I Was On "The Office"
My A Cappella Life Part 4
In the fall of 2012 I pretended to be a member of Andy Bernard’s fictional college a cappella group “Here Comes Treble” for Season 9, Episode 5 of The Office. I have terrific range as an actor, as my IMDB page shows. The experience was impossible, insane, and beyond perfect. I used this analogy in a preceding post but I now realize it applies more precisely here: being on The Office was my tour of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
At risk of outing myself as quirky and unique, The Office was my favorite show. I say “was,” but I’ve never come close to loving another show so thoroughly. I was a fan from the day my dad brought home a DVD of the original British version. My brothers and I were delighted to learn the American adaptation was premiering soon. Watching, rewatching, and quoting the show was an extremely fun part of a lot of my most cherished relationships. So, when I got to UVA and joined the Hullabahoos - it was pretty neato to learn that the guy who’d founded our group in 1987, Halsted Sullivan, was now a writer on the show. It was cool enough to have a strand connecting me to this thing I loved, to know that if I wanted to write a dorky fan letter that it would have a higher than average chance of reaching the people who made it.
Season nine (the final season) of The Office aired during my fourth year at UVA, which was an extremely non-boring period of my life. My parents were somewhere in the process of divorcing, which was not great. When I learned this core foundation of my identity was crumbling, I simply decided it wasn’t really a Big Deal – a neat trick, if you can pull it off. My avoidance tactic led to my failure to reapply for my financial aid package, which I very much needed to pay my out-of-state tuition. I reached the page that asked about “Parents’ Marital Status,” didn’t know what to put, logged out, and didn’t log back in until a month past the deadline. My appeal was rejected which in retrospect was a blessing, because I definitely would have flunked my classes. I found myself in a gap semester during which I wander the Grounds of UVA and the forests of Charlottesville like a grainy Sasquatch.
I am moaning with purpose: I want you to have some understanding of where I was psychologically and emotionally. I was anguished and directionless and when this gleaming, humming spaceship suddenly appeared to take me on a magical journey through the stars, I leapt fully and immediately on board. I had my eyes wide open the whole time.
We’d been back at school for maybe two weeks when we (the Hullabahoos) received an email from our president Nick Cafero summoning us for an emergency meeting. It was clear from his phrasing that it was a good and thrilling emergency.
“Halsted called me this morning. They’re writing the last season of The Office and there’s an episode that will feature Andy Bernard’s current a cappella group. We might get to play that group.”
“What.”
“I know. This isn’t real yet. There are a lot of moving parts. But it could happen. The casting director needs convincing, and there’s another problem - it’s a small set, and if this does happen, we won’t all get to do it. We’ll have to film auditions, like - today. Do you guys want to do it?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Sweet.”
I felt like I’d just sat down on a roller coaster and the bar had been pushed down into my lap. I had no idea what the track looked like or how long the ride would last but I was going to enjoy every climb, drop, turn, and loop until I was told to please stand and exit to my right.
I remember my audition approach. I tried to make my face radiate my inner monologue, which was, “I’m actually auditioning for my favorite show, this would be awesome, if you cast me I will have the time of my life and I won’t screw it up.” I poured every vibrating molecule of that energy into: “Hi. I’m Brandon Borror-Chappell, I’m 5’11,” and I’m auditioning for the part of RUSSELL.”
After I filmed my audition, I entered my own version of the tunnel I’m sure each of us was in. This is so cool. I hope I get picked. But I might not get picked. If I don’t, I will be so happy for whoever does. I will also be jealous. But I will find a way to deal with it so I can be happy for them. I hope I get picked. This is so cool. I hope I get picked.
The next day, I received another email from Nick that only seven of us were copied on. HeeeyaayyayayyyayyyeEAHHHHHHH! Nick, Kelly, Charlie, TJ, Drew, Sean, and I would be packing our bags and flying to Los Angeles where the magic of makeup, costumes and camera trickery would transform us from UVA a cappella dorks into Cornell a cappella dorks - and we would get paid a few thousand dollars to do it. Now, that was simply too much on top of it all, so with zero seconds of deliberating we decided to use the money we were being paid to fly the entire group out to LA for a trip surrounding our shoot days that would include a visit to the set.
To add some depth to my storytelling I asked Jake (Hi Jake!), arguably the biggest Office fan in our group, if it was a tough pill to swallow to not get to be on the show. He replied, “Honestly, no. It was so outside of the realm of anything I found to be normal that it didn’t even really register when I didn’t get it. And what made a really big difference was the fact that we were all able to go out there and meet the cast. I sat next to Leslie AKA Stanley to eat lunch, we got to tour the set, we met Dwight and Jim and Pam. I was so happy to be there, I was just so thrilled for our group that we got to do something like that, it honestly wasn’t tainted by any sort of bitter or jealous feelings. That was my experience. No need to quote such a cool, levelheaded guy like me.”
