Jared Lapidus’ and James Kilmoon’s ‘Office Race’ is a Much Needed Throwback Sports Comedy

Office Race centers around an unambitious office worker (Beck Bennett) who goes to great lengths—specifically 26.2 miles—to defeat his exercise-obsessed, micromanaging boss (Joel McHale)

There's no greater reward than a good throwback sports comedy that delivers on the laughs, the notable one-liners, and the outlandish characters all centered around a non-mainstream, typically irreverent sport - like in this case, running.

Comedy writing partners James Kilmoon and Jared Lapidus, who also directed, come out swinging right out of the gate with their feature debut. From the rhythm and pacing of jokes to the casting of comedy and improv heavyweights, the comedy never lacks and yes, there's a lot of heart in there too. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: First things first, like who is the runner in the scenario?

James Kilmoon: I'm the runner. I ran all through high school and college, but I mean, Jared - you work out for like an hour every day… fighting gravity as you call it, [laughs] like doing pull-ups and push-ups.

Jared Lapidus: Yeah, mine is more solitary. And it's like an excuse to not go to therapy. [laughs] But I definitely have never been part of a sports or exercise community in the way that the running community is very much like a self-sustaining and beautiful, sort of, like, quasi-religious experience for a lot of people.

James: Yeah, and to call it out in this movie, Beck Bennett's character joins a charity-run team that meets every day, which is not real, that would never happen. But because I ran in high school and college, we wanted to kind of make it feel like that high school and college cross country team or track team…but you do get that team, usually, they meet once or twice a week, but we made it daily for that reason.

Sadie: It makes sense for that that scenario. So how did you initially land on this story idea? Was it the character first or the scenario?

James: In its earliest forms, basically what happened was Jared was working on a project with one of our producers for this film, Brian Hunt, from Believe Entertainment. And Brian is like, ‘I think there's a comedy idea in the running world.’ And Jared is like, ‘Well, my writing partner is a runner.’ This is back in like, 2016, by the way. [laughs] So it's like way back. And basically, at that point, we met with Brian and then Above Average, who co-produced this movie, and we're talking about doing this as an indie, we kind of threw everything at the wall. And then we went back and wrote on our own, and came up with two ideas. One was more like a Christopher Guest style mockumentary. And then another one was more of a narrative, which ended up being Office Race.

And so, we kind of had these two paths at first and explored both. And then after exploring both and talking it over with the producers, we were just way more interested in having a narrative sports comedy. To be honest, the whole reason about doing the Christopher Gasol mockumentary is just because it would have been, we thought, much cheaper. [laughs] We didn't know what kind of budget we would have or anything like that. So, we're like, ‘Oh, I think we can do that on the cheap.’ But we were just more interested in and like you said, doing a throwback sports comedy.

Jared: We were thinking in terms of producibility. And we were thinking kind of small at that point, in terms of like, what can we scrape together with the money and resources at our disposal at the time. And it made sense to do it as a mockumentary. Because I think that format is a bit more forgiving in terms of production value, etc. But when we sort of looked at it, we did beat sheets for both, and when we looked at both, the one that got everybody excited was the traditional scripted narrative comedy version of it, even though we knew it would be a much heavier lift for all parties. But we were like, let's just go for broke and make the thing that we really want to make.

Sadie: When you guys were pitching it, did you know by that point that you were going to be making a made-for-TV movie? Or were you still looking at a standard theatrical distribution model?

Jared: So, at the time, we were sort of anticipating that this was just going to be sort of a classic, independent film. And then sort of classic Catch-22 of how do you get money without talent? How do you get talent without money? Which is sort of like the inflection point for a lot of projects, it seems. To take a step maybe even further back than that, this film has gone through, as James was saying many permutations, because it's been in gestation for so long. Initially, after we'd written the beat sheets, we wrote roughly a 20-page treatment for the scripted version of the film. And then we tried to get some funding or financing to basically pay us to write the script itself. And the general response we got was, ‘These guys don't have a film credit to their name,’ even though we have plenty of television credits and other credits, we don't have a film credit to our name. So, it's gonna be really difficult to generate money to pay us to write the screenplay.

