-Wait a minute. -Standing ovation!
-Did Kate Beckinsale get a standing ovation?
-No, no, they left. They left.
They were waiting for you. -They got popcorn in the lobby.
-Kate did get a standing ovation.
But you, Rainn, are special because you got one now.
-Oh, okay. Great. Great.
-Rainn, it is so great to see you.
-It's good to see you. -Congrats on the new book.
-Thank you so much. -Are you excited about this?
-I am s-- [ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you.
Will the book get a standing ovation?
-Yes, the book will get a standing ovation.
-Yeah, I worked three and a half years on this sucker.
Yeah. I'm so excited to release it to the world.
-I want to talk to you about this.
But first, I wanted to mention something
that I thought made me happy.
Because you were on a flight from Boston.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
From Boston to L.A. And here's the --
Do you want to tell the story? -I'll tell the story.
So for those who didn't see, it was a very slow news day.
This was like front-page news.
-It was great. It made us feel good.
-I was on a flight from Boston to L.A.
And so it was 5 1/2 hours and sitting next to a gentleman
who for the entire flight watched episodes of "The Office"
back to back to back to back.
And I was like, "What do I do? Do I talk to him about it?
You know, how do I interact with him about it?
You know, should I even say anything?"
I had my COVID mask on, so I was incognito,
and then I kind of nudged him. -He had no idea?
-No idea the whole flight. -The whole flight.
-Yeah. So I nudged him towards the end, and then I was like,
"So you seem to like that show a lot."
And he's like, "Yeah." And I was like,
"Yeah, I heard it kind of sucks."
And he's like, "Well, you know, it kind of
starts slow in season one.
You got to get used to it, but you'll warm into it."
And I was slowly, slowly,
lowering my mask like one of those French girls, you know?
[ Laughter ]
And I was like, "Oh, the first season is kind of slow, huh?"
And he's like, "Yeah." And I was like,
"Oh, and you have to --
It takes a little while to warm into the characters?"
And then it took him like 47 seconds of talking to me.
And then all of a sudden it was one of those face-melting...
[ Laughter ]
...brain explosions. -"Oh, my God!
I was sitting next to Dwight the whole time."
-And we bonded and it was beautiful.
-And you told him and then you said,
"Can I post this?" And he said yes.
-Yep, yep, yep. -And it went uber viral.
-The rest is history. -Yeah.
Let's just take a look at this real quick.
-There I am. There's the mask.
I was trying to surreptitiously do this so he wouldn't see me.
[ Laughter ]
So I was waiting until he was leaning forward.
[ Applause ]
-Yeah. -Was he eating Cap'n Crunch?
-Cap'n Crunch. -He was eating Captain Crunch.
Yeah. Of course. Yeah.
I saw you on social media.
You have a lot of interesting pets around.
Here's one right here. This is a -- This is --
-That's our peahen named Alma. [ Audience awws ]
Yeah, she's a rescue peahen.
My wife found her at her horse stable where we keep
our pet donkey and our pet zonkey.
[ Laughter ]
-That's where -- -You heard it here.
-Yeah, you had me at donkey and you lost me at zonkey.
-Yeah. -What is a zonkey?
-The spermatozoa of the zebra enters the...
-Alright, alright, alright, yeah, yeah.
[ Laughter ] Hoo. Hold on.
My dad had the same talk with me when I was a kid.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. He explained this. I understand what's going on.
-And we've got rescue pigs.
But the thing is, is like,
I have a long, long history of very strange pets.
-You do?
-As a child, we lived in Nicaragua, of all places,
on coastal Nicaragua and the Caribbean coast.
-Wow. -Yeah. And we had a pet parrot
named Jose, and he only would say the word Jose.
So you try and teach him other words, you know, you'd be like,
"Hello, buenos dias, hola." He'd be like, "Jose!"
[ Laughter ]
Morning, noon and night, Jose.
But the best was that we had a pet sloth.
[ Audience oohs ]
Yeah, we found this sloth and it was hurt.
And we put him in a nice little sloth cage
with pillows and water and stuff like that.
And every night he would break out of his cage
because they're nocturnal.
Every night he would slowly, because they move so slow,
slowly bend the bars of his cage.
-They're strong. -They're super strong.
And then every morning we'd get up, and they're nocturnal.
So he's asleep when the sun is out, and he would be gone.
But they are so slow. My dad would be like,
"He's probably 20 or 30 feet from here."
