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Interview with Office Space’s Gary Cole

As part of the DC Labor FilmFest, there will be a screening of Office Space, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Gary Cole, who played awful boss Bill Lumbergh, and Stephen Root, who played the much-abused Milton, will be appearing at that screening, and, thanks to the organizers of the FilmFest, I was able to talk with Gary Cole.

When you were making Office Space, what were your expectations? Did it cross your mind that 10 years later it would still be a significant cultural reference, a cult classic and then some?

No. That never…nobody ever thinks that. Everybody thought the material was terrific and everybody had a great deal of respect and were fans of Mike Judge, myself included. We knew what we were working on was good, and what we were getting as we filmed also seemed to be good.

It pretty much went the way we thought it would. It opened, nobody paid much attention to it, and we all went on our way. And then it found another life.

How did you realize it had found that other life?

I was in Chicago, doing a play maybe a year after the movie was released. I didn’t live far from the theater and I would be walking around on Halsted—and of course in LA you’re never on the sidewalk, everybody drives—and I would hear my dialogue behind me and I’d turn around going “what the heck, I thought this movie flopped.” But people were quoting dialogue and recognizing me. But not only me—when we all swapped stories, it turned out the same thing happened to other people. It just took on a life of its own and really snowballed from that.

This is a film about a decidedly non-union workplace, but in real life, you’re a union member yourself. What has that meant to you in your career and your life?

I think, especially with a lot of complications in this entertainment industry, it really is critical to the survival of working actors to have the protections that we have. Things are changing rapidly, because of technology and because of the economy. The business has taken a hit just like every business has taken a hit. It’s trying to adapt to how fast things change. But without the segments of the entertainment industry organized, it would be chaos. So it’s been important to our union and all the other ones that we work side by side.

How does your union membership affect you personally?

All of my health coverage comes because of the fact that we have a deal with the producers. Without that it would just be very dicey. It is dicey to make a living, period, in this business, but without some kind of organization for everyone it would be really hit or miss.

You work a lot, so most people have probably seen you in more than one role. Where does Lumbergh rank as far as characters people associate with you and want to talk to you about?

Especially right now [with the 10th anniversary] it would be number one. If I am spotted or something like that, 90% of the time Office Space is what it’s for. Recently I was on a show called Entourage for a season, and any time you’re on something ongoing that might overtake what your main visibility is for a little while.

But Office Space became just a kind of thing on its own. It survived and was played ad nauseam on television. I think they even periodically have midnight screenings at places that do the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s rare to be in something that has that kind of an impact that lasts as long as this has.

Do you end up hearing a lot of stories about bad bosses?

I think the reason the movie worked well and that Mike is such a talented writer and director is he’s able to write characters and portray them that people immediately identify with. People feel like his characters are based on their own experience. Everyone comes up to me and says “I had a boss just like Lumbergh.” Every character in the movie, you feel like you know that guy. There’s recognizability there that’s really specific.

If you’re not familiar with Working America, we’re the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate—we organize people without the benefit of a union on the job. One of our most successful campaigns most years is our bad boss contest, where we ask people to submit stories about their worst bosses, and the person whose story gets the most votes wins a vacation.

Which of these entries from 2007 do you think had a worse boss: a man whose boss threw away his paid leave paperwork, leaving him without the paid leave he needed to get treatment for cancer, or a help desk worker whose firm’s emergency evacuation plan forced him to stay at his station when the plant caught fire?

My first question to that is why, why is anyone staying if there’s a fire? Isn’t the point to leave?

It’s kind of a tough decision, because I’m still trying to wrap my head around the plan itself. The first one is just…evil but the second one is, I don’t know, evil and stupid. I guess I’m going to have to say the second one only because it’s (laughs) vacant-headed and could result in someone’s death if they actually followed the plan. I can’t believe the person actually stayed there.

Wow. That’s a pretty bad boss.