THIS CHARMING MAN

When George Clooney cast John Burke Krasinski in the period football rom-com Leatherheads, many commentators chose to interpret the decision in quasi-biblical terms. This wasn’t just casting, they argued, this was Clooney anointing his spiritual heir.

It’s not such a far-fetched notion. There are plenty of similarities between the two men. Both became household names on the small screen - Clooney in ER, Mr. Krasinski in The Office – before they bucked the historical odds and seamlessly transitioned into movies. Both men have, despite plenty of cutesy mainstream offers, taken the road less travelled, preferring smaller, smarter projects to lucrative Hollywood gigs.
But if Mr. Clooney was, indeed, anointing John Krasinski as his spiritual heir, we’re fairly certain it’s because the latter is so damned cool. Everything about the 29-year-old screams ‘awesome’. His fiancée is the equally hip Emily Blunt. He talks a great game about J.D. Salinger. He pops up in Greg Araki movies and American Dad. Balckberry and Apple are happy to share him as a spokesman. He studied at Brown, the most liberal, swinging outfit in the Ivy League.
“It’s a good school alright, expensive too,” he laughs. “They just encourage you to keep trying different classes and different things. See, already I don’t sound awesome or cool.”
Different things included a reading of David Foster Wallace’s short story collection Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, an experience that would inspire Mr. Krasinski’s subsequent acting career and his directorial debut. His film adaptation of the book premiered at Sundance earlier this year to positive notices.
“We shot it about three years ago,” he says. “But then I got the call from George Clooney and then I got a call from Sam Mendes and then there was The Office so I just never got a chance to make it to the editing room. Oddly, it was the best thing that could have happened. I was able to get Sam to take a look at it. I was able to watch it with fresh eyes. So now it’s the movie I wanted to make. It’s only a fraction – a small fraction of David Foster Wallace’s brilliance. But I’m happy with that. I really believe he’s the greatest writer ever.”
Raised Catholic in Massachusetts, Mr. Krasinski is fiercely proud of his Irish heritage – dad is a Polish-American internist, mom is Mary Doyle of Kerry and Clare extraction – and returns to these shores as often as possible.
“We have a house there,” he explains. “And when I say ‘we’, I mean this huge extended family network. A great aunt left it to all her ancestors. The only condition is that when you stay there you have to write your name on the wall. So there’s a cottage out west with all this Krasinski graffiti on it.”
When we meet at the Edinburgh Film Festival, Mr. Krasinski is contemplating a far sunnier kind of road trip. Away We Go, the latest film from director Sam Mendes, sees a young Gen-X couple (Mr. Krasinski and Maya Rudolph) criss-crossing America in search of the perfect place and way to raise the baby they are expecting. A delightful and intimate tale of weirdos and bad parenting, it was, Mr. Krasinski says, a dream gig in a dream movie.
“When you do a script like this one, the intimacy of the script takes over,” he explains. “You start talking about whether you want kids or whether you’re in love. Not the kind of conversations you casually have over a drink.”
Did he get broody?
“Yes, but it also terrified me! It made me realise how easy it is to completely screw up with your kids. I’m surrounded by people who make it look effortless. My parents are phenomenal. They’ve been married for 40 years. And I have brothers who make parenting look real easy. Even though the same guys used to give me nose bleeds. So I really want to be a parent someday but I think the movie has made me realise that your job as a parent is to be a guide. No, your daughter may not be in a punk band. She might just want to read books all day and vote Republican!”
The smart, minimalist screenplay by A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius author Dave Eggers has struck a chord with grown-up slackers everywhere. Tellingly, the film made more money per screen average than The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button when it was released in the US earlier this year.
“I don’t want to get philosophical about it but there was a major paradigm shift in the last 15 or 20 years. You married at 20. You had a baby at 21. You provided for your family, all of which is admirable. But nowadays, my friends have switched jobs twice, or dropped out or toured Europe. Is this what I want? Is this the person I want to be with? I think all that questioning is for the better. But it brings a whole new set of anxieties.”
He was particularly thrilled to be reunited with Mr. Mendes.
“I’m just the biggest Sam Mendes fan because he’s a phenomenal director,” coos the actor. “Very few people can tell a story like he can. I worked with him on Jarhead – best seven seconds of my life – and I heard he had become attached to Away We Go. I had already read the script and loved it so I said to my agent, ‘Oh well, maybe if 75 actors pass I’ll have a shot’. Then Sam rings me up and says ‘I can’t see anybody doing this but you’. And I was so sure it was George Clooney being mean and doing one of his British accents!”