Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- "I got the crap beat out of me in Provo one time." That was Dwight Schrute driving Deron Williams in a cab.
Better yet, it was actor Rainn Wilson playing a mustached, mullet-ed, 1977 horn-rimmed glasses wearing cabbie in a new NBA promo.
The All-NBA Jazz point guard recently flew to Los Angeles for a few hours to shoot the promo with the love-to-hate Wilson as part of the NBA on TNT promotion.
"They (the NBA) came to me and said they had one (promo) for me and that it was gonna be with Dwight from "The Office," said Williams, "It sounded like some fun."
Was it fun?
"He (Wilson) was hilarious. Rainn was a good dude and made things easy on me."
Wilson is a big sports fan, as well as a fan of the NBA. According to Williams, Wilson doesn't typically do things like this but said since he liked watching them play that it would be fun to come hang out for a few hours and shoot the commercial.
Having seen him in "The Office" Williams knew he was in for an interesting experience.
"He's crazy," said Williams with a big grin, "Most of the stuff he was doing was him on the fly. Ad-libbing and doing his own thing, that's what made it so fun. It's hard not to laugh when guys like that improv and say whatever they want to say."
Williams also had to explore his acting skills. In the commercial, Deron gets thrown around in the cab, giving the willing superstar a chance for some physical comedy.
"I had to get the fall right. They (the directors) kept wanting me to do different things. Acting is different."
E-mail: dnoriega@ksl.com
