Ellie Kemper has described her time on The Office as “the gift of a lifetime” and given the friendships she has formed with her castmates, it is easy to see why.
The 46-year-old actress, who joined the beloved NBC mockumentary in 2009 as the cheerful and naive receptionist Erin Hannon, spoke to PEOPLE recently.
“Isn’t it the gift of a lifetime? I feel like I won the lottery getting cast on the show because it is so organic and it is a very natural friendship that we share, which feels rare,” Kemper said.
She was already a fan of the show before landing her role in season five, which makes the whole thing feel even more magical.
Asked what she thinks has given the series such lasting appeal, Kemper pointed to something that feels obvious in hindsight but is actually quite hard to pull off, genuine relatability.
“I think what speaks to audiences or at least I’ll speak for myself, was that you can relate to everybody in that show,” she said. “There’s a character for everyone in your life. Like you can say, ‘Oh that’s Uncle Kenny, or whatever.’ You see people in your life in that show and I think that makes it easy for audiences to relate.” The authenticity, she said, extended well beyond what viewers saw on screen during the show’s nine-season run from 2005 to 2013. The cast are, in her words, “really nice people, so it’s like a nice combination.”
That warmth has clearly endured.
The cast remains in regular contact through a group text thread and email chain, with Kemper describing it as “largely pretty funny” and a reliable mood booster whenever a message comes through. One colleague in particular stands out as the thread’s resident comedian. “I’d say Rainn Wilson sends some pretty funny messages on that thread,” she admitted.
For a show that ended over a decade ago, the cast’s connection remains remarkably alive, which, when you think about it, is probably exactly what Dunder Mifflin would have wanted.