And so then we toyed around with the idea of, 'Hey, let's write a scene from the hypothetical script that we will one day make. And we'll shoot that scene as a standalone sort of fundraising enterprise.' And as we sort of started hashing that out, we realized it's gonna take us a few months to even put that together, put the money together, put the resources together for it, cast it, shoot it, edit it, et cetera. In that time, we can just go ahead and write the script on spec, jump to the finish line, and then have a movie. Why are we wasting precious time trying to pay ourselves with what little money we would ultimately receive for a script at this stage? The script is not the be-all end-all, the movie is the be-all end-all.

So ultimately, the sooner we have the script, the sooner we can make the movie, that was the plan more or less. And so that's what we did. We wrote the script. It was a bloated 130 pages. But we distributed it around to all of our producers. And everybody read it. And we came back saying this thing is obviously way too long, way too fat. And James and I threw in the kitchen sink and every character was in there and every idea we'd had, but we knew in there was eventually going to be a refined 96-page diamond. [laughs] Which is where I like to think the script ended up. [laughs] We intended for it to be an independent film. From the beginning. We were gearing up for it, in that sense.

Once we had the script, we started going out with it to the industry at large. One of the wins that we'd had early on was bringing on two great casting directors. My wife's good friend from NYU, her name is Karlee Formalont, and she's a casting director in New York, and her casting partner is Rori Bergman. And the casting directors, first of all, don't get the credit that they often deserve. But even beyond that, they are really the conduit between the production and the talent because they liaise regularly with all of the agents and managers and representation. And so, we got it to Karlee who gave it to Rori and they both loved it. And they said, ‘We'd love to take this on and help you put a cast together.’ And that was the best way to do it without having a whole bunch of money to dangle in front of the cast in the first place. Basically, the idea was just like, let the material speak for itself. Hopefully, it'll speak to some of the actors, and lo, we were able to attract a few actors who came on board and allowed us to attach them to the film.

As an indie, we were hurtling towards a full 2019 production. We brought on a company called Cinetic, which are sort of like an indie financing slash film sales company. And they were trying in haste to put the rest of our financing together. We couldn't make it happen in time. So, our fall 2019 plans were scuttled, we said let's push until the spring of 2020. COVID happened, we were dead in the water. 

And then we get word that Comedy Central is looking to get into the film business. And we've done plenty of work with them over the years. We knew the folks over there. So, we sent them the script. And they loved it. And they said we'd love to make this with you. And two years later, we finally did; we had to reconstitute the whole past and sort of kick around the network bureaucracy. But finally, we pushed the film through and we're able to make it happen.

Sadie: One of the many great things about this movie, obviously you have some great heavy hitters in the comedy sphere, but the rhythm of comedy and where you're placing jokes and the beats. What’s your writing collaboration process like with each other? And how do you know where and when to hold back on a joke, or add more so that it does feed into the narrative?

James: Yeah, great question. I mean, first off, I'll say a little background on us. We met as freshman-year roommates at NYU, or really suitemates. But we'd like to say roommates at this point, because it was a very small suite, but --

Jared: We were connected by a bathroom.

James: Yeah, exactly.

Jared: And a love for comedy. [laughs]

James: Yeah. [laughs] So, we've kind of known each other all of our adult lives. There's almost no filter in the writing process. And I feel like, at some point, there's been a bit of a mind meld. So, there's a lot of finishing each other's sentences and being like, ‘Oh, yeah, that works.’

And just in terms of writing process, our big thing, start with the beat sheet. That's kind of like our real blueprint there. And then once we dive in there... we count laughs on a page at certain points. And if it's not there, especially like when you get to a table read - we didn't get to do a bunch of those, unfortunately [laughs] - so just our own table read, it's me and Jared reading it back and forth to each other. And if something's not servicing the joke, then we're like, 'Oh, this is a really good heart moment.' Or especially for me, I would say, ‘But this is a really good running moment.’ And Jared's like, 'But do we need it? We have other ones. Can we put it elsewhere?' And you're like, 'You're right.' So you, maybe flip it to another spot, just to make sure your jokes are more condensed or something or make it funnier, like punch it up. 

