What was working with the two robo-babies like? Were they heavy?
Mandy Moore: “They were like fifteen pounds each, right?”
John Krasinski: “I think more than that. I was carrying them the whole time. They were really heavy but they smelled so bad!”
Mandy Moore: “Really bad!”
John Krasinski: “Ooooh, God.”
Mandy Moore: “I can’t even begin to describe it.”
John Krasinski: “It felt like a locker room made of rubber. It was really gross.”
Mandy Moore: “Sweaty rubber, yuck, gross.”
John Krasinski: “It definitely went against that old saying, ‘All babies are cute.’ I mean James Cagney as a baby is not my ideal thing. It was fun to work with because they were so hideous and really hard to hold and all that, so it really made those scenes a lot easier to do - especially smashing it against the glass. I was happy to do that.”
Speaking of babies, how many kids do each of you want to have?
John Krasinski: “Seventeen.”
Mandy Moore: “I haven’t thought about that too much.”
John Krasinski: “Two? Isn’t that like an answer? One in each hand.”
Director Ken Kwapis compared you to Jimmy Stewart or a young Gary Cooper. How do you stay grounded with all the hype?
John Krasinski: “I hadn’t heard the Gary Cooper thing so I’m not grounded now. I feel pretty good. That’s incredibly nice. When I met Robin at the read-through, I remember when he came in, I was so nervous meeting him for the first time is incredible because I did actually write him a letter when I was a kid and told him he was my favorite actor. The first time I ever cried in a movie was in Dead Poet’s Society and I had my fingers like this, like windshield wipers, and I was like, ‘what is going on?’ And he wrote back and he was ‘it’ for me. So getting to meet him and hearing that he liked my work is totally unbelievable. That’s just something that I can’t compute. You can’t take a compliment like that. It doesn’t make any sense.
As far as Ken Kwapis saying all those things, I think he just really wanted me in the movie so he probably told Warner Brothers, ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy Stewart? Gary Cooper? Who else do you like?’ If they’d said they were huge Chris Farley fans, he’s like, ‘He can do that, too. He’s a huge physical comedian.’ But no, that’s really nice to hear.
As for staying grounded, I’ve got a great family and honestly I attribute a lot of it to that. Really, what makes this fun, because it’s always surreal and exciting, but what makes it really fun is having special people to share it with. My family’s the best so to call and say, ‘I’m in a movie with Robin Williams,’ and they’re like, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ And I’m like, ‘Good, as long as you think that, too.’ Because as soon as you say, ‘I deserve this,’ it’s over.”
Can you talk about your upcoming projects. You’ve got Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Are you a big David Foster Wallace fan?
John Krasinski: I am in that everything he writes is pretty much the best stuff I’ve read, so that makes me a fan I guess. I don’t understand all of it. I try. I mean I was extremely lucky to get this project. It was one of those things that I worked on in college. A friend of mine asked me to do a stage reading of that book and I was just completely blown away because, at that point, I was like, ‘Acting’s having fun with your friends and making people laugh.’ Not the case when you do something that makes you actually feel important, and that’s a big moment. It’s a big thing to feel like you’re doing something that’s actually affecting people. So I fell in love with the book and always wanted to do something with and fought to get the rights, which was pretty fun and an incredible experience in itself. And then writing and directing just sort of fell into my lap. We were looking to collaborate with someone on both those fronts and it ended up just being me. So, at this point, it’s the epitome of a passion project and I just hope people like it.”
Are you still doing Leatherheads?
John Krasinski: “We just finished like three weeks ago.”
How was working with George Clooney?
John Krasinski: “That was okay. One of these days I’ll work with a good director... No, it was incredible. You can make jokes but he’s everything that anyone’s ever said about him. To be that big of a star and that grounded and that classy, I’m mean he was a true mentor for me and, as a director, he’s incredible. He knows exactly what he wants and so he knows that you’ve done a good job before you do. So after three takes, he’s like, ‘We got it,’ and I’m still thinking, ‘I’m just getting used to this. I shouldn’t have done it in a Russian accent.’ No, he’s great. He’s a good guy.”
How do you feel about the huge following The Office has?
John Krasinski: “It’s incredible. It’s slightly overwhelming because you don’t think that anything you do….having anybody enjoy what you do is such a treat and so I know I’ve said this a hundred times but we owe it all to our writers. We have the best writers in the business. I love to have the people watching just because it’s fun to have people watching, but our fans are so dedicated, so smart and so cool for the most part. We don’t have these fans that overwhelm you if they see you on the street. They’re like, ‘Love the show’, or ‘What an idiot. You should have said something to her last week.’ I’m like, ‘I know.’
Keeping it real is the key and I don’t know how they’ve done that week after week. I think the key is that everybody can sort of empathize with it. It’s that long lost love and we can all empathize. My favorite scene on the show is on the booze cruise when I finally get to talk to her and tell her, and I react exactly how I would react by saying nothing. I would have nothing to say in that situation so like these strings, violins coming in and having some amazing speech - it didn’t happen for me.”
Page 3: Their Careers, The Office, and Jenna Fischer's Back
