99 Fun Facts About Office Space

Mike Judge wrote Office Space after the first season of which animated Fox series he co-created?

King of the Hill had just finished its first season; Fox had wanted a whole film about Milton, but Judge said nobody wants to know what Milton does at home, and the office ensemble grew from there.

Mike Judge's Milton cartoons, the seed of Office Space, ran on which sketch show in the 1990s?

Saturday Night Live ran several of the Milton shorts, and a Fox executive who saw them told Judge, 'This should be a movie.'

What is the name of the software company where Peter Gibbons works?

Initech had to look as soul-crushing as it sounds: the crew screen-tested different shades of gray for its cubicles until the office felt properly oppressive.

Who plays Peter Gibbons in Office Space?

Ron Livingston won the part with an audition in which he took over the casting director's own desk, playing the scene with her phone, drawers and files.

Which two Good Will Hunting stars did Fox push Mike Judge to cast in Office Space?

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were the studio's wish; Judge even flew to New York to meet Damon, but by then an unknown actor's audition tape had already won him over.

What happens to the hypnotherapist during Peter's session in Office Space?

He dies of a heart attack before he can snap his fingers, so Peter is never brought out of the trance and drifts through the rest of the film without a care.

Which actor plays Bill Lumbergh?

Gary Cole says he simply copied the boss's voice from Judge's original cartoon; Judge said the audition made the character ten times funnier.

What is Bill Lumbergh's job title at the company in Office Space?

Vice president Bill Lumbergh was not invented for the film: he was already the droning boss in the Milton cartoons Judge had drawn years earlier.

Which actor auditioned for Lumbergh but ended up playing consultant Bob Slydell?

John C. McGinley says nearly everyone read for Lumbergh; cast as one of 'the Bobs' instead, he improvised so freely that he compared the set to playing jazz.

Who plays Milton Waddams in Office Space?

Stephen Root wore glasses so thick that he needed contact lenses to see through them, and with no depth perception he had to practise reaching for the stapler.

What brand is Milton's red stapler in Office Space?

Swingline was the one maker that did not object to being used, but it sold no red stapler at the time, so the prop department spray-painted an ordinary one.

Why did Milton's stapler maker start selling a red one?

Fan requests wore the company down after years, and the actor who played Milton says crews on his later sets still leave boxes of red staplers waiting for him.

Why is Milton still drawing a salary when the consultants review his job in Office Space?

A payroll glitch: he was laid off five years earlier and nobody told him, so the consultants simply 'fix the glitch' and let his cheques stop without a word.

Where does Lumbergh eventually move Milton's desk in Office Space?

The basement: Milton grew out of a real colleague of Judge's who swore he would quit if the company moved his desk one more time.

Which famous singer's name does one of Peter's co-workers hate sharing in Office Space?

Michael Bolton the programmer calls his namesake a 'no-talent ass clown', an insult the actor made up on set when the scripted line had to be dropped.

What did the actor playing Samir improvise while filming Office Space?

A break-dance move: Ajay Naidu threw it in when Judge told him to use the space; he also trained with a dialect coach after Samir, first written as Iranian, was rewritten as Jordanian.

How does the trio's computer virus skim money from the company in Office Space?

Fractions of a cent per transaction, too small to notice, are swept into an account; the characters cheerfully admit they lifted the idea from Superman III.

Roughly how much does the buggy virus grab over a single weekend in Office Space?

About $300,000: the ATM slip reads $305,326.13, far too much to go unnoticed, and the three conspirators start picturing themselves in federal prison.

What inspired the Office Space scene where three men destroy a printer in a field?

Judge's own faulty printer tormented him while he wrote the Beavis and Butt-Head film; he told his co-writer that once the script was done he would destroy it and videotape the whole thing.

How do the actors say they approached the printer beating in Office Space?

Like a Mafia hit: the lead actor circled with a bat like the 'don' and never touched the printer, and one of the others says a Goodfellas-looking stranger in New York later called it authentic.

Which printer error message from Office Space became shorthand for any baffling computer message?

PC LOAD LETTER flashes on the office printer and an exasperated programmer demands to know what it could possibly mean; the same machine is later hauled to a field and smashed.

