49 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.