Ellie Kemper described her time on The office as “the gift of a lifetime”, and given the friendships she made with her classmates, it’s easy to understand why.
The 46-year-old actress, who joined NBC’s beloved mockumentary in 2009 as cheerful and naive receptionist Erin Hannon, spoke with PEOPLE recently.
“Isn’t that the gift of a lifetime? I feel like I won the lottery being on the show because it’s so organic, and it’s a very natural friendship that we share, which seems rare,” Kemper said.
She was already a fan of the show before landing her role in season five, which makes it all the more magical.
When asked what she thought gave the series such enduring appeal, Kemper pointed out something that seems obvious in hindsight but is actually quite difficult to achieve, true relatability.
“I think what speaks to the audience, or at least I’ll speak for myself, is that everyone on this show is relatable,” she said.
“There’s a character for everyone in your life. Like you could say, ‘Oh, it’s Uncle Kenny, or whatever.’ You see people in your life on this show and I think that makes it easy for the audience to relate to.”
The authenticity, she said, extended far beyond what viewers saw on screen during the show’s nine seasons, from 2005 to 2013.
The actors are, in his words, “really nice people, so it’s like a nice combination.”
This heat clearly continued.
The cast stays in regular contact via a group chat thread and email chain, with Kemper describing it as “mostly quite funny” and a reliable mood booster whenever a message comes in.
One colleague in particular stands out as the thread’s resident comedian. “I would say Rainn Wilson sends some pretty funny messages on this thread,” she admitted.
For a series that ended over a decade ago, the connection between the cast remains remarkably alive, which, when you think about it, is probably exactly what Dunder Mifflin would have wanted.