The night before we left, I became suddenly and terrifyingly aware of all the delicate organs and systems keeping me alive. I considered getting an emergency appendectomy just in case, but instead just prayed to all my cells to keep chugging along and keep any problems to themselves for at least the next week.
We landed and visited the set that afternoon to get acclimated. Holy moley it’s the baler Michael isn’t allowed to touch! The stairwell where Jim comforted Dwight! Oh my lawd it’s Dwight! Yet another bounty in this outrageous cascade was that The Office was shot on a small, isolated set. Most sitcoms are filmed on studio lots which are like big campuses with lots of people from different shows all jumbled together. In that environment, we would have been more like background characters. But The Office was kind of its own island, so when the college a cappella boys showed up, the cast was delighted to see us because we were more of a novelty.
I felt immediately stupid upon meeting Meredith because I realized I was not meeting Meredith, I was meeting Kate Flannery. This might seem obvious, but something weird happens in your brain when you meet someone you’ve previously only seen on screens. Their likeness is already stored in your facial recognition cortex so you simultaneously recognize them and see them for the first time in three dimensions. And you usually know their face because they’re good at acting, so you’ve heretofore believed they are the character they’re pretending to be. Meredith the character is disgusting, but Kate Flannery was lovely. This little cognitive moment happened very quickly but I figured I’d break it down for you because that’s kind of my thing.
Another thing about meeting someone from the teevee is that generally they’ve built a successful career because they’ve got something lovely about them. The definition of ‘charisma’ I’ve settled on over the years is the deft power to make others feel comfortable being themselves. During our preliminary tour and snacking with the cast and crew, I felt extremely rizzed up. It was like being at a big family holiday gathering with beaming Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Stanley asking us about what we’ve been up to.
The next morning we got picked up in a big van at 5:30 and I was in hair and makeup by 6 sitting next to Ed Helms. He was simultaneously shooting the Hangover sequel and had to be in makeup so early because, this being the Halloween episode, Andy Bernard was in an elaborate George Michael costume that took a while to apply. We exchanged pleasantries but I could tell he was tired so I erred on the side of not acting too much like an overexcited golden retriever.
Someone in charge thought it was risky to hinge production on the professionalism of a bunch of dorky college fanboys so they hired an Actual Actor to play Russell. That actor was Daniel Amerman, and he was and remains awesome. His presence helped us recognize the unfair absurdity of our being on the show, an absurdity I have grown to understand more deeply as I’ve gotten older. So many people put in so much work to be considered for these roles. There were seven pairs of shoes to fill on the most beloved, surely-headed-for-syndication sitcom on the air and we just cluelessly trampled right in. I’M SORRY, OKAY?
Long time fans of the ‘stack know that I interviewed my a cappella bro and Office co-star Nick Cafero about his professional acting journey. If we didn’t have Daniel Amerman to take the lead, we would have been extremely lucky to have Nick with us. He was chopping it up with the camera operator, improvised shushing Pam while singing ‘I’ll Be,’ and deeply regretted that when he went to kiss her hand he accidentally kissed his own thumb. He was so natural and good that he ended up swiping a couple of lines, and Rainn Wilson told him, “You know, you could do this if you want to.” That Rainn, man. So prescient.
I tried my hand at making an acting choice. I was eyeing the candy on Pam’s desk and since I was in character as a college a cappella singer, I thought that my wanting a lollipop meant my character wanted a lollipop. The director was calling out directions and then seconds before the take shouted, “Lose the damn lollipop!” I complied.
Most of our scenes were with Ed Helms. The emotional engine driving the episode is that Andy Bernard is falling apart and leans on his support: the fact that he was an a cappella legend back at Cornell. He invites us thinking we’re going to give him this big boost but embarrassingly learns that we don’t really know anything about him. I was particularly entranced with his scene with Stephen Colbert, who had pre-taped his half of a confrontational conversation as Broccoli Rob. It was fascinating to see the intricate acting mechanics on display as Mr. Helms tinkered with his timing and phrasing over a few takes to make it appear as though the interaction were happening live.
But when he screwed up during one of his scenes with us, I held him accountable:
Andy comes into the break room to have a chat with us and impress upon us the magnitude of his own legacy. For some of his lines, he happened to select me for his eye contact. He was supposed to say, “Don’t you at least want to know why they call me Boner Champ?” Instead, he looked right at me and said, “Don’t you at least want to know why they call me Broccoli Rob?” I held for a brief second then broke and snorted. “Nobody calls you that,” I said. He held my gaze, confused for a moment, then exhaled with a loud, “Fuck!” Somewhere in the dungeons of NBC Universal there is footage of me essentially calling cut after I’m somehow the first to clock that he flubbed his line. Brazen!
