There’s something about The Office that rewards rewatching in a way that few other shows can match. On the surface, it’s a workplace mockumentary about a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania — a premise that sounds about as thrilling as, well, working at a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. But beneath that deceptively mundane setup is an extraordinarily layered piece of television, one stuffed with in-jokes, background gags, and — as I’ve been noticing more and more with each rewatch — a whole web of recurring actors, cameos, and crossover appearances that most casual viewers probably never clock.

I’m talking about the writer who ended up playing a beloved regular character. The showrunner who slipped on screen in a bit part. The famous names who wandered through Dunder Mifflin for an episode or two. And the connections between The Office and other shows that feel, in retrospect, almost inevitable. Pull on one thread and the whole thing unravels in the best possible way.

So let’s pull on some threads.

The Writers Who Became Characters

One of the most fascinating things about The Office — and something that sets it apart from most sitcoms — is how thoroughly the writing staff embedded themselves into the fabric of the show. This wasn’t just the occasional walk-on from a producer. Several of the most recognizable and beloved characters in the series were played by the people writing the scripts.

The most prominent example is Mindy Kaling, who co-wrote more episodes of The Office than any other writer on staff — twenty-four credited episodes, which is a staggering number for any one writer on a network comedy. She also played Kelly Kapoor, the endlessly chatty, boy-crazy customer service representative whose relationship with Ryan Howard was simultaneously the most chaotic and most entertaining subplot the show had to offer. Kaling didn’t just act in scenes she’d written; she helped shape the entire voice and sensibility of the series. The fact that she went on to create and star in The Mindy Project feels like a natural extension of everything she was already doing at Dunder Mifflin.

B.J. Novak is another writer-turned-actor whose dual role is easy to forget about unless you’re actively thinking about it. Novak was part of the original writing team alongside Kaling, Greg Daniels, Paul Lieberstein, and Michael Schur. He also played Ryan Howard, the temp-turned-VP-turned-fraud-turned-temp again, in one of the more improbable character arcs in the show’s history. There’s something almost poetic about the fact that one of the guys crafting the stories was also living out one of its most absurd narrative trajectories — going from making coffee runs to committing corporate fraud in New York City and eventually landing right back where he started.

Paul Lieberstein rounds out this trio of writer-actors in a particularly interesting way. Lieberstein eventually became the showrunner for several seasons of the series, but long before that he was already appearing on screen as Toby Flenderson, the put-upon HR representative who served as Michael Scott’s favorite punching bag. What’s remarkable is that Lieberstein got the role on a suggestion from Novak, after impressing people with his cold readings of scripts — which tracks, given that he was reading those scripts because he’d written them. Toby ended up being one of the most quietly funny characters in the show, a man whose sadness was so consistent and so complete that it became its own kind of comedic art form. The fact that he was played by the person who would eventually run the show adds a layer of meta-irony that The Office would absolutely appreciate.

And then there’s Michael Schur. You probably know him now as the co-creator of Parks and Recreation and The Good Place, but his Office connection goes deeper than most people realize. Schur was one of the original writers on the show and made recurring on-screen appearances as Dwight’s deeply strange cousin Mose — the bearded, childlike figure lurking around Schrute Farms who seemed capable of anything and explained nothing. Schur played Mose for years while simultaneously co-creating Parks and Recreation with Greg Daniels. The image of the guy who gave us Leslie Knope also throwing manure at Rainn Wilson in a beet field is one I find deeply satisfying.

The Famous Names Who Stopped By

The Office had a gift for landing impressive guest appearances and doing interesting things with them rather than just letting them stand around and be famous. Some of these cameos were brief. Some stretched across multiple episodes. All of them are worth talking about.

Will Ferrell’s arc as Deangelo Vickers is probably the most high-profile of these appearances, arriving as it did right at the tail end of Steve Carell’s run on the show. Deangelo was brought in as Michael Scott’s replacement — a deeply incompetent manager who was mostly just thrilled to be there and whose tenure ended abruptly when he suffered a severe brain injury attempting to dunk a basketball. Ferrell had previously appeared in several films alongside Carell, which gives the handoff a kind of winking quality. It’s as if the show was saying, “Well, if someone has to replace him, at least let it be someone from the same comedic universe.”

James Spader joining the cast as Robert California in season eight remains one of the stranger creative swings the show ever took. California wasn’t so much a character as he was a force of nature — a man so unsettling and self-possessed that he talked his way into being CEO of an entire company within hours of being offered a much smaller job. Spader played him with an eerie, reptilian calm that made every scene feel slightly off in a way that was either brilliant or maddening depending on your tolerance for chaos. The season eight era is generally considered a low point for the show, but Robert California is one of the most genuinely weird characters American network television has ever produced, and that counts for something.

