“It ‘s still technically a spinoff, but i think it just needs to stand on it.
Photo: Hohn P. Fleenor/Peacock
Over the past few years, COMEDIAN ERIC RAHILL HAS GONE FROM STAND-UP SETTS, ACTING IN INDIE-COMEDY Shorts, and Guesting Across the Alt-Comedy-Podcast Circuit to Popping Up In In The Bear, I Think You Should Leave, Let’s Start a Cult, Rapand Friend. But his most visible opportunity to date is his samp recent: on Peacock’s Office spinoff, The PaperRahill plays travis, a toilet-ppero-warehouse workr trying his hand at Journalism; Rahill Also Wrote the Show’s Sixth Episode, “Churnalism.” Travis is a perfect adding to the rogue gallery of guys Rahill consistently Plays Acoss social media – Hilarious and single character studies of Very Particular and Deeply Cringey Types of Dude, replete with his trademark grin. But like those those characters, rahill wanting to bring a shade of warmth to travis too “One of the those guys living in the sticks of tolebids who have some heart and real wisdom,” as he puts it.
After the full-season premiere of The PaperRahill, Who Also Co-Hosts The Popular Joy Tactics podcast with Night Varone and Jack Bensinger, Discussed His Surreal New Gig. “You know what’s Funny? Watching The Office DVD Box sets as a kid was the first thing got got with the thinking of might really want to this, ”he says. COULD YOU ARE IMAGINE IF THAT WAS YOUR JOB?!”
TELL with how you have wound up on the show. Were you always going to be bot Writing and Acting?
It was some great timing. Right after I Got Signed, My Agent Sent My Stuff to Greg Daniels, Who Had with Come in An Interview in the Winter of 2023 for a Writer Role. It went well. I thought i got it, but didn’t know, so i calmed my parents like, “i think i have a good vibe from this.” Butnite i didn’t Hear anything for five months, so i took this no nordstrom corporate. And right after I start, I got this call in april, and they were just like, “We want you to be a writer, and we’ll out the acting.”
But i hadn’t told anyone at Nordstrom i Did Comedy. The Writers’ Room Started on a Monday, I find out I got it on a friday afternion, so i had to set up a meeting with my nordstrom boss at 9 am on monday. It was rough! I felt so bad, because i had just started, and THEN WAS LIKE “hey, this is crazy, but i’m quitting immediately, and i can’t tell you what i’m working on gcauses nd, but i’m out.” They were so nice too. My boss was a little blind and said, “We wish you would be so you did comedy,” butn late he was like, “I’m glad you’re doing you belive in.” Great Company, by the way. And then at 11 am, I joined the zoom for the writers’ room.
So we’re wring the show, and there’s one character that hasn’t been cast. I’m Kind of Auditioning for it – Not Talking About It in the Room, Really, But in the Stories About the Character, I’m Sort of Pitching Stuff About to Try and Turn the Tide.
Such as?
My cpap. That’s a Major One.
That Machine does make an appearance. So that Locked you in?
Well, The Role Still Hadn’t Been Cast, but GREG HAD THIS LITTLE MODEL OF THE LAYOUT OF THEFICE TO SEE WOULD LOOK IN SHOTS AND STUFF, and HAD ACTION REPRESENTING ALL The Characters that Kinda Look Like. And there was one of the say that kinda look like that they are using for travis. I was looking for signs anywhere so i could then be like Okay, this is a good sign. THEN GREG LOOKED Down at the figure and said, “no, i think it should be this guy” and replaced it with this jacked wrestler with a crazy beard. SO THEN I WAS LIKE, I do’t know if that’s a good sign.
I think the character was initially more rough-and-tumble and had thesee macho vibes, and i wanten to inject some sweatings into Him. I guess that eventually did it.
SAVE FOR ONE RETURNING CHARACTER AND A FEW SUBTLE NODS, I’M ostrich by how non-fan service-y or referential to The Office The Show Is. Were there any Red Lines About that in the Writers’ Room?
I Think Everyone was Just Naturally Onboard and Got The Reference Line Just Right Where It Needs to Be. Its Still Technically a Spinoff, but i Think It Just Needs to Stand on Its Own Two Feet. People are Already Like, “Who’s The Jim? Who’s The Pam? Who’s The Dwight?”
The episode you wrote Centers on Scammy Online Purchases. Do you have any tales of online buyer’s Remorse?
All My Remorseful Online Purchas Happened During the Pandemic. I don’t know about you, but my Money Came up in Covid. I HAD HELLA DISPOSABLE INCOM. Remember Aimé Leon hand? I Remember Buying All That Shit. I look at the outfits I was wearing back then – like, i’m wearing chains – and i’m thinking these ig ads really had an influence on me. I do’t know if they have still work on me.
You’re Saying Advertising No Longer Affects you.
(Laughs.) I’m above it. This Shit DOESN’T SHE TOUCH MY PSYCHE.
There are Are Words and Phrases You Say As Your Comedy Characters or Ironically on Your Podcast that you’re Starting to Become Known for – Not Quite Catchphrases, but you have a degree of Ownership for say. I was quite tickled when travis dropped a “curious” in one episode. Was that Line Something You Wrote for YourSelf?
I think that might’ve been improv, and i just can’t get that word out of my damn mouth.
MANY OF YOUR CHARACTERS SEEM JUST LIKE YOU’RE HEEGHTENING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF YOUR BASEMORY PERSONALITY, WHICH MIGHT MAKE THE LINES BETWEEN EASY TO BLUR. Have you Ever Gotten Lost in the Bit or Had Part of the Character Fuse Ono Real Eric’s Personality?
