Rainn Wilson spent years "mostly unhappy" on The Office because he wanted to be a bigger star
Rainn Wilson tells Bill Maher he spent "several years" of The Office wondering why he wasn't a movie star
Rainn Wilson’s post-Office career has been about chasing enlightenment, and even more so, happiness. But he didn’t always have that spiritual mindset: in the early days of his fame, he was apparently mostly concerned about getting more fame. This comes from an appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, in which Wilson admits being on a megahit NBC sitcom didn’t feel like “enough.”
“When I was in The Office, I spent several years really mostly unhappy because it wasn’t enough. 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 Fischer 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. I wasn’t enjoying it,” he shares. “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?’”