Jim Carrey showed up briefly in the season seven finale as one of the applicants for the regional manager position, playing a man so fixated on the Finger Lakes that he’d snuck away from his own family vacation to interview for the job. It’s a small role, almost a throwaway, but Carrey commits to it with the kind of gleeful specificity that makes you wish he’d had more to do. Ray Romano appeared in the same episode as a depressive applicant who talks himself out of wanting the job before he even finishes the interview. Will Arnett played a Navy veteran with a supposed three-step plan to double profits who couldn’t remember the name of the company. The whole “Search Committee” finale is essentially a showcase for famous people doing interesting things in small spaces, and it works.

Warren Buffett also appeared in that episode — as himself, essentially, playing an eccentric and miserly old applicant who haggles with the search committee over gas reimbursement. The joke only works if you know who Warren Buffett actually is, and it lands perfectly precisely because of how underplayed it is.

The British Original’s Shadow

One of the most layered crossover elements in The Office is its relationship to the British series that inspired it. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who created the original BBC version, served as executive producers on the American adaptation and had their fingerprints on the show from the beginning. Gervais co-wrote the pilot along with Daniels, and both he and Merchant wrote the third-season episode “The Convict.”

But the most memorable connection between the two versions came in the form of Gervais himself appearing on screen as David Brent — his original character from the British series — in the seventh season. The moment where Michael Scott and David Brent share an elevator and immediately begin trading terrible jokes feels like exactly the kind of scene you’d dream up if you were a fan of both versions. It’s funny, a little melancholy, and oddly earned given how long the two shows had been orbiting each other.

Stephen Merchant also directed the episode “Customer Survey,” and there were plans at various points to bring over Mackenzie Crook, Martin Freeman, and Lucy Davis from the British cast. Scheduling conflicts prevented it, which is one of those “what could have been” footnotes that lingers in the back of your mind every time you watch the British series and wonder what Tim Canterbury would have made of Jim Halpert.

The Connections to Other Shows

Perhaps the most satisfying category of crossovers is the one that connects The Office to the broader television landscape in ways that feel almost conspiratorial once you start noticing them.

Idris Elba arrived in season five as Charles Miner, the rigid and humorless VP of Northeast Sales who immediately recognized Jim Halpert for the coasting charmer he was. Elba had previously appeared in The Wire as Stringer Bell — one of the most acclaimed performances in that show’s history — and The Office made him the second alum of The Wire to join the cast, following Amy Ryan, who played Holly Flax. That’s not exactly a planned crossover, but it creates an interesting texture around two characters who are, in their very different ways, defined by their relationship to institutions and the people who fail them.

The Parks and Recreation connection is harder to ignore because it was, in many ways, intentional. Greg Daniels co-created Parks and Rec with Michael Schur while still serving as showrunner on The Office, and several cast members made the journey between Pawnee and Scranton. Rashida Jones played Karen Filippelli on The Office before becoming a series regular on Parks and Rec as Ann Perkins. There were apparently even early discussions about a crossover episode that would have involved a copy machine breaking in Scranton and being shipped to Pawnee — a premise that was eventually abandoned in favor of letting Parks and Rec develop its own identity, which was probably the right call.

The People Behind the Camera Who Stepped In Front of It

Greg Daniels himself appeared on screen as Fern Widgale, Michael’s snippy neighbor, in a deleted scene — a cameo so minor that most viewers will never encounter it outside of DVD extras. Larry Wilmore, who served as a consulting producer on the series, played diversity trainer Mr. Brown in the second episode, “Diversity Day,” which means the man helping shape the show’s voice was also the one getting slapped by Carell in the cold open. Ken Kwapis, who directed the pilot, cast Phyllis Smith as Phyllis Vance essentially because she was so good at reading with the other actors auditioning that he couldn’t imagine leaving her out of the show entirely.

All of which is to say: The Office was never just a show where the actors showed up and performed lines that other people wrote. It was a creative ecosystem where the lines between writer and performer, between guest and regular, between the show and the shows around it, were constantly blurring. The result is a text that rewards attention — one that gives you something new to notice every time you sit down with it, whether you’re watching for the first or the fifteenth time.

That’s what I think keeps people coming back. The jokes are great. The characters are iconic. But the craftsmanship underneath all of it — the careful construction of a world where everyone has a history and a connection and a reason for being exactly where they are — that’s what makes it something worth returning to.

Even if you’ve already seen every episode. Even if you know how it ends. Even if you’re pretty sure Creed Bratton has definitely killed someone.

Have a favorite cameo or crossover connection from The Office that I didn’t cover? Drop it in the comments — I’d love to hear what you’ve noticed.