The actor-director says he recently played the pilot episode for his and wife Emily Blunt's two kids.
Though The Office has been off the air for almost a decade now, the hit comedy is finding a whole new audience in a younger generation of viewers thanks to streaming services. John Krasinski, who portrayed the lovable Jim Halpert on the show, recently revealed that his and wife Emily Blunt's two daughters, Hazel, 8, and Violet, 6, have started watching the series.
"They literally just started watching The Office, and by the way, 'just started,' I showed them one episode," the 43-year-old actor-director shared on Thursday's episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. "Their actual quote, we were driving and from the backseat I heard, 'So what's the deal with this Office thing?' I was like, 'OK, that's a big question, we'll cut it down into bite-sized morsels. Emily was like, 'Just show them the pilot.'"
Krasinski then shared that he showed his two kids the pilot episode of the series, which originally aired in 2005, with interesting results.
"My oldest, turns out she's a screen-talker-atter, so she's talking to the screen and when Steve [Carell, who played boss Michael Scott] fired Jenna [Fischer, who played Jim's on-screen love interest, Pam Beesly], she goes, 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' And then she goes, 'You're a horrible person.' And I go, 'You should meet Steve Carrell.'"
As for his younger daughter, Violet, she didn't quite believe that her famous dad appeared on the hit series.
"She goes, 'You look very different.' I was like, 'OK, I'll try not to take that as a hurtful thing, but sure,'" Krasinski recalled, laughing. "She goes, 'You look very different.' And I said, 'No, that's me, I'm just playing a character.' She goes, 'That's not you.' She watched two more episodes being like, 'That's not you. The guy looks a lot like you though.'"
He added that he believes his kids think he works in an actual office after one fan interaction.
"The reason why I think that is because I was walking them to school one day and this guy came up, he was very nice, and he went, 'John! From The Office!' And I went, 'Yeah,' and he goes, 'Oh my god, it's so good to see you!' And I said, 'Thanks,' and we kept waking and she said, 'So do you work with that guy?' And I went, 'No,' and she goes, 'Why are you lying to me?'" Krasinski said, laughing.
He added that Blunt definitely has earned more cool points with their kids.
"Emily had a head start by being in Mary Poppins. I think my kids thought she had married me out of charity," he quipped. "They're like, 'You're so nice to marry an accountant. That's so nice of you.' Because they don't know what I do."
Krasinski isn't the only Office star to speak about the beloved series. His co-star, Mindy Kaling, was a guest on Thursday's episode of Good Morning America, and was asked when she'd let her own kids -- Katherine, 4, and Spencer, 2 -- watch the comedy.
"I kind of think maybe never. That show was so inappropriate," Kaling, who was a writer on the series in addition to playing customer service rep Kelly Kapoor, said. "We always talk about --the writers I'm still in touch with -- we talk about how so much of that show we probably couldn't make now. Tastes have changed and honestly what offends people has changed so much now. I think that it's one of the reasons the show is popular because there's something kind of fearless about it or taboo that it talks about on the show. I think when [my kids are] teenagers they'll probably want to. Seems like a 15-year-old boy is the biggest fan of The Office right now."
As for where Kelly would be now, Kaling joked, "I think she probably would have quit Dunder Mifflin to be an influencer and then probably would have been canceled almost immediately... Most of the characters on that show probably would be canceled."
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