If you’re a fan of The Office, you know that once a year Kevin Malone likes to bring in some of his famous chili. He’s up the night before pressing garlic, dicing whole tomatoes, toasting chili peppers, and undercooking the onions. He claims that making this chili, which has been passed down through generations of Malones, is probably the thing he’s best at in life. Sadly, successfully transporting the pot of chili is a skill that still needs some work.
On the latest episode of the Office Ladies podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted with Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin Malone, all about the Season 5 episode, “Casual Friday.” For those who don’t remember, the episode featured Kevin’s iconic chili cold open. So before we all get to know each other in the pot, take a moment to relive the scene’s slippery, carpet-stained, orange-suited glory here.
Baumgartner chatted with Fischer and Kinsey about everything from getting cast on the show and playing Madden with John Krasinski to Kevin’s character development and what he snagged from the set when the show ended. He obviously couldn’t call in without dishing on the chili scene, though. And his behind-the-scenes details didn’t disappoint.
“You know, people come up to me all the time, and that’s the moment, more often than not, that is referred to,” Baumgartner said. “There are now for me two types of people. There are some people who are like, ‘Oh my god, that is so hilarious. I love it.’ And then there are people who are like, ‘I can’t watch it, it breaks my heart. I feel so bad for Kevin.’ I think in truth it’s somewhere in the middle. I think there’s some physical comedy with a heartbreaking moment. I never could have imagined that that one moment that was shot alone with nobody else around would become what it has today.”
Though the spill is only 36 seconds, it should come as no surprise that a scene that great took a lot of prep. Thankfully, they managed to film the scene in one take.
“I’m tremendously proud of this now,” Baumgartner said. “The actual main portion was one take.”
“They had done obviously some prep, because this was going to be a mess, there was no question. And we’d rehearsed it. Obviously it was all about the moment of spill — having that look and feel as realistic as possible, and that it happened in generally the correct place for the cameras to be able to pick it up,” Baumgartner said. “So [prop master] Phil Shea came to me, kind of like a secret, like, backchannel meeting, and he says, ‘Alright, just so you know we only have three pieces of carpet. So we can’t do any more [takes] than that.'”
The spillage and replica carpet, which covered the area from the entrance and Pam’s desk to Jim and Dwight’s desk clump, were planned for. The mess the scene made for Baumgartner was not.
“No one had any idea what would really happen, cause I was stained. And I remember probably my last public shower, but there were like — it felt like 14 people in the shower with me, peeling off clothes and handing me towels to get it off of my eyes and hair and everything,” Baumgartner recalled.
Kinsey remembered that Baumgartner’s hands were noticeably stained orange, and said later that night he arrived to one of the fancy accounting dinners they regularly had with Oscar Nunez still reeking of chili.
“There was probably some tint for a couple of days, but the smell for sure at least 24 hours,” Baumgartner confirmed.
Though the scene was carefully planned out, there was some improv on Baumgartner’s part.
“Once I was on the ground I got to play a little, and so I just started trying other things,” he explained. So, yes, Kevin trying to scoop up chili with random office supplies he grabbed was all Baumgartner.
“Look, there are a lot of fans who have fallen in love with Kevin while watching the show,” Baumgartner reflected, “and I attribute that to everyone’s innate desire to win one, and how difficult it is to find those little successes.”
Before Baumgartner left, Kinsey shared that somewhere out there exists eight minutes of footage where Kevin’s just slipping around in chili. And to that we say, release the unedited cut!
Be sure to listen to the full podcast to hear more behind-the-scenes stories from filming “Casual Friday.”
You can stream episodes of The Office on Peacock and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.
