As Dwight Schrute on "The Office," Rainn Wilson plays a sadly deluded, slightly evil worker bee/beat farmer. In The Rocker, which debuted earlier this month, he plays a man who was born to rock — and born to do it naked too. Here, Rainn Wilson discourses on all things The Rocker, from where he got his drumming technique, to why he enjoys playing naked, and offers some news on his upcoming movie Bonzai Shadowhands

Q: How did you develop your drumming technique and everything that went with it?

A: I started taking some drum lessons right when I knew I got cast in this and the guy also worked with me a lot on being specifically a heavy metal drummer, because that’s a whole other art form to itself.  You can play guitar, but then lead guitar in a metal band is a whole different thing. Working the crowd and getting the crowd riled up and using the kick drum, stick tricks, cueing the pyrotechnics, getting the audience involved is a whole part of heavy metal drumming.  So that was a lot of fun to play with, and that really informed the character a lot too.  Fish is such a heart on his sleeve kind of guy, and heavy metal drummer is all about just having a good time and propelling the crowd to have a good time.

Q: Was there any drummer that you had in mind [to model Fish's technique on]?

A: No, no drummer specifically. We studied a lot of different drummers and looked at a lot of YouTube videos of heavy metal drummers and just tried to capture that essence of what the heavy metal drummer does, but no specific drummer not based on anyone.

Q: One of the things that Fish goes through, that I think it’s hard for young people to identify with, [is that] as you get older you have to give up dreams. The fact that Fish gets that second chance is remarkable for a lot of people, and I wondered how you identified with that.

A: I think that I have a lot in common with Fish in that way. I always was an actor and I was always making a living as an actor, but I didn’t get famous until I was in my late 30’s and didn’t really become a celebrity until I hit 40. So this is a whole like second life for me as an actor. I had my whole life working in theater and doing small parts in film and TV for years and years, but now hosting "Saturday Night Live," or doing the MTV Movie Awards and starring in a movie is a whole other ball game, so that’s pretty cool. 

I remember being in New York, doing a lot of theater, and I ran into an old friend of mine. We had done A Midsummernight's Dream together, and I ran into her down in Greenwich Village and we were talking, and at one point she turned to me and she said, "Let’s face it, Rainn. You and I are never going to be movie stars."  I think she was moving to the suburbs, and she was going to have kids and get a teaching job at a college out there.  And I kinda thought, something about that didn’t sit right with me, and I was, at the time I think, in my late 20’s, and I was like, you know what?  That’s not right, I’m not gonna give up so easily and so early. I’ve got to see this acting thing through to the bitter end, so I was pretty determined for my whole career to keep going.

Q: On stage of course you’ve had the experience of being in front of a live audience, whether it’s a 99 seat house or a theater with a couple hundred people, but it’s not an arena with a couple thousand people. Do you get a sense of what it would be like to be a rock star when you’re out there in front of the crowd?

A: You know, all actors want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be actors. No, I haven’t ever experienced it; I’ve never experienced what that’s like, to be in front of [that many people].  I’ve done Broadway and I’ve had an audience of 1,500 or 2,000, but I’ve never had 20,000 or 40,000 screaming fans with lighters and beach balls and Frisbees and t-shirts, merchandise. So I would love to experience that.  We got a little taste of it in the scenes in the movie, but that would be awesome.

Q: Do you enjoy being naked?  Is that your approach?

A: I find that question highly inappropriate. I feel uncomfortable right now, and my room is 427. It’s right down the hallway so...  

I always enjoy taking my clothes off to comedic effect, and I’ve been making women laugh with my naked body for the last 20 years and hopefully audiences across America will find it just as amusing as many of the ladies have known.

Q: Is it something that you were always comfortable with?

A: I guess I’ve always been comfortable with my body. It just is what it is. I’m just a character guy, and I’ve never had any pretensions. I’m never going to look like Brad Pitt, so why not just enjoy taking my clothes off for comedic effect? 

A lot of comedy is about commitment. I like the commitment school of comedy, of throwing yourself in 100%, committing entering the character and just going balls out, and not standing back and commenting on it or winking at it or being better than or knowing better. You can’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself, you know. I hope that never changes for me.

Q: You’re signed onto some small movie, Transformers 2, coming up.  What drew you to it? 

A: I’ve never seen a Michael Bay movie in my life, and I really should start with Transformers 1, probably, to get prepared. 

But I love the idea of doing just a giant big budget movie like that and just doing a small part in it.  You know it’s just basically a cameo and I enjoy doing that kind of thing, so you know I was like, what the hell.

Q: What’s happening with the script that you wrote, Bonzai Shadowhands?

A: Bonzai Shadowhands is almost done. Jason [Reitman, director of Juno and Thank You for Not Smoking] read a draft, and then we’ve been working on the second draft. Hopefully that’s something that we will be shooting in 2009.

Q: You know in the last 5 days, we’ve interviewed ["The Office" co-stars] Jenna Fisher, Steve Carrell and now you. Do you watch each other’s movies or do you look at the box office [rankings] or that kind of thing?

A: I know a lot of our movies have not done so well for the cast members of "The Office," but it’s just a numbers game, really. You try and make the best decision you can with what’s offered to you. But we definitely see all each other’s movies, and I think they are all just tremendous actors and I’ll always go see a John [Krasinski, also of "Office"], Jenna, or Steve movie for as long as they are working. I hope they’ll come and see The Rocker. This is an official invitation: If you guys aren’t too busy, please come see The Rocker. It opens on August 1st, okay Steve, please.