We wanted to have heart and, and everything else, but it's an out-and-out comedy first. So, if it's not making us laugh, does it necessarily need to be there? And there's always a Kill Your Darlings with that as well. I guess our process is ruthless. [laughs] Make it as fine-tuned as we can, just through constantly editing, editing, editing.

Sadie: And for you, Jared, once when it comes down to the production and directing the actors, how much are you letting your cast just run with it? So that you have additional buttons to choose from when you are in the editing room?

Jared: Totally. We were just so blessed with our cast, both in terms of them all being comedy powerhouses in their own right, but also incredible improvisers. And James and I love as much improv as we have time for. In the case of this film, we were on such a tight schedule, we only had 20 shoot days for the whole movie, which is not enough. And so, that came at the expense of oftentimes just letting the actors just go nuts with it at the end of the scene, where it's like, by the end of the day, it's like you have an hour to shoot a two and a half page scene and it's a five hander and any pretense of artfulness or anything else you want to experiment with goes out the window, and it's just like, we need to get the scene and make sure we walk away with the functional scene.

And the other thing, it's so funny because like, the whole seven-year experience was very much like, hurry up and wait. And then as soon as it was "go," it was all systems go. And then we didn’t have enough time to prep the movie, not enough time to shoot the movie, not enough time to edit it. It's so funny having all of that lead time, and then just being outrageously rushed to actually put the nuts and bolts of the film together. 

So I mentioned that to say there was no rehearsal. We only had one Zoom table read, that most of the actors could not attend, but we had to put it together, basically, so that Beck and Joel [McHale], were able to be there. But unfortunately, that precluded a lot of the other actors from being there, just for scheduling reasons. This all came together very, very quickly. 

And so really, the first time we were hearing the vast majority of the scenes was as we were doing a blocking rehearsal on set, right before we were about to shoot take one. And so, if not for the unbelievably seasoned talent that we had there, and their ability to just breathe life into the characters and also just come incredibly prepared. They all knew all their material cold walking onto set, and it was such a relief, because if that wasn't the case, even if there was one person not pulling their weight, it would have taken the whole thing out, but thankfully, everybody really just blew all of our expectations away in terms of what they would bring to it and the ideas that they would bring.

Sadie: How much of your TV backgrounds helped you in the production phase of your first feature?

James: Yeah, the show I work on, Impractical Jokers, it's the best job in the world. The crew on that show is just off the charts. And the guys, the Joker's themselves, are just wonderful to work with. But the thing about that show is it's absolutely insane. Like one day, we're in a supermarket. And the next day, we're at Citi Field, and you're kind of all over the map. I’m basically the head writer, so it's like you're constantly working on 20 different things over the next couple of weeks, you kind of have your head in a bunch of different spots. 

Again, this being our first feature, you don't really realize how much that translates over to the film world. And you just have a lot of different plates that you're spinning at the same time. And you're going from wall-to-wall meetings, whether it's like you're interviewing department heads, and then going on location scouts, and the network sends over notes on the script, again, you're kind of just constantly juggling. For me, Impractical Jokers, was just a wonderful boot camp for production. And I didn't realize that until we jumped into here. So yeah, that's helpful for me. How about for you, J?

Jared: Excellent, handoff. [laughs] I think all onset experience is enormously useful. James and I have been working, thankfully in a professional capacity for how long has it been now? Together over a decade, individually, a little bit longer than that. I try to challenge myself on every set that I'm on and learn something new, and constantly expand my toolkit. So, if it's something that I'm feeling a little bit deficient in, I'll try to incorporate that somehow into the production. I shoot a lot of commercials these days, and I'm very thankful to do so. I love it. I think it's a place to get time on set and work with actors and experiment and learn new elements of the craft, and thankfully, often have budgets to do so. Which is really nice.

