"Parkour!" Proceed!
When Office fans hear the word "parkour" they don't just think of the internet sensation that inspired people around the world to be more creative. They think of the Season 6 cold open, in which Michael, Dwight, and Andy put their terrible parkour skills to the test and destroyed the workplace.
On the latest episode of the Office Ladies, former co-stars of "Gossip" discussed the premiere, which featured a parkour cold open.
They talked about parkour stunt doubles, and shared which parts of the scene were scripted. Let's revisit The Office's parkour glory, shall we?
I reached out to Paul Lieberstein, who wrote and directed the episode, because the script says they parkour through the office. He said that the direction he gave Steve, Rainn, and Ed was just a basic route to move through so that the camera could capture everything. He said that none of them had parkour skills. They didn't do any parkour training.
The scene was not choreographed, but the guys were told by Lieberstein to mess up the room as much as possible.
After a poor first take, they reset the office and asked Carell, Wilson, and Helms to shout "parkour" after every move they made. That is hardcore.
"Lieberstein said that it was the thing that gave it this weird energy that was very funny, and that was the thing that ended up being the thing that gave it," he said. I thought that was great, because I thought a lot of the comedy came from the dichotomy between their very confident parkour and their horrible skills.
Via Giphy.
After jumping on couches, making their way through the office halls, and then going outside to try some larger stunts, the three paper salesmen decided to try some bigger stunts. Andy was going to jump off of the truck onto the boxes. After landing, he wanted to jump to a dumpster, do a spin on a stack of moving pallet, and then backflip into a trash can. He didn't make it past the first move because the empty refrigerator box caused him to fall through. It was very bad.
Have no fear, Helms, Andy didn't jump into that box. The stunt double had to endure the pain for him.
Shawn Crowder was Ed's stunt double. Scott Leva was Michael's stunt double. It was all our guys until they were up on the refrigerator truck, that's when they were our real guys. I guess they damaged the hoods of those cars. They had to be fixed. Shawn Crowder jumped off the truck into a cardboard box. There was a box full of foam rubber. I think they had enough supplies to do three takes. The first take was used in editing.
Via Giphy.
The parkour love didn't stop when the cold open scenes ended. The cast and crew got very into yelling "PARKOUR" for a while.
Do you remember when we shot this cold open? Chris and Ed are two of the camera assistants who would walk around the stage and shout "parkour" from time to time. I remember that when he told me. It would be like, "parkour!"
Kinsey said they all were doing it. "We would open the fridge and go to parkour!"
It seems like it's almost time for a parkour revival.
You can hear more behind-the-scenes stories about parkour and the episode "Gossip" on the full episode of the podcast.
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