Brian Baumgartner Dishes On That Famous Office Chili Scene - Exclusive
Actor Brian Baumgartner may be best known for playing the lovably bumbling accountant Kevin Malone on the highly successful American version of The Office. Who can forget what's possibly his most famous scene on the show, when Kevin spilled a giant pot of chili on the office floor?
More than a decade later, that scene still resonates with fans of The Office, and has even led to Baumgartner partnering with Bush's Beans for National Chili Day to promote his very own chili recipe and unveil a one-of-a-kind No Spilly Chili Pot, designed to help home cooks avoid their own chili mishaps (via Bush's Beans). But just how did the "chili incident" unfold behind the scenes, and did everything go according to plan? "It's a bizarre question but, yes, actually, it went exactly according to plan," Baumgartner told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "I was supposed to spill it [the chili]. So I guess in that regard, it went according to plan."
In addition to reliving that famous chili-spilling scene, the Office actor revealed some fun behind-the-scenes details of the classic television moment he's "tremendously proud of."
Brian Baumgartner nailed the infamous chili scene in just one take
When it came to filming the famous chili-spilling scene on The Office, a lot of thought went into preparing for the humorous cold-open bit.
"When we were about to film that scene, the set decorators, the prop people, they came to me," says Baumgartner. "We had done a special little construction on that pot as well and how we were going to use it. It was a lot of discussion, but they [still] came to me kind of panicked before we shot it... Obviously, it created a mess." A mess that would be almost impossible to clean out of the carpet. "There was a huge cut-out carpet that would fit like a jigsaw puzzle into the front part of the office," says Baumgartner, "and they came to me and they said, 'We have three pieces of carpet. That is it. So we cannot do it any more than three [times].' They were very concerned about this. And I said, 'No problem. We're going to get it in one...' And we did."
But the carpet wasn't the only thing that got dirty that day, jokes Baumgartner. "I have joked about [it] many times, though it's true: They could have replaced the carpet... they could have cleaned the carpet, and they could have put more chili into the pot. [But] I don't think that I could have been sufficiently cleaned in order to do it three... even two times, but certainly not three times. It was a lot of work, and let's just say that the smell of chili lingered around me for, well, for quite a while."
If you'd like to cook The Office star Brian Baumgartner's chili recipe for yourself, it can be found on the Bush's Beans website.