking all kinds of smart and potentially judgmental things. Steve could never be as funny as he is, or as darkly observational an actor, without having an extremely acute sense of human flaws. As a result, I'm always trying to impress him, in the hope that he'll go home and tell his wife, Nancy, "Mindy was so funny and cool on set today. She just gets it."

Getting Steve to talk s.h.i.+t was one of the most difficult seven-year challenges, but I was determined to do it. A circle of actors could be in a fun, excoriating conversation about, say, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and you'd shoot Steve an encouraging look that said, "Hey, come over here; we've made a s.p.a.ce for you! We're tras.h.i.+ng Dominique Strauss-Kahn to build cast rapport!" and the best he might offer is "Wow. If all they say about him is true, that is nuts," and then politely excuse himself to go to his trailer. That's it. That's all you'd get. Can you believe that? He just would not engage. That is some willpower there. I, on the other hand, hear someone briefly mentioning Rainn, and I'll immediately launch into "Oh my G.o.d, Rainn's so horrible." But Carell is just one of those infuriating, cla.s.sy Jane Austen guys.

Later I would privately theorize that he never involved himself in gossip because-and I am 99 percent sure of this-he is secretly Perez Hilton.

WHERE I WORK

Many people a.s.sume The Office is shot in Scranton, Pennsylvania, because we take pains to shoot on locations that are green and East Coastlooking. Other people think we shoot on a picturesque studio lot like you see on the tour of Universal Studios, where Jaws is swimming happily near the Desperate Housewives cul-de-sac and down the block from an immolating car from the Backdraft set. Not so.

Anyone who comes to visit the set of The Office always says the same thing when they leave: "Holy c.r.a.p, that was scary!" This is because we shoot at the end of a dead-end street on an industrial block of Panorama City, in the San Fernando Valley, which sounds great-who doesn't love panoramas? But don't be fooled! The name is a trick. At one point Panorama City was part of Van Nuys, but Van Nuys did whatever the opposite of secede is to it. Expelled it? I'll put it this way. Van Nuys took one look at Panorama City and was like, "Uh, get your own name. We don't want to have anything to do with you."

Rainn Wilson, violent ogre.

We're at the end of a block with a gun parts warehouse, a neon sign store, and a junkyard. Our street is also a favored drag-racing strip for compet.i.tive, bored Mexican teenagers. We're always having to stop filming and wait for the noise to die down from junkyard dogs barking and gun parts being drilled. Come to think of it, there might actually be an immolating car around here once in a while. Take that, Universal Studios!

I love our set because we are isolated from other shows. Isolation is good, because there are no distractions to the work, and believe me, I get distracted easily. There is no cool shopping or dining or anything near us whatsoever, so we can only focus on working on the show. It makes us feel sequestered and secluded, which I think is good for creativity. Also, I can run out at any time and buy my gun parts.

KELLY KAPOOR GETS GIFT BAGS

When I started attending events a.s.sociated with The Office, I started to receive gift bags. I'd recall breathless accounts from magazines of gifts like sapphire earrings, lifetime members.h.i.+ps to fancy gyms, gift certificates for total facial reconstruction plastic surgery, week-long stays at wildlife reserves where you get to touch the lions, and $500 jars of miracle face cream made from human placenta. It seemed like the greatest racket ever, and in 2006, I started to partic.i.p.ate in it.

The way it works is you go to an awards show for which you've spent a crazy amount of money getting dressed up. After you win or lose in your categories, there is a nontelevised portion of the evening where you and every other person at the event gets herded into a giant windowless room and fed a hot buffet of food on par with a medium-fancy bar mitzvah. The thing is the food tastes insanely good because you've not eaten anything all day. After mingling for a little while, and mentally ranking the gowns of the other actresses so you can call your mom and give her the scoop, you trade in a parking ticketlike stub to some stressed-out looking woman at the exit and she gives you a black canvas bag packed with goodies. You get really excited. And then you open it up.

What I Have Gotten in My Gift Bags Over the Years

protein bars

a personal hygiene spray that I can only describe as a b.u.t.t freshener

socks with individual toes