The most interactive thing I did was write little notes to the cast. I have always found it easier to write what I really want to say rather than say it aloud. In addition to some candy, I also grabbed some Post-It notes from Pam’s desk and wrote something along the lines of, “Dear Phyllis, I know this is another day at a job you’ve been doing for a long time but this is actually the greatest day of my life. Thank you for being a part of this show and for welcoming us onto it.” I know they were well-received because Leslie David Baker saw what I was doing and said, “I want a note!” Obviously I don’t know what became of them, but I got to deliver my fan letters and know they were received.
THE AFTERMATH
We gathered in Charlie’s Lawn room a month and a half after shooting to watch our episode air on October 25, 2012. It was like watching ourselves play in the Super Bowl. It was one of those things the whole school knew about. I won’t say it was humbling because it bothers me that people say that when they’re winning awards. Sharting your underpants in line at Trader Joe’s is humbling. But! I understand the feeling people are feeling when they say that. Your proportions get all thrown off, you feel suddenly enormous even though you know you’re still the same sized person who is fleetingly casting a big shadow.
When I traveled back to my hometown of Marshfield, Massachusetts for winter break, people were stoked about it. Again, being called “legendary” by a large man two years your senior who used to hit you very hard at football practice is the opposite of humbling. It was cool knowing that it was cool for other people. I have felt the thrill of seeing my friend pop up on screen and saying, “Hey, I know that guy!” And yes, it was and still is cool to be the one who pops up. I still occasionally get tagged on social media when people are rewatching the series, as they often do. (If you rewatch the episode because of this post, tag me!)
I reconnected with a childhood friend (Hi Conor!) because of this episode. He moved away in fourth grade. He was watching the show and said to his wife, “Oh my God, I think that’s Brandon Borror-Chappell.” He confirmed his suspicions, reached out, and a little bit later he was at my wedding in Hawaii.
I have encountered a few Office people in the wild but have failed to approach. I’ve made a promise to myself to say hello next time I walk by Jenna Fischer or run by Ellie Kemper and if they wave to me like I’m just an enthused fan I’ll say, “What, you don’t recognize your old co-star?!”
I have never wrapped my brain around this happening. It was such a struck-by-lightning, jackpot lottery ticket thing that landed in my life. My brain is prickling right now because there’s a part of me that is still expecting some sort of “Gotcha, idiot! You thought that was real?!”
I can’t say with a straight face that I deserved it. But I did love every second of it. If it wasn’t real, please don’t tell me.
“Fun” Trivia:
We were shooting for two days. On the second day, the rest of the group came to visit the set and we sang ‘Runaround Sue’ for the cast and crew featuring our founder and writer Halsted in a real-life resolution of the episode’s plot. There was enough sitting around and waiting for our scenes to say to each other, “Wow, isn’t this amazing - we are bored on the set of The Office!”
I am open to correction on this claim but I came up with the corny little choreography for ‘Car Wash’ was my idea.
You can see me putting my cell phone in my pocket in one clip, that is me texting my dad, “Hey Dad I’m texting you from the set of The Office, maybe the sending of this text will be captured in the show.”
I use a prop remote to turn the TV on when Stephen Colbert joins us during ‘Faith.’ I couldn’t get the timing right but figured it was better to be early than late and told myself it was okay because a lot of televisions these days take a couple seconds to turn on after you press the button.
I am currently fifty pounds lighter than I was on the show, and I pay significantly more for my haircuts now than I did back then.
I added my own quote to my IMDB page. It was from a Skype (remember Skype lol) interview with a local news anchor who also happened to be a former Hullabahoo. He asked, “With all this attention, you guys aren’t getting swelled heads, are you?” And with the shit-eatingest grin you ever did see I replied, “You know Andrew, there’s really nothing more gross than an inflated ego.”
Here Comes Treble: Where Are They Now?
Sean is a public school principal in Virginia.
Brandon is writing this.
Kelly works in the Government Accountability Office.
TJ is an engineer in Virginia.
Nick is an actor in LA.
Daniel is an actor in LA.
Drew is an actor in New York.
Nobody ever knows what Charlie is doing, he says things like, “A prince today, a pauper tomorrow.”
What a wonderful preservation of a great week!!! I love your reference to IMDb😃😃
Now I think you should try "Dancing with the Stars"! XOXOX