Actor Rainn Wilson made millions laugh while playing Dwight Schrute on “The Office,” but he didn’t let himself have much fun when he was making the classic comedy series.
Wilson told Bill Maher on a recent episode of the comedian’s “Club Random” podcast that he was “unhappy” for “several years” on the NBC sitcom “because it wasn’t enough.”
However, he’s only blaming himself for the way he felt while filming the series.
“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,” Wilson admitted.
Wilson said he spent a lot of time wondering why he wasn’t a movie star, and would ask himself, “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?’”
Although Wilson was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, he wanted millions.
“I was a TV star, but I wanted to be a movie star. It was never enough,” he said. “Humans have lived for hundreds of thousands of years, and ‘never enough’ has helped us as a species.”
You can hear the complete interview above.
The actor has gotten better at appreciating his good fortune since “The Office” ended its run in 2013.