Creed Bratton’s fondest memories of working on The Office

Creed Bratton wasn’t even a credited actor on The Office before becoming one of the show’s most popular characters.

If you asked any fan of The Office US to list their five favourite scenes or jokes, at least two would involve the mercurial Creed Bratton.

Lurking in the background, the Dunder Mifflin quality assurance manager (but don’t ask him to tell you his job title) has had many lives if you are to believe any of his stories.

He might be homeless, he might have been a rock star in his youth and he might have killed a man named Creed Bratton. He’s an enigma.

What we do know is that he doesn’t know his colleagues’ names, he definitely doesn’t know “Creed Thoughts” is just a word doc rather than a personal blog on the interwebs and that in the bacchanalian 1960s, he may have made love to a man.

Is it any wonder Creed become such a break-out character, even in an ensemble of loveable kooks.

Bratton, the man who plays him and shares his onscreen counterpart’s name, has the same wild background, or at least a version of it. He’s definitely never killed anybody.

But Bratton isn’t his real name either, it’s William Charles Schneider (he went by Chuck) but decided early on that “Creed Bratton” was much more rock and roll.

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Creed Bratton is touring Australia in September. Picture: Supplied

The actor and musician will visit Australia later this year with his live show, a mix of performance from his many albums and stories from his life, notably his time on the iconic American comedy.

The show, which has been pushed several times due to the Black Summer bushfires and then the pandemic, will be a distillation of the many lives he’s lived over his 79 years, including early fame as part of rock band The Grass Roots.

“I was a reluctant rock star,” Bratton told news.com.au. “The Grass Roots tried to be one of the first groups to destroy a hotel room but my heart wasn’t in it. I threw the TV but looked the other way. I was expected to be that way but I wasn’t.”

Bratton didn’t exactly live a wholesome life either. He’s been open about his past with drugs and alcohol with many of his own experiences making it into the backstory of the mysterious Creed.

“I showed all my warts, foibles and weaknesses, and in a humorous way, of course, because you can’t always show your positive stuff – that’s not funny sometimes.

“So, I put a lot of myself into that, and the idea was if I had continued on that dark path with the drugs and all that stuff. But it’s not funny to say, ‘Well, no, I don’t do that anymore, I just work hard’.”

The Office was almost cancelled in its first two seasons. Picture: NBC Universal

Fans may not remember it now but Bratton was never meant to be an integral part of The Office. He had been hired as a background artist (an extra) to potter around in scenes, nabbing the gig because he’d worked as a stand-in on The Bernie Mac Show with director Ken Kwapis and Kwapis was directing the pilot for The Office.

“I was there for two years before I realised I was on a TV show,” Bratton recalled. “I thought I was getting paid pretty well, I didn’t want to rock the boat. So, I just kept quiet, stayed in the back of my chair.”

Bratton knew he wanted to do more so he self-taped an audition for The Office producers to expand his character, writing dialogue for the onscreen Creed that drew from his ability to spin a yarn about his own experiences.

And what was the risk? In those first two seasons, The Office was always on the verge of being cancelled.

“I didn’t tell anybody what I was going to do, I wrote that character and shot him with my friend. In any other situation, they might not have worked out but on The Office it did.

“People shouldn’t wait around for the opportunity. They should shoot their own stuff.”

The producers liked what they saw and Bratton became a proper character in the second season episode “Halloween” in which he used his wily ways to manipulate the often hapless Michael Scott (Steve Carell) out of firing him.

Working on that scene is still his fondest memory.

“The day after it aired, I was at the craft service table and in walked [John] Krasinski and Rainn Wilson and they saw me and they walked over to me. And they’re tall guys – I’m six foot but they’re taller than I am.

“And they just almost picked me up and just gave me a big hug and said, ‘You knocked it out of the park, buddy’. I almost cried, it was amazing.”

In a large cast of comedians, you might expect there to have been competition or one-up-manship in who could be the funniest, but Bratton said The Office cast was never like that.

“You don’t compete when you have people that are there for the overall thing, to add their little piece to the tapestry, you know? Insecure people may want to compete but the people around me, we’re all just working together, not trying to step on each other’s toes, which is rare.

“I find in films, people do things to try to upstage people. We were there to serve. Like the musician serves the song, we were there to serve the show.”

Creed Bratton said John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson’s kind gesture almost made him cry. Picture: Supplied

He wants to set something straight though – despite assumptions The Office’s freeflowing energy was often improvised, the lines were 90 to 95 per cent scripted.

“We took those lines from great writers,” he explained. “We had a great writing staff and to our credit, it came off like we were just ad libbing stuff. A lot of people thought I was stoned and just saying whatever came off the top of my mind!”.

That blurring between the real Bratton and the on-screen Creed happened more than once – not unexpected when the two share a name and some of the same weird life history. People often confuse him for the character on screen.

“I was walking through a store and down the produce aisle, this woman recognised me and she kind of smiled that cracked smile. And then she pulled her child away from me as I walked by.

“I was sad and proud at the same time. The character was working.”

Creed Bratton will be touring Australia in September – tickets are on sale now