Stephen Root Is Just the Man for a Cubicle or a Castle

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/arts/television/snapshot-stephen-root.html

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You’ve seen Stephen Root far more than you might think. He’s the shape-shifting character actor you know you recognize, but can’t place. Of course, there’s his unforgettable creation from the cult classic “Office Space”: Milton, the stapler-obsessed arsonist hidden under extremely thick glasses, stilted speech and a pocket protector. But Mr. Root has mined a number of idiosyncratic veins over the past several decades, with memorable parts in films like “No Country for Old Men,” TV shows as disparate as “NewsRadio, “Louie” and “Boardwalk Empire,” and voice work in animated ones like “King of the Hill” and “Adventure Time.”

Now, he’s the title character in Season 2 of Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle,” a series based on the Philip K. Dick novel that imagines an America occupied by Nazis and the Japanese empire after losing World War II. A mysterious hermit in a fancy robe, the character is responsible for the central plot point: a series of contraband films depicting alternative realities that Hitler obsessively watches. “Fear and violence,” Mr. Root’s character says in the season premiere. “It’s who we are.” Sound familiar?

Over the phone from Sherman Oaks, Calif., Mr. Root, 65, discussed the show’s timely appearance and the enduring appeal of red staplers. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

How did you prep for “The Man in the High Castle”?

I grew up reading Arthur Clarke, and Ray Bradbury and Clifford Simak, and all these guys including Philip K. Dick — but I had never read that book, which kind of astonished me. When Frank Spotnitz [the show’s creator] called, I did not get a chance to read it until after I’d shot the first episode. So I had to go completely by the script.

There’s a lot of dialogue in the series that could be applied to this year in America.

It’s prescient. It makes this season’s premiere more interesting for a lot of people, because it is a show about living within a totalitarian regime, which we are not in, but it’s certainly a sea change from what we’ve been living under.

The season’s premise is also resonant with the rise of fake news and CNN chyrons that would have been jokes on “The Daily Show” six months ago.

It is like living in an alternate reality, which this show is. We want to impress that upon everyone, that we’re doing a show that is set in an alternate reality. It almost seems like we’re in one as well in real life.

Each of your characters has a distinctive physicality. Do you spend a lot of time people-watching?

Absolutely! That’s one of the things I love about being in New York. In Los Angeles, you’re in your spaceships, driving around in your car, and you don’t get to people-watch. The subway is the greatest people-watching place of the century. That’s exactly what you do as a character actor. When I’m with a group of [character actors], and we’re out, we’ll see people and go, “Yeah, that’s a guy I’m going to do.” Put him in a permanent library of your memory.

Will you get off at their stop and tail them?

No, but will I go over and start listening to them, and maybe go an extra stop or so, just to get it? Yeah, I’ve done that.

Was Milton the result of a person you saw in public?

Not really. Mike Judge [the writer and director of “Office Space”] had done a sketch of Milton, had done the voice himself when we were at Fox. He took several of us from “King of the Hill” and a couple other people over to read the script of “Office Space.” He was going to read the voice himself, but then he decided literally as we were walking over: “Root, you read it.” I went, “Well, thanks for the prep, Mike.” [Laughs] And while [in his version] he had a whiny voice, that’s not what I heard when I was reading the script. I heard him with a lisp.

It’s almost as if you can’t hear him sometimes.

That was actually direction from Mike! As Milton is pushed farther and farther into the bowels of the building, Mike wanted him to get softer and softer. So by the time he’s sitting in the dark, you can barely hear him. Which I think is brilliant.

Do you get a lot of people coming up to you talking about staplers?

Almost exclusively. [Laughs] When I did a [theater] show in New York, I would have Milton people outside for a least a couple days a week. I’ve gone on to sets before, and there’s a tray of staplers waiting for me. I’m so happy that it’s a little movie that resonates with people. There are always going to be cubicles. The computers will change, but it’s the same mentality.