Oscar clout lands Amy Ryan an 'Office' job

Amy Ryan earned an Oscar nomination this year for her scarily intense performance in Gone Baby Gone, and she had some quietly devastating scenes in the final season of The Wire.

And Thursday, she'll be striking silly gangsta poses with Michael Scott on The Office.

The Oscar nod helped open a few doors for Ryan, and she told her agent and manager that she'd really like to be part of the NBC comedy. "Some people thought I -- they laughed at me when I told them that, and they said I shot too low," she recalls. "But I disagree. I think it's one of the best shows on TV."

Ryan also has some ties to the show. She co-starred with Steve Carell in the movie Dan in Real Life and is friends with former Office worker Rashida Jones, whom she called for advice before joining the show. She's also known writer-producer Paul Lieberstein -- who also plays Toby, the departed Dunder Mifflin HR rep whom Ryan's character, Holly, replaced in last season's finale -- since they both worked on the mid-'90s sitcom The Naked Truth.

But as a fan of The Office, she also had a bit of a surreal moment walking onto the set for the first time. "It feels like almost walking into a museum -- just anything that you're very familiar with from the comfort of your own living room couch," she says. "So it took a minute just to -- you know, I felt like a little kid walking around."

Ryan shared some more thoughts on joining The Office -- she'll appear in the first five episodes of the season -- her role as Holly Flax and the character's head-scratching affinity for Michael Scott in a recent conference call with reporters. Some highlights:

Does Michael have a shot with Holly?
With Michael and Holly, I think that it gives us all hope that there's a lid for every pot, or I like to say there's a lid for every cracked pot out there. So it's -- everyone has a chance at some form of love. ...

I don't know if I should kiss and tell. I think the beauty is that he'd take shots and then -- I don't know if I can really give away plot line. But I will say, you know, he gets points for trying.

What is it about Holly that lets her get along with Michael?
I think she is slightly odd. But, you know, the nice way to say it is she's just really playful and she finds him funny, and so that unleashes her sense of humor. So it's like they're really kind of like children in that they're playmates.

How's it been joining an established series?
Well on paper in the first day, it's quite intimidating -- especially when you enter a show that you're a fan of and ... have great admiration for. You have to take a moment to allow yourself to join them.

But it's quite an extraordinary group that everyone was really supportive, and very down to earth which is kind of staggering. You rarely see that when a group has a great success. There's usually one -- there's always one, you know, but I'm happy to report that ... everyone was so gracious and generous and that made the greatest welcome.

What was the transition to comedy like after doing so many serious roles?
I was truthfully very nervous because it wasn't just going back into comedy. It was going back into the best comedy. And trying to stand up next to that cast is -- it's not an easy thing to do.

But they certainly made it easier for me. As I said earlier, the writing is so stellar. But I guess it's also, you know, just those roles have just -- you know, don't play the comedy, you play the seriousness of the situation. ... But I was happy to see it was kind of a much more freeing experience than I had thought. But truth be told, the first day I showed up at the finale I was petrified. I think I really was.

Did the style of the show, where you don't have to do setup-punchline jokes, help you ease into it?
I feel, you know, The Office -- unlike some other comedies in the past where you did have to sell a joke -- I feel like these are almost like jokes that come out of human behavior, and what's fun about it is [it's] like the darker side of human behavior.

So for me I would -- now I know the writers wrote jokes along with the character situations, but the more I could see it as just a real-life situation, you know, and the joke is someone said something awkward, then that's the way I kind of skirted around the issue of being intimidated by it.
----
The Office begins its season with an hour-long episode at 9 p.m. ET Thursday, Sept. 25.

E-mail

• Digg
• Facebook
• Fark
• Yahoo Buzz
• Stumbleupon