Rainn Wilson lives his dream on TV and film

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AP: You got all that background growing up?

Wilson: My parents were hippies in Seattle. My name is Rainn. So it was all right there for me.

AP: Are you still blogging as Dwight for “The Office”?

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Wilson: I am and I owe them a blog. Thanks for reminding me.

AP: What other projects do you have in the works?

Wilson: “Kanan Rhodes” ... is a really funny, kind of over-the-top comedy from Bob Odenkirk. It’s like a surreal Ace Ventura. It’s about a man who serves subpoenas and takes himself way too seriously. “Bonzai Shadowhands” I’m writing. It’s about a down-and-out alcoholic ninja, a once-great ninja trying to put his life back together. I’m doing that with Jason Reitman who directed “Thank You for Smoking.” And I have a couple other projects I’m working on and things I’m developing. You strike when the iron’s hot and I spent long years slogging by, doing New York theater and spending months and months out of the year unemployed, doing odd jobs to get by. Now I’m going to just take a couple years and work hard and enjoy the fruits of my labor.

AP: Did you always want to be an actor?

Wilson: I don’t really have an exciting story about that. I just always wanted to be an actor. I started doing plays in high school, kept at it in college and decided, if I’m really going to be an actor, I need to study it. So I went to the graduate acting program at New York University and did a three-year training program in acting over there.

AP: How do you spend your free time?

Wilson: I’ll get some time off with my wife (author Holiday Reinhorn) and kid (Walter) and spend weekends with them. We bought a little cabin in Oregon, so we’ll go up there when we get off weeks. It’s all about my 2½-year-old, pretty much, so free time is about taking him on a walk, taking him shopping, taking him to the playground, play dates, stuff like that. What I do for myself is tennis. I try and get a couple of good tennis games in a week, which is really fun and relaxing for me.

AP: Is there a dream role for you? What is the goal?

Wilson: I’m really kind of living the goal right now. I’m pretty much living the life I really always wanted to have and that’s a pretty extraordinary thing.

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