Why Rainn Wilson takes his shirt off (a lot) to find happiness

This Mental Health Awareness Month, I sat down with comedian and actor Rainn Wilson to talk about his most recent project, “Rainn Wilson and The Geography of Bliss.”

The actor — best known for his role as the inimitable Dwight Schrute on “The Office” — has been on a mission to find happiness, and in this new docuseries for Peacock, he travels around the world looking for answers. 

“I have a secret, inner Oprah that’s dying to get out,” he told me. “I am really and always have been intrigued by big spiritual ideas and concepts.”

Spoiler alert: He’s pretty good at it.

“The show goes to some really profound places, about spirituality, about connection, about mental health, about loving the incredibly rich diversity of humanity,” he said. “These are not just sweet, Hallmark card ideas. These are ideas that we need to transform ourselves and our society right now. The urgency has never been higher.”

Over the course of five episodes, Wilson takes viewers along as he travels from Iceland to Bulgaria to Ghana, learning from “people under the radar.” The show follows the formula set out in Eric Weiner’s New York Times bestselling book, “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World.”

It is a journey for viewers and for Wilson himself who’s been candid about his own struggles with anxiety, depression, and addiction. In fact, this isn’t the first time he’s explored the theme of happiness. In 2019, his production company SoulPancake released the documentary “Laughing Matters,” which explored the relationship between comedy and mental health. Wilson also wrote the recent book “Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.”

So this new series, he told me, isn’t just about beautiful vistas and great camera work.

“There was something about traveling the world and just seeing these gorgeous communities and people interacting with each other and loving on each other and supporting each other,” Wilson said. “And that’s what I brought back home to Los Angeles at the end.”

And along the way, he also has a lot of fun — and some shirtless moments. 

 “’The Geography of Bliss’ is fun, and it’s funny and it’s wacky and I’m a goofball,” he told me. “And I fall down and I take off my shirt a lot.” 

But he does get to what he sees as the true secret to joy.

“It’s community and connection,” Wilson revealed. “It’s all about the connections that we make. And guess what? In contemporary America, we’re at the most disconnected that we’ve ever been.”

After his journey, Wilson is intent on changing that in his own life.