‘Suits LA’: Brian Baumgartner & Patton Oswalt Talk Playing Fictional Versions of Themselves

Suits LA brings in two fun guest stars for its next new episode.

In the March 9 episode, “He Knew,” Brian Baumgartner and Patton Oswalt guest star as fictional versions of themselves, as part of a storyline involving the former’s unorthodox request from the firm, with Erica (Lex Scott Davis) and Leah (Alice Lee) specifically working to fulfill it. Also in this episode, Ted (Stephen Amell) and Kevin (Troy Winbush) deal with a bombshell about Lester’s (Kevin Weisman) motive for killing his producing partner, and in the past, Ted drags his old friend Stuart (Josh McDermitt) into his mob case.

Below, Baumgartner and Oswalt talk about playing versions of themselves.

Talk about coming into play versions of yourselves. What was the appeal of that? Was there any hesitation?

Patton Oswalt: Playing a kind of amplified, mutant version of yourself is always fun. I’ve done it before. You are very free to do whatever you want because you’re just amplifying and warping the base of who you actually are. So it was a blast. I didn’t have any hesitation doing that.

Brian Baumgartner: And for me, even though the character was me, I was trying to play an amplified version of Patton, and so I found that — it’s weird. I found it really easy to play. [Both laugh]

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How would you describe these amplified, fictional versions? Who are the fictional Brian and Patton we’re meeting?

Baumgartner: Yeah. Okay. I’ll be serious. What Patton said, yes, you are playing yourself, but it gives you the freedom to do things and say things that maybe you wouldn’t normally say if you were yourself. So that was fun. For me, the only thing that I — and by the way, Aaron Korsh, the executive producer, was amazing collaborator on this and really heard and understood my concerns about, with the storyline, wanting to honor still and not alienate fans of The Office or fans of Kevin Malone and that my, real Brian’s true feelings about that came through. I think they did a great job of that. I felt totally comfortable after talking to him that that would be true. And really once I showed up, it was like we’d had rehearsal even though we hadn’t rehearsed the script. I felt really comfortable with it. And then when Patton showed up, we were just able to have fun.

Oswalt: Yeah, it was great.

Talk about working together because you’re also working together while playing the fictional versions of yourselves. How was that?

Oswalt: I knew that we would both be going off of reality a little bit and knowing that Brian is so — I mean, The Office was an incredibly improvisational show, so the fact that I knew that he would be able to — I’m sorry that I’m being so inarticulate, but I just went in feeling very comfortable and happy. And then the scene was exactly as great as you think it would be.

Baumgartner: Yeah, it was from the first time we read through it. It was like, oh, alright, awesome. Let’s just get this on film. And you still got to do it a number of times in different angles. But yeah, we had a really great day.

Was it all scripted or was there any improv?

Oswalt: We did it scripted a few times and then we did some takes where we just really went off book and played around, did some fun takes. It was great.

Baumgartner: And then we would get help. We would be about to shoot and someone would come whisper in my ear something to say to him, but not wanting him to know what it was going to be and vice versa. And I knew, depending on who the camera was on, they would whisper in his ear and I was like, oh, man, now I just need to not laugh. I need to not laugh. I need to just keep a straight face. I know something’s coming. It was a lot of fun.

Jordin Althaus / NBC

What can you preview about what leads to your characters crossing paths? Because it’s not the friendliest of interactions, I think it’s safe to say.

Oswalt: No. It comes from a very real place in Hollywood and in an actor’s career where Brian’s character — the version of Brian, the version of Brian in this, not Brian — wants to branch out into some more dramatic, meatier stuff and would like a consult with someone and is maybe making some demands as sometimes you have to with your representation and, let’s just say without spoiling anything, it goes off the rails.

Your characters primarily work with Erica. What do they each think of her?

Baumgartner: I’m still undecided about Erica, but Lex is amazing. She is a star. She is great. And look, my lawyer is actually Ted who finds himself very busy, but I’m okay with if he wants to stay busy and I end up working with Erica. I’m all good with it. It seemed to work out this time, and Lex was fantastic to work with.

Oswalt: Yeah, I feel like my character feels about Lex that he’s actually in good hands. He’s not as panicky as Brian is and way more confident, and he just wants Brian to feel confident.

Will we see either of you again this season?

Oswalt: You’ll have to keep watching to find out, and that’s all I’m going to say.

Baumgartner: I defer to Lord Oswalt. That’s all.

Oswalt: There you go.

Is there anything that you would each want to do in this world of Suits LA as these fictional versions of yourselves?

Baumgartner: Well, look, I do think there is some unresolved stuff that happens here, so it would make sense both in terms of where my specific journey is at the end of the episode, but also our relationship, Patton and mine — We only see sort of the beginning, but where our relationship goes from here, I think there’s a lot of potential. That’s all I’ll say.

Suits LA, Sundays, 9/8c, NBC

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