'I just wanted to give her a big hug,' he told ET.
Rainn Wilson is celebrating Jennifer Garner's love of The Office. ET's Ash Crossan spoke to the 54-year-old sitcom star, who reacted to the actress' emotional response to the series finale of The Office.
"She watched it from the beginning with her kids and had an extreme emotional reaction. It was really beautiful," Wilson told ET. "It was so great to see her sharing that with people. People just loved it. I just wanted to give her a big hug, but we can't hug people these days."
Back in August, Garner shared a video of herself crying after finishing the sitcom's finale with her kids -- Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel, 8 -- saying that the series' end gave her "some really big feelings."
"It’s nice to know you can still just feel so much passion about something, right?" Garner, 48, said in the clip. "So, thank you. If you’ve ever heard of this show The Office, you should try it. It’s wonderful."
Garner is one of many people who've turned to The Office amid quarantine due the coronavirus pandemic, something Wilson is delighted by.
"The Office definitely was fading away, especially during our last two or three seasons of the show itself. Our viewership was declining, it wasn't on Netflix, it was barely on repeat at that point," Wilson said. "There was another two or three years afterwards when it was off the air, we didn't really think about it or hear about it."
"Then all of a sudden, I think around 2017 2018 or so, it just started coming back," he continued. "People were talking about it, I was being recognized way more, being sent stuff, there are all these memes, and products, and funny videos, and face mash ups, and all kinds of stuff, and it has become a global phenomenon. I think it's brought people a lot of comfort during some really trying times, so it's been great to be a part of, for that reason."
The resurgence of The Office's popularity has created massive fans, many of whom, Wilson said, know way more about the show than he does.
"I would fail at any Office trivia. I would be the worst," he admitted. "I watched every episode when it first came out. I haven't seen them sense. People reference episodes [and I'm] like, 'I don't even remember shooting that.'"
As for what his Office character, Dwight Schrute, would be up to amid quarantine, the actor guessed that he'd "be handling quarantine by preparing for the apocalypse, as we all should be."
"Probably safe rooms and ammo and canned goods," he added.
Wilson's latest project is Blackbird, a drama about a family gathering together for one final weekend before the death of their matriarch, who's played by Susan Sarandon.
"Blackbird is a story about death but, really it's a story about life. There's a death at the end of the film, you know it's coming, it's heart wrenching and, at the same time, it's about family. It's about laughter, it's about love, it's about people coming together. It has a kind of a wacky weirdness to it at the same time," Wilson said. "It's such a difficult circumstance for a family to be having a family reunion when they know they're losing their matriarch and, with this incredible cast, it just becomes a really beautiful human experience."
Blackbird is now available in select theaters and on demand.
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