'The Office' stars recall the cold open where Rainn Wilson went 'full out' Dwight

In case you didn't know, Rainn Wilson took his role as Dwight K. Schrute very seriously.

On the latest episode of the Office Ladies podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey chatted about Season 2, Episode 17 of the show, "Dwight's Speech." In addition to revealing that Wilson was so sick when filming that they had to postpone shooting his big speech scene, they shared that he went a little too hard in the cold open and accidentally pushed Kinsey and Leslie David Baker (Stanley Hudson) to the ground.

The episode is a huge one for Dwight, since he has to give a speech after winning the award for Dunder Mifflin's salesman of the year, but he also has a stand-out moment in the cold open. The Scranton employees are seen tossing a football around the office, and Dwight takes the friendly game too far. He tackles Ryan to the ground, shoves Creed, and barrels into Stanley. If you look closely, you'll notice Leslie David Baker was not prepared.

"I will never forget this cold open. Do you want to know why?" Kinsey asked Fischer. "Alright, so Jim steals the ball, he tosses it to Phyllis, Phyllis tosses it to Creed, and Dwight runs over in only the way that Rainn Wilson would do."

"Rainn goes full out, guys. If the script says 'tackle' [or] 'shove' Dwight is like all in. So he tackles Ryan to the ground, he shoves the heck out of Creed, and then he runs towards Leslie David Baker, who is standing by accounting," she explained. "What you cannot see is there is a petite blonde person standing behind him."

"Oh no," Fischer said.

Ryan down. Credit: the office / nbc / netflix

"Rainn runs at Leslie and like Heismans him basically — really gives him the stiff-arm shove. Leslie was not expecting it. It wasn't really in the script that he was going to shove Leslie," Kinsey said. She noted that although the group worked with a stunt coordinator before filming the scene, Wilson's shove was much harder than the ones in rehearsal.

"Let me tell you something, Leslie was not ready for that shove. Rainn came at him full throttle and shoved him. Leslie went flying. He lost his balance completely. He went almost butt-over-head, but there was someone directly behind him: A tiny blonde person," Kinsey went on. "As Leslie lost his balance he started steamrolling back and I was under that."

Creed down. Credit: the office / netflix / nbc

"It’s crazy because I remember that we practiced that forever," Fischer recalled, and Kinsey went on to reiterate that the take that you see in the episode did not go as planned.

"Leslie did not think he was going to fall. He did not fall in any of the rehearsals [because] he wasn't shoved that hard," Kinsey said. "And after the take everyone was like 'Oh my god, Creed! Are you OK?' BJ, are you OK? And then they were like, oh my god, LESLIE!' Because Leslie really went down hard. They're like 'Leslie, are you OK?' They pulled Leslie up and Oscar goes, 'Oh my god... Angela?'"

Stanley taking the hit. Credit: the office / nbc / netflix

*Ryan Cabrera's "On The Way Down" playing in background* Credit: the office/nbc/netflix

Now that Fischer and Kinsey have rewatched the scene they noticed that you can totally see Stanley lose his balance, and after Dwight hits him Stanley completely vanishes from the scene.

"I don’t know how it went down, but I think [Leslie] got knocked down and got up and was like, 'Nope!'" Kinsey said.

So there you have you, everyone. As Fischer declared, "The football toss was all planned, but Angela getting squashed was not planned."

You can stream episodes of The Office on Netflix and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.