The Office Cast Members Reveal What They Were Secretly Doing at Their Desks While Filming

Cast members of The Office are looking back on 20 years since the show began.

Actors Leslie David Baker, Oscar Nuñez, Angela Kinsey, Ellie Kemper, Creed Bratton, Brian Baumgartner and Kate Flannery spoke to Today in an interview that aired Thursday, April 17, 2025. During the interview the cast members noted that they often passed the time on set doing mundane tasks, like paying their taxes.

Flannery explained that, when the show first aired on NBC in 2005, the cast was comprised mostly of unknown actors.

“The thing about our show that is so special, I think for all of us, is that none of us were famous when we started,” she said. “So, as the show got famous, we did, too.”

And as the cast explained, spending so much time on set often meant coming up with interesting ways to pass the time.

“I did my taxes the first year,” Flannery said.

Added Baker: “Phyllis did her taxes. I did my taxes. We found my house, her house.”

“Call me crazy, but I was learning my lines and concentrating on my craft,” Nuñez then joked.

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Greg Daniels’ 9-to-5 mockumentary comedy series — based on Ricky Gervais’ British original — captured the hijinks and humdrum of working in the bullpen of a Scranton, Pa., paper company, where regional manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) desperately tries to live up to his self-appointed title as “World’s Best Boss.”

In a recent interview with PEOPLE, Flannery commended the “loyal and so wonderful” viewers who stuck with the show through thick and thin, with Baumgartner noting that the show continues to resonate.

“I mean, 20 years is insane. I can’t believe it. But yeah, the fact that this is happening now and the fact that there are still … the audience continues to sort of repopulate itself,” Baumgartner said.

And while the show’s legacy is well known now, the actors say they weren’t always sure it was going to be a hit.

“I took my name off the door,” Kinsey said on Today, of removing her name tag from her trailer after season one.

But the show, which wrapped in 2019, grew to be incredibly popular and well-regarded, ultimately airing 201 episodes and earning five Emmys and nine Golden Globe nominations.

It also catapulted the careers of Carell, John Krasinski, Mindy Kaling, Ed Helms and more.

The legacy of the workplace comedy will soon continue with The Paper, an upcoming spinoff set at a faltering Midwestern newspaper, which will see Nuñez reprise his role. The series will reportedly star Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei, Ramona Young, Melvin Gregg, Alex Edelman and others.