Biography

Rainn Wilson

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Overview

Born
January 20, 1966 · Seattle, Washington, USA
Birth name
Rainn Dietrich Wilson
Height
6′ 2½″ (1.89 m)

Biography

Rainn Wilson lives in Los Angeles with his wife, fiction writer Holiday Reinhorn (Big Cats), and his son, Walter McKenzie Wilson who was born in 2004. He grew up in Seattle, Washington but graduated from New Trier H.S. in Winnetka, Illinois. After attending both Tufts University and the University of Washington, Rainn studied acting at NYU's graduate acting program and spent years doing theater both on and off-Broadway, on tours with the Acting Company and in region theatre including The Guthrie and Arena Stage.

Rainn co-created and directed The New Bozena, a sketch comedy and post-modern clown show which performed in New York and ended up doing a pilot presentation at Fox TV. He made his directorial debut with The New Bozena (2005), a short film based on the show.

After many years of working in TV and film, his breakthrough role happened, as Arthur, the odd love interest to the much older Frances Conroy on Six Feet Under (2001). His favorite role to date, however, is Bill Harris in the film, Baadasssss! (2003).

Rainn is a member of the Baha'i Faith.
- IMDb mini biography by: anonymous

Family

Spouse
Children
Parents

Trivia

Rainn writes the blogs for his character Dwight Schrute on the website for his show The Office (2005).
Rainn is the co-creator and host of SoulPancake.com, a website that links spirituality and creativity and 'chews on life's big questions'.
He is a passionate hobby chess player.
Played clarinet and bassoon in the high school band.
Lived as a young child in Nicaragua with his father and step-mother living among the local Baha'i community.

Quotes

I think Dwight is America. There's something so American about him. We all know one; we all love to hate a Dwight. There was one in my high school, and we teased him mercilessly. He had Battlestar Galactica (1978) glasses and a terrible haircut. He took himself very seriously, loved military re-enactments and medieval swordplay. He eventually went into the Army as a fencer and a coronet player. - on his character Dwight on The Office (2005).
(On working on Juno (2007)) 'Jason (Reitman)' was getting "Juno" ready. It's a project he had been chasing for a long time, because he really loved the script. He just called me and was like, "Look, could you do me a favor and fly to Vancouver for a day and do the part of the convenience-store clerk?" And he was like "Please", and I was all "No", and he was like "Pretty please", and I was like "Okay". So it was one day's work, and I got paid $750. I think that's SAG Canadian one-day minimum, and the movie has grossed $800 million.
(2008 - On his career) I think definitely people know me from playing creeps and weirdos, and I'm definitely looking to expand my range. I started in theatre, and for me, it was all about transformation. You transform into the character that you're playing. You're not like Jerry Seinfeld, who's always playing himself no matter what he's in - he's great at doing it, but I'm a different kind of actor. I found it very easy to transform into creeps and weirdos and losers and goof-balls, and I'm happy to play eccentric kinds of characters, and I have a great affinity for the outsider, but I definitely am about expanding my range as well.
[on playing the title character, Backstrom] Watching the show is a kind of process. At first you're thinking to yourself, 'Oh, wow, this guy's a racist and a sexist'. And then you think, 'Oh, wow, you know what? He kind of hates everybody'. And then you think, 'Oh, wow, he hates himself worse than he hates anyone else. What's going on with that?' It's asking a lot of an audience, but I think it's an interesting journey. Like the ad campaign says, he's a total dick. But watching a brilliant detective at work, while things are just not working for him, is interesting to me. I'd rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who's got all the answers, and speaks in these effortless clips, and everything gets resolved perfectly every week. It's human. It's frail. And it's interesting
[on choosing to play Detective Lt. Everett Backstrom] Interesting varied parts with lots of different facets and colors and textures don't come along very often for weird-looking, 48-year-old dudes. I needed to do it.