Who plays Joanna, the waitress Peter falls for in Office Space?

Jennifer Aniston was the price of casting an unknown as Peter: Fox insisted on a star for Joanna, and her scenes about 'flair' were written in because the part was so small.

What are the 'pieces of flair' Joanna is nagged about at work in Office Space?

Buttons on her uniform: the rule says at least fifteen, which her manager calls the bare minimum for anyone who truly wants to 'express herself'.

Mike Judge cast himself in which Office Space role after a local casting search came up empty?

Stan, the restaurant manager: the local casting director found the film's Drew but nobody who nailed the flair-obsessed boss, so Judge said he would just do it himself.

How does Joanna quit her job in Office Space?

She gives her boss the middle finger in the middle of yet another lecture, announcing, 'There's my flair!', and walks out on the job she hates.

Which man did Joanna actually sleep with, causing the mix-up in Office Space?

Ron Lumbergh, an unrelated engineer: in Judge's first script it really was Peter's boss, until the studio asked him to make it a different Lumbergh.

How does the company's building end up destroyed at the end of Office Space?

Milton burns it down, making good on a threat he mutters early on about what he will do if they take his stapler, and the blaze destroys the evidence against Peter.

What job does Peter take at the end of Office Space?

Construction worker: the cubicle programmer ends up on his neighbour Lawrence's crew, happily 'making bucks, getting exercise, working outside'.

How did Tom Smykowski come into a large sum of money in Office Space?

A lawsuit after a car accident: he had just backed out of a suicide attempt in his garage when a drunk driver hit him, and the settlement ran to seven figures.

In which state was Office Space filmed?

Texas: shooting began in Austin in May 1998 in 100-degree heat, under skies so white with wildfire smoke that the opening traffic-jam scene kept being postponed.

How did Office Space fare on its release?

A flop: it took about $12 million worldwide against a $10 million budget, and one cast member cheered on hearing it had made $7 million until he was told that was bad.

What saved the gangsta rap on Office Space's soundtrack when Fox wanted it cut?

A focus group saved it: Judge had agreed to drop the music if the next one disliked it, and a 19-year-old there said rap over cubicle workers was exactly what made it great.

Which cable channel's airings from 2001 turned Office Space into a cult favourite?

Comedy Central ran it more than 30 times in two years, and its leading man says it felt as if the film 'went viral before that concept even existed'.

What did the cinema advertising for Office Space show, to Mike Judge's dismay?

A man covered in Post-it notes: Judge said it looked like an ad for Office Depot, and one of his actors said it looked like a Big Bird movie.

As a publicity stunt for Office Space, Fox had a man live in a see-through cube where?

Above Times Square, over a billboard reading 'WORK SUCKS': calling himself Office Guy, he took phone calls and emails from fed-up workers, live on the Web.

Which 2009 Mike Judge comedy returned to the workplace, this time from the boss's side?

Extract follows the owner of a flavouring-extract plant whose staff are his biggest headache, the mirror image of Office Space's cubicle workers and their bosses.

Which 2016 presidential candidate ran an ad parodying Office Space's printer scene?

Ted Cruz's ad swapped the printer for an email server, smashed in a field by a Hillary Clinton lookalike to a parody song called 'Damn It Feels Good to Be a Clinton'.

Which Apple TV+ series did creator Dan Erickson say was shaped partly by Office Space?

Severance, its creator says, grew from late-1990s films such as Office Space, The Truman Show and The Matrix, all about realising you are stuck in a grotesque system and breaking out.

In 2015, which comedy website put the real singer into Office Space scenes as the character who shares his name?

Funny or Die had the singer replay the scenes straight, except for one line: winking at the camera, he changed the famous insult to 'extremely talented'.

After finding the traveler's checks, where does Milton escape to at the end of Office Space?

Mexico: even at a beach resort with the money, Milton is served the salted margarita he asked for without salt and mutters the same threats he made at the office.

Which rival company do Peter's two laid-off friends join at the end of Office Space?

Initrode: even Peter gets it wrong in the last scene, asking 'How's Penetrode?' before one of his friends corrects him.

What does Anne admit while dumping Peter in Office Space?

An affair: after he hangs up on her, she calls back to say they are through and that she has been cheating, just as he suspected; freshly hypnotised into bliss, Peter simply goes back to bed.