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah. He didn't leave the living room yet.
-Wandering around the yard
and literally he'd be hanging like
in a shrub 20 feet away.
We'd go put him back in the cage,
close the bars again,
and the same thing would happen every single night.
-That sounds like a kids book to me.
Yeah. The breakaway sloth.
I would read that in two seconds.
It's a very slow breakaway.
I would read that.
-You're always thinking of a way to cash in.
-Yeah, that's all I need is the money.
[ Laughter ]
That's the only thing that matters to me
until I read this book. -Oh!
-No. This is fantastic, by the way.
"Soul Boom." -Yeah.
-Can we talk about what it's about, really?
-Yeah. You know, so, you know, the first chapter is like,
why the hell is the guy who played
Dwight writing a book on spirituality?
And I do have to admit
that I do kind of have a secret inner Oprah.
And I love topics of spirituality and mysticism
and religion.
And I think they're really important topics.
And it's a crucial time for us to dive
into some big spiritual ideas.
You know, the world is hurting and spiritual tools
are there for our personal and social transformation.
And it's an important conversation.
-So it's not just about religion?
-No, it's not really about religion.
It's more about spirituality and spiritual tools.
But I talk about, you know, lots of big topics like life,
death, the meaning of life, the soul, suffering, sacredness,
and by, you know,
to try and coax some big questions out of people.
-Yeah. And it's very funny because it's written by you.
-Yes, it's funny too. -But it makes you think
and ask some tough questions
and has some, like, some nice solutions to it.
One of them I took away from this,
I was glancing through it. One was that to just say that --
tell someone you love them
every day and that you appreciate them.
-Yes. -Anyone.
-The act of gratitude has been scientifically proven
to have such an incredible effect
on your own personal happiness.
To express gratitude.
So to tell someone that you love them
and to tell them something that you're grateful to them
for will really benefit your own happiness,
and it'll definitely benefit theirs.
It's one simple takeaway
everyone can do every single day.
-I love that, buddy. That's really cool.
Congrats on this. It's a big deal.
[ Cheers and applause ]
I also want to mention your new series on Peacock
called "Rainn Wilson and The Geography of Bliss."
It premieres May 18th on Peacock.
Tell everybody what this is about.
I'm intrigued about this as well.
-Well, we've got a lot of celebrities
traveling the world and sampling delicious foods.
But I am traveling the world looking for happiness.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
[ Audience awws ] Aww!
-No, that's the reaction.
Yeah, I feel that way. Where did you travel?
-We went to Iceland.
I went to Ghana in West Africa.
Bulgaria. -What'd you learn in Iceland?
-Iceland. Oh, my gosh. Iceland.
You know, the Icelandic people are among the world's happiest.
And there are --
-Hygge?
Hygge. [ Laughter ]
-Hygge? -Hygge!
-I think that's from, like, Denmark, isn't it?
-I don't know. [ Laughter ]
I thought it would trigger something.
I thought -- I was waiting for you to --
-Say it again. -Hygge.
Yes! That's what I'm talking about.
Yes. It's like some way of happiness.
-It's a way of being.
-I thought it was Icelandic, but I might be wrong.
-I think it's another Scandinavian.
-Sorry. [ Laughter ]
-But they have such an amazing connection.
The Icelanders have an amazing connection to nature
and they love to be in nature.
They love to be naked in nature a lot,
but they really -- like, no one in Iceland believes in God,
but they believe -- like 80% of them believe in fairies.
[ Laughter ] Yeah.
-Why not? -For real.
They believe in little mysterious,
mystical woodland creatures. And they're very happy.
Yeah, I learned a ton.
-This show is very interesting. I want to show a clip.
Here's Rainn Wilson in Iceland
for "Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss."
Take a look.
-Alright. Let's do this.
-Good to see you guys. -Oh!
-How are you feeling?
-I don't want to be this cold.
I want to drink hot chocolate, and, um, I'm scared.
-Okay. -Okay.
-It's okay. -Okay.
-Your only goal now is to go in this ocean and surrender.
But you tell your body "I'm okay" because you,
with your nervous system and your head,
you control everything what your body wants to do.
-[ Laughs ] Okay. My nervous system and my hat.
Okay, good. I love it.
-Yeah. And she was right.
-Yeah. -And she was right.
-That's right. -Rainn Wilson, everybody.
"Soul Boom" is available tomorrow.
More "Tonight Show" after the break.
Stick around, everybody. Congratulations.