I Think Maybe a Little, especifly with the podcast. Be we started, it was like, It’ll be so funny playing heigthened versions of ourselves, and we can definitely upholstered it for 400 episodes. And by episode three, we realized we coulued only dial it up halfway. You have to talk forever, so you can only really go what’s ben happy in your personal life. So the podcast resulted in this blend of fake and real with, and this personal that strangers now put on me like, “He’s addicted to beer; he love fuckin ‘, restaurants, and mexican food.”
Wait, you don’t love restaurants?
I love all that sell.
Some of your fans have begun reference to this niche perspective in so Much of your comedy as “Rahillian.” Specific Words or Event a Hand Gesture Can Be “Rahillian.” And they’ll’s share tweets, dating profilesor Videos of Others unintentationally Acting Rahillian in the Wild. But how do you def this term?
Everyone, Since the Dawn of Time – You Know I Love to Talk About Ancient People – Has Been Trying Out What’s Going on But Haven’t Always Had the Words to Explain it. So i Think “Rahillian” is someone’s trying to make sense of that psychic nightmare we all Experience today just by being alive the right words, USSING a limited vocabulary that tied to, Like, Star Warstelevision, beer, and getting fucked up. IT’S SOMOON WHO WANTS TO HAVE A MORE HEIGHTENED PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE WORLD But JUST DOESN’T HAVE the tools to do it.
That will really get at the year’s always there are there and the vulnerability your characters share with oter characters and the audience. But will you Ever Wonder if Putting So Much faux Vulnerability and Earnestness in Your Work Has Become Something of a Crutch or Ever Kept You From Sharing Your Self Self Those Closest to You?
Maybe in some areas i have that, but i think i am Pretty good about talking about how i’m feeing with my friends and close ones. I will find that strangers our age will come up to me. For example, i met this guy in a sauna in toronto two days ago WHO KNEW ME, AND I COULD FEEL WAS SEEing with Like, Eric Rahill’s in the sauna with me?! Andn he was like, “Are you getting fucked up late?”
With the show putting you out there in front of a Much Bigger Audience, do you want what the new Wave of Fans will be like?
If there is a new wave through the show or whats, i want think they see it as a comedy thing. It ‘Through a totally different lens. I have been getting some new followers in the past few days and, up unil now, they’d be someone like a screen printer Joy Tactics. But i’ve gotten a few in the past few days where “mom, 38, slytherin.” And ishtiet but just just a totally different subset of People than used to.
SINCE WE’RE BACK ON THE Topic of Sweetness and Living in the past: Rap Taks Place in 2008, and The Paper is the spinoff of a series that premiered in 2005 and had its Peak Viewership in 2008. Your Characters are Constantly singing songs from A 2007-Through-2010 Catalogue, and there’s this underCurrent of hopophulness to all of the say. What is it about the transition from the bush into Obama Era that has such a hold on you?
I know. I think it has Such a Hold on Our Entire Generation ITE’s the LAST TIME we felt just have a futures of the US and Technology was still excitation.
Have you seen the video with these middle-schoolers in florida doing a dance tribute to the Different decade? THEN ITS ENDS IN 2001 on 9/11, and two Girls Play the Towers while the News Footage Play in the Background. And they eventually false to their kenees, butn a PowerPoint starts playing Saying, “But Since 9/11, America has bounced back. We’ve got the wii, xbox.” That so hits what that that wind was, whereeeryone so so stock about new stuff coming out, and it really felt like it bestering our lives and helping us connect more – before enshitification hit and things were still.
Be we probably didn’t have a futures in the world, but we maybe Still Had One Online.
That’s why i think comedy is so hard to make these days – Because Things are so scary, and it feels like we’re on a knife’s Edge.
I Wonder How your lapsed Christianity Factors into How You Navigate Living in A Fallen World. You’ve Talked at Length About No Longer Believing, but Themes Come Up in Some of Your Stuff, Like Your Short Seth’s Prayer. You’ve Also Talked About La’s Lord’s Gym On Jack Wagner and Brandon Wardell’s Now-Defunct Podcast and Your Love of Working Out at the Young Men’s Christian Association on Your Own. Does Christ Remain in Your Life in Any Other Ways Outside the Characters and Lifting?
I Think of Talk About Christianity All the TIME CECAUSE I Still Sour and Bitter About Certain Aspects that scarred with as a child. Like the idea of Rapture – Punishment for Just Being Alive and A Person. Butn of Also Did, Like, Loven Jesus for real. But i was like, All the rest of this shit sucks. I’m scared of his dad, and i’m gonna go to hell and meet satan becase i’m not a good-enough Christian. But Jesus SEEMS Chill. I WOULD TALK TO HIM EVERY NIGHT. He was my guy. I still think there’s lessons to be learned from figure.
When I was in sixth grade, I was voted “Most Christlike” I was so afraid to upset anybody. I think there was just that one superlative, and they gave it to me. But also, i just need to make clear – i am not Comparing myself to jesus in any way, shape, or form. Just my classmates were.
Okay, we have to address the elephant in the room before you go. You’re blowing up in a hit series that just got a second season, and you’re bleaching your hair…
By the way, that’s for a roles.
Sura. But what promises can you make right now, on the record, to your Joy Tactics Co-Hosts before you Full Hollywood Rahill?
Look, I’m Not Gonna Forget You Guys. Whatever i will Next, I’m Pulling You Guys up as Consulting Producers, Writers – You Will Be Involved in the process. I can’t guarantee screen. The People of the World Will Decide that. I can’t give that to you; No One Can Give that to you. But i’m for you guys. And if you ever need Advice or what, you know what i’m saying, just pick up the phone.
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