Directing is such an interdisciplinary thing. I like to think of it as having sort of like three pillars; there's the technical, which is knowing the gear and the lighting and how to speak the technical language to the crew; there's the creative, which is sort of top level, how do you translate what's on the page into a cinematic sequence? And how do you speak that language to all of your various department heads? And then also, how do you communicate that to the actors, and speak the language of the actors? 

And then there's the intrapersonal element, which is how do you manage all of the intimate relationships that you have on set with all of your crew, and all of your cast, and all of the network and studio folks, and so on and so forth, and everybody needs to be dealt with and addressed differently. Actors like to be given notes differently, and everybody has a different process. And so, it's just a matter of juggling all those different imperatives.

I think that had we made the film a few years earlier, that would have been a few years less experience for myself as a director, even though I've been lucky and thankful to work, however long, over a decade at this point as a director, it would have been a different movie, if we'd made it three years ago. And likewise, if we made it three years from now it would have been a different movie, because I would have had all of those additional years of experience and likewise, James as well.

It's interesting because the movie in large part is like a reflection of where we are at this point in time on our journeys as filmmakers. The writer-director of Manchester by the Sea, [Kenneth Lonergan] he's a playwright as well. I remember him revisiting old plays of his and how he was looking at them as sort of reflections of who he was at the time when he wrote them and being tempted to make updates and revisions to correct for who he's become presently, but that would be a mistake, because the film itself or the play or whatever the medium, is in effect the time capsule of where everybody was at that point in their lives.

Sadie: I love that idea that it is a time capsule of where you are in that point of your life and career, and especially as a storyteller.

James: That’s the other thing, just working with Jared who I trust implicitly as we're writing, and then going through production, that's such guiding North Star. Any decision we made, we always pow-wow and discuss it. That relationship is just tantamount to anything else. One thing I'm so proud of with this movie, it just really feels like something we're both really proud of and feels like, ‘Oh, that's our sense of humor.’ Way better than the videos we made in college, which we won't show anybody. [laughs]

Jared: [laughs] Yeah, just to echo that, yeah, James is my rock on set. And I'm so thankful to have him there and to have him at the monitor. Because when you're working at the pace that we were working at, with the scale of the film that we were working on with also an ensemble, there's so many things to distract your attention or to pull your attention. And so, it's impossible to look holistically at everything simultaneously. And so, while I might be looking at one actor's performance during a specific take, James might be looking at something completely different. And it's enormously helpful to have that additional perspective so that we can pow-wow and figure out what to diagnose and address on the next take instead of - what are we missing? What can we improve upon? Etcetera, etcetera. And just to have somebody on set who's as invested as I am, is completely invaluable. I think it'd be, first of all, a lot lonelier without him, and also just a lot less fun. Just having somebody to share the joy with is, really, really nice.

Sadie: Coming off your first feature together, any general advice for comedy writing partners or something you learned from this experience?

James: I think the biggest thing is you just can't quit on your project, no matter what, I mean, I know that that kind of goes for everybody, as well as something that's not specific to writing partners, but the two of you believe in this thing so much. And I think that's the other thing that helps keep your hope alive on projects. I think if I did this on my own, it would 100% be dead. But because we're doing it together, and I trust Jared so much. I think you're so funny and talented, that I'm like, ‘OK, well, Jared likes it. So, it's good.’ [laughs]

We're continuously just keeping the ball in the air together. And it's those times where it's like, yeah, we're the only people that like this thing. Maybe we're the only ones quoting this movie, that's what writing partners do, though. If I was quoting my own movie to anyone, I’d feel like the biggest like piece of shit. [laughs] But we're doing it to each other, like over the past seven years. And sometimes I'd be like, ‘Wait, where's that from?’ It's like, ‘Oh, right, our thing!’ It sounds terrible. But I know this is a forum that most other writers will read, and so I think they can relate to that. But writing with a writing partner really keeps your hope alive. And I think that's something that...it's really a gift you give each other. I feel like being able to collaborate with Jared is by far and away, the best work I can do. So, as long as you believe in your partner, then you're good. [laughs] Don't partner with a chump. That's my advice, if your partner is deadweight, get out of there! [laughs]

