Salon.com > Oprah

Rainn Wilson explores “life’s big questions”

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 18:20:00 +0000

Most television viewers identify Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, the constantly high-strung, testy "Battlestar Galactica" nerd on "The Office." But where his character is cynical and negative in the extreme, in conversation Wilson comes across as effusive, spiritual and upbeat. As the hit sitcom comes to a close in its final season, Wilson is branching out with other projects, many which veer from comedy, but stay close to his greater vision of bringing people together.

Salon recently caught up with the actor and comedian on the phone to discuss “The Office,” his SoulPancake project and his new TV special "Oprah and Rainn Wilson Present SoulPancake" premiering this Sunday on OWN, which focuses on exploring “life’s big questions.” This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Why did you and your friends (Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry) start SoulPancake?

Before the series, our goal was starting a website, called SoulPancake.com. I really wanted to do something positive on the internet. I wanted to try to get young people talking about, thinking about, life’s big questions--make it cool and OK to wonder about the heart, the soul and free will and God and death and big topics like that, big human topics.

Must-see morning clip

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:12:00 +0000

Eighty-four year old "Night" author Elie Wiesel tells Oprah Winfrey that when he won the Nobel Prize, he saw his deceased father in the hall. Though he wanted to join his father on "the other side," Wiesel explains that he had "more things to do," and hasn't "even begun."

Eric Benet: Crooning about love, tweeting about Obama

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Inevitably, questions posed to R&B singer Eric Benet must alight on two words, "sex addict," which is what he said he was when his marriage to Halle Berry was collapsing, and what he has since repeatedly denied being. It's not a surprise that Benet isn't especially interested in having that conversation again. But unless you follow him on Twitter, you might be surprised at what conversations he fervently does want to have: About poverty, race and reproductive rights. And maybe about his idol, Rachel Maddow, and his conceptions of this country's unfinished promise.

"I think America is this beautiful concept," he told Salon, recently. "Well. With revisions."

There is the Eric Benet with a decade and a half of open-shirted croons like "Chocolate Legs" and the recently controversial "Redbone Girl" to his name. There is the Eric Benet of Twitter, who is a red-meat partisan, all bluster as he live-tweets from the left flank ("I love how Joe kept referring to Ryan as 'my friend' when he really meant 'this bitch'" and "How bout a festival 2 celebrate ColumbusDay! Kiddies can dress in costumes n pretend 2 enslave n kill millions of people. FUN!! RT pls!"). And then there is the Eric Benet in person, of milder mettle, who chooses his words carefully.