Which group's track 'Still' plays under the slow-motion printer demolition in Office Space?

Geto Boys' song became so tied to the scene that parodies borrow it too, and Family Guy had to bleep most of the lyrics to get its version on air.

Which restaurant chain reportedly dropped its staff 'flair' after Office Space came out?

TGI Fridays, Judge says, scrapped it about four years later because customers kept making cracks about the film; 'So maybe I made the world a better place,' he joked.

In Family Guy's parody of Office Space's printer scene, Brian and Stewie destroy a 45 of which song?

Surfin' Bird, the Trashmen single Peter Griffin plays nonstop, gets the full treatment: Brian and Stewie steal the record and stomp it to pieces, slow motion and all.

David Herman says he got himself fired from which sketch show by screaming all his lines?

MADtv would not release him from a seven-year contract, he says, so at the next table read he shouted every sketch at the top of his lungs until the show let him go.

At Mike Judge's old engineering job, what did the TPS of Office Space's TPS reports stand for?

Test Program Set: Judge finally settled the question at the film's tenth-anniversary screening, adding drily, 'Isn't that exciting?'

Asked by his neighbour Lawrence what he would do with a million dollars, what does Peter answer in Office Space?

Absolutely nothing: he would just sit around all day, to which Lawrence replies that you don't need a million dollars for that, since his broke cousin manages it already.

Which two future comedy stars both auditioned to play Lawrence, Peter's neighbour in Office Space?

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, years before Wedding Crashers, both read for the mulleted neighbour; the casting director was rooting for Wilson, but Judge settled on a third actor almost instantly.

Why did Mike Judge want the car in Office Space's crash stunt knocked clean out of frame in one shot?

So it played like a cartoon, the pickup had to start half a mile back and hit at speed; its stunt driver, who came down from Dallas for the job, is a son of Chuck Norris.

Which star reportedly flew in during Office Space's shoot after his girlfriend's dog escaped her hotel?

Brad Pitt flew in, cast members recall, once the dog of the film's best-known star slipped out of her hotel and local radio asked listeners to help look. The dog was found.

Which children's TV character did an Office Space actor say the figure on its poster looked like?

Big Bird was the comparison, and Mike Judge agreed the poster was a disaster: he said it looked like an advert for Office Depot.

Mike Judge realised Office Space had fans when staff at which chain did impressions of its boss, Lumbergh?

Starbucks baristas were doing the voice four years after release, and when Judge's co-writer asked if it was for his benefit, one asked whether the pair had ever seen the film.

At which fictional chain restaurant does Joanna wait tables in Office Space before she finally walks out?

Chotchkie's was Mike Judge's blend of two real chains, and its interiors were filmed at the Alligator Grill, a restaurant that has since closed.

What did Office Space's Milton actor wear so that he could see through the character's thick glasses?

Contact lenses cancelled out the heavy prescription, but they left him with no depth perception, so he had to rehearse reaching for the stapler or miss it by inches.

Which HBO comedy did Mike Judge co-create in 2014, returning to the workplace satire of Office Space?

Silicon Valley ran for six seasons, and Judge noticed a twist while making it: tech firms had scrapped cubicles for open-plan floors, and he suspected many workers wanted the cubicles back.

What does a newly carefree Peter Gibbons do at his own desk in Office Space instead of working?

He guts a fish, a skill the actor picked up from the film's prop master, who says a trout is the only animal he has ever killed and cleaned himself.

On the Office Space set, Mike Judge named which animal for workers popping their heads above cubicle walls?

Prairie dog gave him the verb 'prairie dogging', which baffled his cast until he explained it; he knew that cubicle world first-hand from his years as an engineer.

Which rock frontman called Office Space the favourite tour-bus movie of every band he knows?

Dave Grohl also told the film's lead that it had changed his life, though the actor admits he never found out exactly how.

Which Drew Carey Show regular plays Lawrence, Peter's mullet-wearing neighbour, in Office Space?

Diedrich Bader had rehearsed an impression of another actor for the audition, watched that very actor walk out of the room, and invented Lawrence in the few seconds it took to walk in.

