In a Q&A published today, Greg Daniels sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to answer a number of questions mainly dealing with NBC’s The Office.
Here are a few of the questions, with Daniels’ responses:
Looking back over the past several seasons (of The Office), do you have any particular episode or moment that stands out to you as a favorite?
We had a 100th episode party, and Dave Rogers, the senior editor, cut together an “100 Moments” montage (featuring one from) each episode, and there’s stuff that I love about all the episodes. The other thing is just having all those memories of the actual filming, like being out there under the scorching sun shooting the “Beach Games” episode, and Harold Ramis directing it from under this little black cloth that he had to go into to look at the monitor, everybody just sweating a ton.How does it feel to have “Parks and Recreation” launching as “The Office” hits this milestone?
It feels great! I feel really glad that “The Office” hit 100 episodes. I feel that from the standpoint of (”Office” co-creators) Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, I didn’t let them down. I remember interviewing with them seven years ago, and this was certainly the goal, so I’m very pleased that we got to 100 episodes in a strong fashion. I think the show is in a very good place right now. I don’t know if you saw the ratings last week (ending April 19), but we were beating “CSI” in 18-49 — who would have thought that when we aired for the first time? While I’ve been working on “Parks and Recreation,” Paul Lieberstein and Jennifer Celotta, who are two other executive producers (on “Office), have been really stepping up and doing an excellent job. They have taken “The Office” to some really great places, and it seems very in-its-prime. From that standpoint, it’s not a bad time to try and launch something else.“Parks and Recreation” was kind of born out of Ben Silverman really, really wanting another show as a companion piece, and I think it has a good potential. I think Amy Poehler’s super funny, and again, I think the mockumentary format is the way to go for single-camera comedy shows. I don’t know how you shoot an “Ugly Betty”-style show. It seems like that would be so much work to light it properly and have dolly tracks. There’s so much energy and improvisation you can do when it’s all handheld and the concept is if the lighting isn’t perfect, it’s because there wasn’t perfect lighting in that room.
Link: Q&A: Greg Daniels
