The Office Q & A...

As a fan of The Office, it only took a single Tweet from the show’s star/writer Mindy Kaling to convince Josh Groban to lend his considerable soccer mom cache to the hip NBC sitcom. Add to that a miraculous synchronicity between his touring dates and the show’s shooting schedule and the next thing he knew, Groban was standing on the Schrute Farms set messing around with his TV brother and new Dunder Mifflin branch manager Andy Bernard (played by Ed Helms). With mere hours to go before the airing of his appearance on the show, Groban – who has also guest-starred on Ally McBeal and Glee – spoke to reporters about balancing acting and singing with his personal life, his relationship with his real life brother, and how he’d love to play a drug dealer on Breaking Bad.

Q Most people will recognize you as a singer but you’ve flirted with acting your whole life.

A When I was young I was really interested in theatre, so I guess the first thing that got me interested in acting was the idea that I’d hoped to be a theatre actor at one point. I was really fascinated with Shakespeare and I loved improv. When I was in eighth and ninth grade I joined an improv troupe in LA and eventually went on to a wonderful arts high school and studied theatre there, and before I was signed to my record label I was a freshmen at Carnegie Mellon and studied musical theatre there so acting was definitely at least half of what I wanted to accomplish in the arts.

Q How did the opportunity to appear on The Office come about?

A When Mindy Kaling asked me to do the show, she actually direct message Tweeted me. I was shocked to hear from her. And I said, “I’d love to do the show; when are you thinking?’ and it just so happened that the week they were taping the episode was the exact week, out of an eight month tour that I’m doing, that I happened to be in the Los Angeles area. It was 100 per cent serendipity and I’m so happy that the stars lined up for that.

Q As a longtime fan of the show, how did it feel stepping into that world?

A The really cool thing about this particular episode was that it’s such an ensemble episode. As a fan of the show, showing up at Schrute Farms and seeing everybody that I love from the show gathered in one place was really an amazing, pinch-me moment for me.

Q On the episode, you play Walter Jr, Andy’s younger and more successful brother. In real life, you share a birthday with your younger brother, which must have caused some awkward moments. Did you see any similarities in your character’s relationship with his brother to that of your own?

A Subconsciously, I think there’s always a rivalry in the family, whether you choose to admit it or not. I adore my brother to death. The dynamic, especially when you’re exactly four years apart and you have to share a birthday from the age of four on – when it was 10 and 14, a little bit awkward, after that we were able to settle into our ages and now we can go and have a beer and talk about anything. I’m sure that he and I will get a really great laugh out of this episode because, at certain points in our lives, there are similarities between us and Andy and Walter Jr.

Q You’re touring until December; do you find that you’re sacrificing anything by always being on the road for so long?

A I’m not dating anyone. There are two things that suck about being on the road: there’s not a lot of time to film things and there’s not a lot of time to meet people.

Q Finally, now that you’ve been on The Office, is there any other show you’d like to appear on?

A I would love to play someone really bad on Breaking Bad. I would love to play a drug dealer or something. I’m completely obsessed with that series. It would be wonderful for me to be on 30 Rock, too.

(Source)

Did you watch the episode?  What did you think?