After his hypnosis in Office Space, what of Bill Lumbergh's does Peter Gibbons brazenly take for himself?

His parking spot is only the start: Peter also ignores the dress code, yet the consultants are so taken with his frankness that they promote him.

Why does Peter Gibbons knock down one wall of his cubicle in Office Space once he stops caring about work?

To see out the window, he calmly flattens the partition. Views matter in this office: each of Milton's forced desk moves takes him further from the glass.

Which video game is Peter Gibbons seen playing at his desk in Office Space instead of doing his job?

Tetris fills his screen during the same carefree streak in which he lets seventeen answering-machine messages from his boss go unreturned.

What does Samir hate about office life in Office Space, a problem that also trips up a consultant?

No one can say his surname, Nagheenanajar, and the joke carried onto the set: one consultant's actor really did stumble over it, and his screen partner improvised the punchline that follows.

How did Office Space's prop master turn an ordinary stapler into Milton's famous red one?

With a can of spray paint, he says, after first building up a rounder hump on top with car-body filler. He made ten of them for the shoot.

Which later Mike Judge film failed at the box office before winning a cult following?

Idiocracy was the script his studio asked him to write first, shelving another workplace comedy he had begun, because it looked like the more commercial bet.

Which animated feature was Mike Judge's only cinema release before he made Office Space?

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America came out in 1996, so Office Space was his first try at live action; his cinematographer had to teach him the basics of where to put the camera.

What do many fans tell Office Space's leading man that watching the film moved them to do?

Quit their jobs, and he calls that a heavy load to carry; Mike Judge hears the same and says he never meant anyone to walk out.

Which make of sports car does Bill Lumbergh drive in Office Space, complete with a boastful vanity plate?

Porsche is all but spelled out on the plate, MY PRSHE, fixed to a blue 911 SC; his costume adds another boast gone wrong, braces worn together with a belt.

Which part of Office Space did Mike Judge say he hated and wished he could have rewritten completely?

The ending bothered him even though the studio's president called his draft the most brilliant workplace satire he had ever read; one reviewer agreed that it felt abrupt.

Which actress, soon to break through in Almost Famous, also read for the role of Joanna in Office Space?

Kate Hudson read for Joanna, a part so slight on the page that a whole subplot about the character's clashes with her manager was added once a bigger name signed on.

Which pop star told Mike Judge over dinner that she found an angry Office Space character attractive?

Madonna rang after the opening weekend and later told Judge that she found the fury of Michael, Peter's short-fused co-worker, 'sexy'.

Mike Judge pictured Office Space's put-upon hero as a young version of which classic Hollywood everyman?

Jack Lemmon in The Apartment was the model, a producer recalls, which is why Judge resisted the studio's push for a tall, strapping leading man.

What day job was Office Space's future lead doing at the time he auditioned for the film?

Temping had made him at home behind a desk, so he asked to play the scene at the casting director's own desk, with its phone and drawers, instead of on a chair facing the camera.

After watching early Office Space footage, studio executives asked for the film's lead to do what more often?

Smile was the note, though only the gloomy early scenes had been shot; the actor later heard that executives suspected he was on drugs and had thought about firing him.

Samir in Office Space was first written as Iranian; which country was the character changed to come from?

Jordan was settled on once the part was cast: the actor, who is Indian American, felt the character should be Middle Eastern and studied the accent with a dialect coach.

Which actor, also seen in Pi and Requiem for a Dream, plays Peter's co-worker Samir in Office Space?

Ajay Naidu drew on the tae kwon do he had learned at twelve for the hammer kick he lands in the film's best-known scene of destruction.

Which comedian, later the face of 7 Up adverts, plays Steve, the magazine salesman, in Office Space?

Orlando Jones plays Steve, who is revealed to be a former employee of a rival software firm; Jones and the actor playing Michael had been sketch-show castmates.

Lawrence in Office Space was modelled on Mike Judge's real neighbour, a contented man in which line of work?

Auto mechanic: the neighbour earned more than Judge did as an engineer, kept flexible hours and seemed far happier, which became the film's argument in miniature.

What turned the sky white and forced Office Space's crew to postpone the opening traffic-jam scene?

Wildfire smoke drifting up from fires across the border whitened the sky, on a shoot where the temperature had already passed 100°F by the third day.

