Former Dunder Mifflin paper salesman and assistant to the regional manager Dwight Schrute is
loud, intense, and one of television's most memorable dunces.
However, even though the titular office's doors have been shuttered for a while now,
there's still a lot you might not know about the beet-loving, karate-kicking owner of Schrute
Farms.
Dwight Schrute and Rainn Wilson seem as inseparable as …
"Bears.
Beets.
Battlestar Galactica."
As difficult as it is to imagine anyone other than Wilson playing Dunder Mifflin Scranton's
fire safety chief, it's utterly impossible to contemplate what would've happened if one
famous comedian who auditioned for the role had actually gotten it.
In 2013, the final season of The Office was released on DVD, and included in the extras
is a short video revealing some of the actors who auditioned for the series.
Among other noteworthy surprises, Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul fame auditioned for the
role of Michael Scott, Kathryn Hahn tried out for Pam, and both John Cho and Adam Scott
took a crack at Jim Halpert.
But perhaps most surprising of all is that Seth Rogen tried his best to land the part
of Dwight Schrute.
"Urine is sterile.
Did you know that?
If you're in the field, you can clean a man's wound by taking a wiz on it.
That is actually in first aid books written by the Red Cross."
What's most fascinating about the clip is how apparent it is that Rogen's Dwight wouldn't
have been within a galaxy of the same character Wilson gave us.
Reading the same line, Dwight would be obnoxious and condescending, speaking as if he were
delivering the lesson to a child.
Rogen seems absolutely likable, not very bright, and not at all Schrutish — kind of like
Kevin the accountant if he knew a few more factoids and was awake for more of the day.
Throughout the course of The Office, Dwight Schrute both worships Michael Scott and has
ambitions for his office.
And in one of the many ways in which life imitates art, Rainn Wilson didn't initially
audition for the role of assistant to the regional manager.
He wanted to be the big dog himself.
Much like Bob Odenkirk, Wilson went into his audition taking aim at the role of everybody's
favorite regional manager, Michael Scott.
Alas, it wasn't to be, possibly because, as Wilson puts it, his audition amounted to a,
quote, "terrible [Ricky] Gervais impersonation."
"Yeah, I originally, uhh…
I auditioned for both the Michael Scott role — the Steve Carrel role — and the Dwight
role.
But my audition for the Michael Scott role was just terrible."
Considering how amazing Wilson is as Schrute, as well as Steve Carell's success as the equally
clueless Michael Scott, it's probably for the best.
It might be interesting to take a peek in the alternate reality where Wilson got cast
as Michael Scott.
In January 2012, Deadline reported NBC was considering an Office spin-off with Rainn
Wilson starring as Dwight Schrute.
The Farm would've been a family comedy in a setting Office fans had grown familiar with
over the years: Schrute Farms.
Among others, the series would have featured Matt Jones — a.k.a. Badger from Breaking
Bad — as Dwight's cousin Zeke, veteran character actor Tom Bower as Dwight's Nazi Uncle Heinrich,
Thomas Middleditch of Silicon Valley fame as Dwight's Bigfoot-hunting brother Jeb, and
Venezuelan-born Majandra Delfino as Dwight's sister Fannie.
Of course, Michael Schur would reprise his role as Dwight's creepy, neck-bearded cousin
Mose.
"Ahhh!"
"You remember my cousin Mose?"
"Welcome children."
"Were you painting in the dark?"
For better or worse, The Farm wasn't meant to be.
In October 2012, Wilson tweeted the news that NBC had passed on the series, although he'd,
quote, "had a blast making the pilot."
The pilot for The Farm was then recut as a single Office episode in the show's final
season.
But would that story have worked as a full-fledged series?
It's hard to say, but Vulture writer Matt Schimkowitz notes that Dwight's popularity
came mainly from him acting as an antagonist to Jim Halpert.
Making him the lead in a comedy series about a disjointed family that he's expected to
bring together changes Dwight's role dramatically to, quote, "the likable hero we've never seen."
In other words, maybe it's best that we never visited The Farm.
From his obsession with having a "Second Second Life" to his epic sales struggle with a supposedly
self-aware A.I., Dwight is well-known for some of his online shenanigans.
What you might not know is that Rainn Wilson used to maintain a blog in Dwight's voice.
Unfortunately, it doesn't exist anymore, but NBC used to host Schrute Space, which let
fans read Dwight's thoughts on different Scranton radio stations or his invaluable martial arts
tips.
While NBC eventually opened the blog up to the masses, it started as something that existed
exclusively on the set of The Office.
The computers on The Office's set were networked together, and Wilson would write the Dwight-voiced
blog while scenes were being filmed so the rest of the cast could enjoy it.
Wilson told The Morning Call that during the filming of the pilot episode, quote, "The
producers saw [the blog] when they walked by and thought it was funny."
A few emails later between NBC and Wilson, and Schrute Space was born.
Now, if only NBC would bring it back, the world would be a better place.
Oh well — there's always Creed's blog…
"Www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts.
Check it out."
In 2015, Rainn Wilson's memoir The Bassoon King: Art, Idiocy, and Other Assorted Tales
from the Band Room was released, and like many nonfiction books, a different author
was invited to write the foreword.
Namely, the foreword is credited to "Dwight Kurt Schrute," and it's written entirely in
Dwight's disdainful voice.
Schrute spends the first bit of the foreword discussing why he's agreed to write it, which
he clearly doesn't want to do.
He explains:
"When someone asks me to do a task, the first thing I do is determine whether the request
is some sort of trick."
While the job of writing the foreword survives Dwight's vetting process, he tells us he doesn't
like The Bassoon King or any books that involve, quote, "'funny stories' regarding some stupid
actor..." and then he promptly proceeds to list a long number of exceptions to this which
includes books by Charles Bronson, any Game of Thrones cast member, Sam Neill, and Dolph
Lundgren.
Dwight calls Rainn Wilson a "laughable idiot," and eventually reveals he has only agreed
to write the foreword for the money.
Before turning things over to Wilson, Dwight gives us some other book ideas like Mennonite
Ghost Stories, a "fun games for kids" book titled Hold This Book over a Candle, and the
revealing Conspiracy Theories: Who's Really Behind Them?
Seriously, we'll take a whole book written by Dwight, please.
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