‘The Office’ star Rainn Wilson reveals difficult childhood

celebrities

by Jane Herz

August 31, 2023 | 10:26 pm

Ryan Wilson, who played fan favorite Dwight Schrute on the sitcom The Office, reveals his childhood struggles and their long-term effects.

“I’ve had a lot of pain in my life and a lot of struggles with anxiety, depression and addiction,” Wilson, 57, admitted during an appearance on the show this week.CEO Diary“Audio blogging.

“As I delve deeper into the recovery process and the healing process, I can relate directly to a lot of the massive disruptions and traumas I experienced as a child,” he continued.

The “Juno” star claims that his mother left him when he was about two years old, and that he was raised in the Baha’i faith with his father. They moved to the Nicaraguan jungle when he was three years old.

His father, an abstract painter and science fiction writer, moved the family to Washington state shortly before he started kindergarten—and eventually remarried.

Wilson explained that he would feel disoriented in Baha’i meetings, where he would learn a different message from what he was experiencing at home.

Wilson alleged that his father was in a “loveless” marriage, and that he and his stepmother would “get angry” behind closed doors.

“There wasn’t any kind of acknowledgment of what had just happened, so for an 8-, 9-, 10-year-old in that environment, you wonder, is this the way people act?” he said.

“Are we supposed to act this way, we have all these feelings, but we don’t talk about them, and then we go and pray together?”

He admitted that this “kept him away” from his faith when he was in his twenties, and he began to experience a spiritual and mental crisis.

Ultimately, it led him on the path of discovery.

“It was then that I decided to revisit these thoughts as a possible way out, as a possible path forward for my personal transformation, for my personal healing, and I was finally able to return to the religion of my youth and find great peace and solace and meaning after a long journey in my twenties and early years,” he said. My thirties.”

Wilson said he is “grateful” for everything he has been through in his life, as he is not sure if he would have continued acting had it not been for these difficult experiences.

Wilson was cast on NBC’s The Office in 2005, alongside Jenna Fischer, Steve Carell, and Mindy Kaling. The sitcom finale aired in 2013.

He played Dwight, a cheerful salesman and assistant to the regional manager at the fictional Dunder Mifflin dealership – but he’s had an “unhappy” time with it, as he recently admitted.

On this week’s podcast episode, he said he was “very pleased” with the number of people who love the show and those who worked so hard on it behind the scenes.

“These confluences of pain, difficulty, abuse and neglect caused me a lot of suffering later, but at the same time, they made me try to be the best version of myself,” he said.

“They put me on a spiritual path to deeply explore the spiritual traditions of the word and try to connect with my higher power and go on a journey of self-discovery, take what I learned and share it with others, and they gave me the funny.

The Post has reached out to Wilson’s representatives for comment.