Which mind-numbing office task, later a seed of Office Space, did a young Mike Judge do for three weeks?

Alphabetising purchase orders all day left him, he says, doing it in his sleep, and he compared the experience to water torture.

A studio executive pitched Office Space as an ensemble comedy like which 1970s film, only set in an office?

Car Wash follows a single day among the staff of a Los Angeles car wash; the studio had first wanted a film built around Milton alone, which Judge could not see working.

Why did Mike Judge insist on unusually tall cubicle walls for the Office Space set?

So Lumbergh had to peer over them, looming into view; standard cubicles are about four feet high, so the crew bought three six-footers and stood the others on apple boxes.

David Herman says he swore in every Office Space scene after hearing rumours the studio was aiming for what?

A PG-13 rating was the rumour during the shoot, and he wanted an R at the very least because, he said, the film was for people who were living that life.

On the strength of Office Space, which network offered Mike Judge the US remake of a British sitcom?

NBC sent him The Office along with its reviews, one of which said the British series succeeded where films like Office Space had failed. He passed.

Office Space is often likened to which Melville tale of an employee who politely declines to work?

Bartleby, the Scrivener dates from 1853, and a New York Times Magazine profile of Judge drew the parallel: both Bartleby and Peter keep coming in while refusing the work.

Which festival hosted a 2024 Office Space reunion panel with Mike Judge and four of the film's stars?

South by Southwest reunited Judge with the actors who played Peter, Milton, Samir and Michael, 25 years after the film first opened.

Roger Ebert wrote that Office Space shared many of its complaints with which newspaper comic strip?

Dilbert was one of his comparisons, alongside Kafka and the Book of Job, in a review that called office cubicles cells and supervisors the wardens.

Which coming-of-age drama was the only new release to out-earn Office Space on its opening weekend?

October Sky, about a coal miner's son who builds rockets, beat it; Office Space opened eighth overall with $4.2 million and was pulled from cinemas within about six weeks.

Before Office Space, Mike Judge's early Milton shorts appeared on which MTV animation showcase?

Liquid Television also launched Æon Flux; Judge drew the Milton shorts himself and voiced every character in them.

Which mambo bandleader's 1950s instrumentals close the otherwise hip-hop soundtrack album of Office Space?

Pérez Prado, the Cuban bandleader nicknamed the King of the Mambo, supplies the last two tracks, Mambo No. 8 and Peanut Vendor, an odd calm after ten tracks of rap and reggae.

Which character actor plays Tom Smykowski, the product manager terrified of the sack, in Office Space?

Richard Riehle was the guinea pig on the consultants' first day of filming: their scene with him was shot first and grew into about twenty minutes of riffing.

In 2022, police say an engineer inspired by Office Space skimmed shipping fees from which online retailer?

Zulily's engineer had edited code to divert the fees into his own account, police said, and they found a folder on his work laptop named after the film.

What is the job of Milton Waddams, the mumbling employee nobody notices, at the firm in Office Space?

Collator is the post he clings to; he was the title character of the cartoon shorts that came first, but in the film he is only a supporting player.

How many 'pieces of flair' is the required minimum for waiting staff at Joanna's restaurant in Office Space?

15 is all Joanna wears, to her manager's dismay; on set the prop crew were caught short when the director demanded far more flair than they had prepared.

What does Peter Gibbons remove at work in Office Space because it keeps giving him static shocks?

A door handle zaps him constantly until he takes it off; one cast member counts that static shock among the small universal truths the film gets right.

One Office Space actor recalls the studio wanting which 1990s British band instead of the film's rap?

Chumbawamba was the alternative being floated, the actor says, because the studio's president found the rap too dark and angry for a comedy he wanted to be fun.

In which of its two filming cities did Office Space's cast reunite for a tenth-anniversary screening?

Austin's Paramount Theatre hosted the 2009 reunion, and before the screening a printer was destroyed outside the theatre in tribute to the film's most copied scene.

Two Office Space stars attended New York's LaGuardia High School, whose forerunner inspired which 1980 film?

Fame was based on student life at the School of Performing Arts, which later merged into LaGuardia, where the future Joanna and Michael of Office Space both studied.