1. Steve Carell didn’t want to watch the UK version of The Office beforehand because he didn’t want to simply imitate Ricky Gervais’ version of the character.
2. John Krasinski and Brian Baumgartner would spend almost every lunch together in Baumgartner’s trailer playing John Madden Football.
3. The document being highlighted in the opening credits scene is a copy of the Los Angeles Municipal Code, Section 12.22.
4. Oscar Nunez, who plays Oscar Martinez, didn’t think the show would be a success, so kept his jobs as a server and a babysitter when he first got the role.
5. Many of the cast’s characteristics were intentionally incorporated into the character’s personalities throughout the series.
6. Pam’s lactation consultant after she gives birth in “The Delivery” is actually Fischer’s real-life husband, Lee Kirk.
7. Seth Rogen auditioned and was considered for the role of Dwight. Adam Scott and John Cho auditioned for the role of Jim.
8. Krasinski, Mindy Kaling, and Ellie Kemper were all previously interns at Late Night With Conan O’Brien.
9. At this early lunch Carell said, “Of all the roles I’ll end up doing and all the films I may shoot, I believe that Michael Scott may be the role I’ll always be most known for.”
10. Pam’s painting is replaced with a motivational poster for a few episodes in Season 6, but reappears later in the same season.
11. Brian Baumgartner (Kevin) and Ed Helms (Andy) attended the same high school.
12. When the Stamford branch and Scranton branch merged, the idea was to eventually alienate, fire, or cause all of the Stamford character’s to quit, but Ed Helms was so funny they decided to convert him into a series regular.
13. During the first season of the show, the actors were told to bring in paperwork to keep busy when they were doing background work, as they didn’t have real computers.
14. Oscar Nunez had the only computer with a working speaker and would mostly use it to play videos of people falling over and bumping into things.
15. In “Launch Party” John Krasinski accidentally signed his own name on to Meredith’s cast instead of Jim’s.
16. The cast and crew always wrote and shot more footage than they needed to. Many of the episodes could have been hour long.
17. Spinoffs were planned for both Andy and Dwight to get their own shows but eventually fell through.
18. Krasinski and Rainn Wilson would give each other tips during Jim and Dwight’s quarrel scenes, and many of their best improv lines and directives came from the other.
19. Smith is 11 years older than Steve Carell, despite many references indicating their characters are supposed to be the same age.
20. Steve Carell had seriously active sweat glands, so the temperature on set had to be kept at a cold 64°F, until they eventually invested in space heaters.
21. Jim and Pam’s first kiss was John Krasinski’s first ever onscreen kiss, about which he may have lied to Jenna Fischer when she asked if he’d ever done it before.
22. After Michael fell into a Koi Pond at a sales call, many of the employees changed the screensavers on their computers to fish tanks.
23. Rashida Jones thought she was going to be fired her first day on set for laughing at Steve Carell’s improvising.
24. Novak was the first person to be cast. He was also hired as a writer, starting the tradition of writer-performers wherein many of the writers would star in the show and many of the actors would contribute to writing.
25. Krasinski had to cut his hair for the film Leatherheads, so he was forced to wear a wig for the last six episodes of Season 3 of The Office.
26. Rainn Wilson wrote a blog for Dwight, even though now it only has that one page.
27. In “Gay Witch Hunt”, the script only intended for Michael to hug Oscar, so when Carell improvised the kiss, the cast’s reactions were completely authentic.