Rainn Wilson

For most of the 1990s, Rainn Wilson was a theater actor doing respectable work nobody outside of theater circles saw. Broadway debut in 1995, three Helen Hayes nominations for Arena Stage, the usual grind. Six Feet Under changed that, but only a little. Then Dwight Schrute happened. He's said he took The Office role partly because he needed to afford a house, which might be the least remarkable reason anyone has ended up with three consecutive Emmy nominations.

Dwight Schrute still defines public perception, whether he wants it to or not. The real second act is spiritual media. Wilson co-founded SoulPancake, sold it to Participant Media in 2016, then kept going anyway: The Bassoon King memoir, a spiritual manifesto called Soul Boom, a Peacock travel show, a podcast. None of it has the reach of The Office. That appears to be entirely intentional. He's more interested in meaning than in a comeback.

He grew up Baha'i (his parents became Baha'i in the late 1960s and early 1970s), drifted away during acting school in New York, and eventually came back to the faith. The Soul Boom project flows directly from that return. He plays bassoon, which is where the memoir title The Bassoon King comes from. His wife, Holiday Reinhorn, is a fiction writer. For someone who spent nearly a decade being Dwight Schrute, his personal project is relentlessly about doubt.