Birthday
July 31, 1979
Birthplace
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton, MA
Age
41 years old
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A little about BJ
Funny running into you here
He attended Newton South High School with future The Office costar John Krasinski.
Lead accomplice
His acting career began on MTV's Punk'd. He was the lead accomplice to Ashton Kutcher on the show's second season in 2003, playing pranks on Hilary Duff, Rachael Leigh Cook, Usher, and Mýa.
Dating life imitating art
BJ has a close friendship with Mindy Kaling, whom he met through writing for The Office. They dated on an off while as the show went on, sometimes mirroring the relationship status of their respective characters Ryan Howard and Kelly Kapoor.
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BJ's posts (19)
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Kevin sitting on Michael's lap in one of the later Christmas episodes. Michael was playing Santa, and Kevin didn't realize he was absolutely crushing Michael while he took his sweet time figuring out what present he wanted to ask Santa for.
One thing I learned from The Office is that the line between funny and dramatic is paper-thin (no pun intended) and often non-existent. If you ground a performance in truth, it can be both as funny and as dramatic as can be. I think no one embodied that lesson better than Steve Carell.
BJ Novak
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Favorite movies
Favorite movies
BJ Novak
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Favorite movies
BJ Novak
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Taxi Driver. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The King of Comedy. Pulp Fiction. The Naked Gun. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Adaptation.
I was closest with Mindy Kaling, and also least close with Mindy Kaling, on a minute-by-minute basis. And I wouldn't trade it for the word. Actually, I would trade it for the world. What am I talking about: I'd trade it for a more consistently positive relationship with Mindy Kaling. She's the best.
BJ Novak
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Favorite books
Favorite books
BJ Novak
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Favorite books
BJ Novak
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1. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov.
2. Sabbath's Theater, by Philip Roth.
3. Candy, by Terry Southern & Mason Hoffenberg.
4. Mating, by Norman Rush.
Yes. I think it was a really great final episode, and I love that the final episode acknowledged the impact that the documentary crew had on everyone's lives, and also continued the story with the characters. And on a personal level I loved that Ryan literally ran off into the sunset with Kelly -- but abandoned a baby in order to do so. So funny and dark and happy perfect. Greg Daniels deserves all the credit in the world for wrapping up the series the way he started it out.
We acted together in the Senior Show our senior year. He was incredibly talented and the show was a lot of fun, but no, it never occurred to me that anyone would do anything together after high school. Who ever imagines that?
I sometimes think that if I were to wake up and it turned out The Office was all a dream, the fact that John Krasinski was in it with me would be what I'd realize afterward should have been the obvious tip-off. "Oh! And John Krasinski was in it, too! But they called him Jim! And there was a beet farmer... Whoa, so weird"
BJ Novak
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Favorite comedian of all-time
Favorite comedian of all-time
BJ Novak
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Favorite comedian of all-time
BJ Novak
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Mitch Hedberg is my favorite comedian of all-time. I'm not saying he was the best of all time, but he was my favorite.
BJ Novak
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If John Krasinski did his patented shrug and stare into the camera schtick when they were in high school
If John Krasinski did his patented shrug and stare into the camera schtick when they were in high school
BJ Novak
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Constantly. We all thought he was crazy. Little did we know!
BJ Novak
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When he realized he was famous
When he realized he was famous
BJ Novak
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When he realized he was famous
BJ Novak
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I was the new guy on "Punk'd" before I was on "The Office." I thought that would be my "thing" for the rest of my life- and I was fine with it! I was in Denver the week after Punk'd first aired, to open for the comic Nick Swardson at Comedy Works, and I was sitting in a Starbucks, and a guy walked past the window, stopped, and stared at me, before resuming his walk. Then the next guy did the same thing. Then the next guy. It was the most amazing, strange thing that had ever happened to me. I'll never forget that day.
My favorite character to write for was quite simply Michael Scott. Steve brought such humanity to the role that you could write him to these incredible extremes and he would play them in the most believable ways. Also, he had these beautiful blind spots to his logic that were inimitable. He was almost brilliant in the ways he could be foolish: he walked this incredible blurred line between the two.
I feel that lead characters are occasionally overlooked or taken for granted by the most devoted fans of a show. (With the best intentions, but still!) I loved the Sopranos and my favorite character was Tony Soprano. I love The Simpsons and my favorite character is Homer Simpson.
My favorite sup...
9am. Wake up, turn on some music I like, put on a pot of coffee, and sit down to start writing! A few productive hours and then a break for lunch, and then a couple of more hours if possible: sounds like a plan! 9:15am-4:30pm: Read, text, look up stuff on the internet, read, text, look up stuff on the internet, in a trance cycle 4:30pm: Think "Jesus Christ, have I really done NOTHING all day?!? The day is almost fucking over! I am really fucking worthless." 4:30pm-7:30pm: Write like a maniac. 7:30pm: Decide, "okay, at least I got SOMETHING done today. Tomorrow, I'm going wake up early, be at my desk by 9, and really make up for lost time. REPEAT
The episode of "The Office" that I wrote that I'm proudest of is the first one I wrote, "Diversity Day." The show was completely new and I was assigned this amazing comedic opportunity to write what happened in this incredibly rich situation. The only question was, how far were we allowed to go? Not just with the jokes, but with the characters -- with their ignorance, their mistakes, their discomfort? It turned out really far, and learning that helped all of the writers learn that we were going to be able to write the show we wanted to write; and helped the actors learn that they better ground the characters in some real humanity, because they were going to be taken to some pretty raw places...
It was incredible. The most exciting condensed period of my life and I can't imagine I'll ever do anything more exciting and I'm actually fine with that -- I don't know what could top that fantasy-camp of a filmmaking experience. The only stressful part was when we'd all go out drinking after a day on set, and I'd ask Quentin Tarantino a question, and he'd start to answer, and I'd feel this enormous pressure to REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE SYLLABLE because film history was literally being dictated to my brain, and I was the only witness, and I was two drinks in and feared I wasn't going to remember a sentence that a friend or historian would ask me for someday. It was the coolest thing ever, quite ...
My personal opinion (speaking for myself, not the character of Ryan): You will never be too warm or too cold in a long-sleeve tee. In my opinion it is the perfect item of clothing. Further backstory: this line drove writer/producer Michael Schur crazy because executive producer Greg Daniels refused to clarify whether it was meant to be sarcastic or not. It was a vehemently debated line among the Office writing staff, for some reason.
It was actually really similar in the big creative ways: thinking about how to find comedy and surprise and emotion in the unexpected and the everyday.
BJ Novak
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How people reacted to his frosted tipped hair when he did that for a few seasons of The Office
How people reacted to his frosted tipped hair when he did that for a few seasons of The Office
BJ Novak
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It horrified people. One of my comedy heroes is Bob Odenkirk, who I idolized from Mr. Show. I ran into him & had a twenty minute conversation before I realized I should mention that my hair was for an arc on "The Office." "Oh," he smiled. "I thought you were just a total douchebag actor."
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