Jared: [laughs] That was great, James, that was very sweet, and thank you. Yeah, you need somebody who you share sensibilities with and taste with. But at the same time, it is helpful for there to be some room at the margins… you don't want identical taste, because then you're just sort of in an echo chamber. And so, what I think is really nice about the collaboration between James and myself is that we don't have the exact same opinion about everything. We'll disagree often about what is funnier in like dropping a specific reference, or what's a funnier phrasing, et cetera, et cetera. And that's fine. We can quibble about the details. 

But when we both laugh at something, we know that we're appealing to a broader audience. And that's sort of our litmus test for knowing what a general audience is going to like and appreciate or at the very least a wider audience because it's making us both laugh and we both come from distinct places with a distinct POV. I think it certainly, in terms of picking your writing partner, find somebody who you have similar tastes with but not identical tastes with I think that's a pretty decent formula.

Sadie: That is excellent writing partner advice.

Jared: I have a couple more related to having just shot our first feature, of what have we learned. From a technical perspective, and this is, I guess, more for the writer-directors out there, but generally speaking, put your biggest scene at the top of the day, so that you have the most time to craft it. And that way, everybody's fresh and enthusiastic. And definitely don't put your biggest scene after lunch when everybody's digesting and recovering from whatever the salt bomb was for lunch. And certainly not at the end of the day when you're racing the sun, or the clock, or hard outs, or anything else. 

And I would say, by the same token, put your small scene at the end of the day, so that if you do need to shoot it in 30 minutes or an hour, you're able to or at the very least have a plan in place that will like a Plan B that is like the simplified version of that movie. Because what it ultimately comes down to is figuring out what hills you want to die on and what concessions you want to make and what you want to fight for. And that's a battle that you're gonna have every single day, every single moment.

Another big one is trusting your gut. And just knowing what you need out of the scene, despite what other folks might be telling you. Or you might have your AD telling you, ‘You need to get out of here in five minutes if you want the next thing.’ And you have to weigh that advice, which is good advice against like, do we have the scene? Do we need another take? Do we need this close-up? Probably. You probably need the close-up [laughs] is a good piece of advice. It never hurts to have a close-up in the edit.

And don't agree to a short prep schedule, which I think we did, unfortunately, on this one. We were so excited and enthused to make the movie, that are attitude to it was just like, ‘Yeah, we'll figure it out when we get to it.’ And it's I'm knocking myself in particular because I come from an editing background, I worked for many years as an editor. So, I should have taken a more meticulous look at the proposed post schedule.

And then the last thing I think this is universally applicable is it is an incredibly stressful enterprise. And there's a lot of things that demand your attention. And there's emergencies, and there's fires to be put out relentlessly. First and foremost, just be good to everybody. Everybody's there to help you achieve your vision. Be a good person to everybody. Don't take out your stress on anybody on set, you have to internalize all of that and not show it, hopefully. 

And more importantly, don't let all of those individual stressors ruin your joy for the project. You constantly have to, or at least I have to remind myself like, why am I here? I'm here to make this thing that we've worked seven years to create. And all of these individual stressful elements are just part of the process. But don't let them distract you or detract from the overall experience of making the thing that you've fought tooth and nail to create.

James:  I also want to mention, we have the strikes going on right now. And just to call out that, we actually had to hire our own PR company to be able to do press, otherwise, we would not be able to. We're not doing this through the studio, we just want this film to succeed and the WGA has sanctioned us to be able to do our own press. But we are very much with the Guild. We support the strike no matter how long it goes on for. We know that the Guild right now is fighting for the necessary improvements for all writers in the industry, otherwise, we won't have sustainable careers.

Office Race will premiere on Comedy Central on September 4, 2023, at 8 pm EST/PST.