He played glib as Ryan the Temp on “The Office,” but B.J. Novak in real life is a heavyweight talent: screenwriter, director, stand-up comic and now author.
With “One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories,” released last week, Novak, 34, showcases his comic writing chops.
“I felt very shy about telling anyone [I was writing short stories] for a very long time,” Novak tells The Post, “because I felt like it’s what a crazy person does.”
But the book is getting accolades for its views on modern phenomena. Take his story, “The Comedy Central Roast of Nelson Mandela.”
“I love those roasts, and I also have mixed feelings about them,” he says. “Who would be a figure who’d be a big mistake? There is really no one who had more dignity than Mandela. What would he say back? He’s been through worse — he’s had greater adversity in his life than [jokes from] Sarah Silverman.”
Novak is also due on the big screen this summer in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” A recent tweet from director Marc Webb led fans to believe Novak plays Alistair Smythe, alter-ego of the villainous Ultimate Spider-Slayer. The actor can’t divulge much but says he is “not a nice guy” and works at Oscorp.
And you may catch Novak on TV again in “The Mindy Project,” run by one of his best friends and former “Office” co-worker, Mindy Kaling. (The two also dated a few years ago.) She appears in the French New Wave-inspired trailer for his book. “Yeah, I have a weak spot for some pretentious stuff, but I have a sense of humor about it,” he says. “That [Jean-Luc Godard] movie ‘Masculin Féminin’ — I thought that was one of the coolest movies I’ve ever seen . . . and I could not tell you a single thing that happens in it.”