Rainn Wilson

Wilson met his wife Holiday Reinhorn, a writer, in an acting class in his college. The couple got married on the Kalama River in Washington in 1995. They have a son together named Walter Mckenzie.

Wilson was born in Washington to Shay Cooper and Robert G. Wilson. His father was an author, artist and business consultant; he wrote a science fiction novel titled ‘Tentacles of Dawn’. His mother was a yoga teacher and an actress.

He was enrolled in the Central Middle School and Shorecrest High School. He played the Clarinet and bassoon in band in high school. He describes his adolescence as ‘geeky’ and says that it was spent playing ‘Dungeons & Dragons’.

By the time he graduated, his passion for acting had taken a full form and he made efforts to pursue it. He went to the Tufts University and the University of Washington where he learnt acting.

He has an MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts and was also a member of The Acting Company, a foundation that many prestigious actors were a part of.

Wilson struggled at the start of his career and lack of opportunities forced him to do odd jobs to support himself. His struggle came to an end when he got a recurring role in ‘One Life to Live’ in 1997.

Wilson continued to get small roles in high profile movies like, ‘Galaxy Quest (1999)’, ‘Almost Famous ‘(2000)’, ‘America’s Sweethearts (2001)’, etc. Around this time he also landed some smalltime roles in television, like: ‘Charmed’ and ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’.

It was with Rob Zombie’s ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ in 2001, starring Chris Hardwick and Sheri Moon Zombie, that Wilson established himself as an actor for the first time. He was noticed for his inventive and quirky style.

Wilson’s quirky, eccentric and distinctive style and acting technique brought him to the notice of producer Greg Daniels, who was looking for a perfect cast for an American adaptation of the popular British sitcom ‘The Office’.

He was hired for the project, for the role of the confrontational and toady ‘Dwight Schrute’ in 2005, along with Steve Carell and John Krasinski. The first five seasons won four Primetime Emmy Awards and the series ran until 2013.

The breakthrough work of Wilson’s career is his celebrated role of ‘Dwight Schrute’ in the US version of British sitcom ‘The Office’. Before this critically acclaimed role, he struggled very hard to make a place for himself in the showbiz.