Rainn Wilson tells EW Dwight Schrute would've watched Tiger King and opened a zoo
It's been seven years since Rainn Wilson was last seen on The Office as Dwight Schrute, the assistant to the regional manager at Dunder Mifflin with two strands of hair that repel like magnets on his forehead. But Wilson has a hunch as to what Schrute would be doing during the quarantine: creating Schrute Zoo, inspired by the one and only, Joe Exotic.
"Oh yeah," Wilson tells EW about whether Schrute would have watched the documentary sensation Tiger King. "Probably somewhere in the northwestern Pennsylvania fictional land where Dwight Schrute actually exists, there would be Schrute Zoo, inspired by Tiger King."
Trae Patton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank; Netflix
Wilson imagines Schrute living on Schrute Farm before the coronavirus pandemic began, spending time with Angela (Angela Kinsey) and their kid, while "all the others would be relegated to the barn." Once the coronavirus started spreading, Schrute "wouldn't allow them anywhere near [his family]. I think there'd be a lot of guns involved," Wilson adds.
Wilson recently launched an Instagram interview series called Hey Human, dedicated to giving you uplifting words of wisdom during this time of uncertainty. The show was launched with the company he co-founded, SoulPancake, and features guest appearances by celebrities like Noah Cyrus and Chaz Smith. The upcoming lineup includes The Office costar Ed Helms and Mom's Allison Janney.
"What's been really great to see is the various ways that people are using to stay sane," Wilson says of the series, which also includes IG Live calls with everyday people. "People are meditating. They're reaching out to others, they're calling people. Taking dog walks, connecting with nature. They're cooking in new ways. They're giving themselves artistic projects. They're learning a language or a musical instrument or making art, they're inventing games with their family. Sharing all of this wonderful stuff with people with all this going on all over the world is really amazing."
As for how Dwight would recommend people spend their time in quarantine, Wilson says, "Dwight's advice would all be about working on your self-defense. Dwight would have confused the coronavirus with the zombie apocalypse."
Wilson, meanwhile, has been catching up on several TV shows like Netflix's Unorthodox and AMC's Breaking Bad prequel series Better Call Saul, which he says, "Might be my favorite show of all time." Wilson specifically commends the acting of Tony Dalton as Lalo Salamanca and Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler.
"I like it better than Breaking Bad because while it was brilliant, it kind of had a formula. We're going to watch Walter White get worse and worse. And we're gonna watch Jesse get more and more confused," he says. "Saul is so unpredictable. There's scenes that you just never seen on television before. The tone of it is incredible, the way it can go from like, absurd humor to really dark violence in a hair's breadth. "
Wilson got the news of the stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus pandemic last month, two weeks before he was set to begin production in Vancouver for Amazon's upcoming show The Power. Production on the show has halted due to the virus, but Wilson is set to play the governor of Washington in a world where all teenage girls develop the power to electrocute people. The show was adapted from a 2016 novel from Naomi Alderman and was set to co-star actress Leslie Mann.
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