"Milton" Says Office Space Shows "Underbelly Of America"

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

"There's a Milton wherever you go," Stephen Root (r) says. "He's a completely universal character." Milton, of course, is Milton Waddams, well-known to legions of Office Space fans as the long-suffering Initech employee who's pushed around, loses his beloved red Swingline stapler and finally snaps. Root, who will attend the October (date) DC Labor FilmFest screening of Office Space - along with co-star Gary Cole, who played his boss Lumbergh - spoke to Union City from the set of "24" where "I'm playing an Arkansas corrections officer and that's all I can tell you right now," he laughed. Root said he wasn't originally slated to play the Milton character but that director Mike Judge asked him to do so at the last minute at a reading for Fox. "We had no idea the movie would become such a cult classic," Root added, "it didn't do that well at the box office and then a couple years later people started coming up to me on the street with Milton quotes, and Gary (Cole) called and said the same thing was happening to him." Root says Office Space's enduring popularity is "because it's the underbelly of America. Everywhere there are cubicles and people just like the characters in the movie. We've all been there, or know someone who has." And, it turns out, Root himself has been there. "Oh sure," he laughed, "I used to work temp jobs just like that in New York City and New Jersey when I wasn't working in the theater." Although Office Space is 10 years old this year, it continues to resonate, Root says, because "just like in the movie, everybody's afraid of losing their jobs. And there are a lot less jobs out there now." Root says fans still come up to him to either give him a red Swingline stapler or to have him autograph theirs, and he's looking forward to the annual stapler raffle at the Labor FilmFest screening. "It used to freak me out a little bit, that people identified so strongly with Milton, but now I think it's great. We all know people like him, who want to express their opinion but don't really want you to hear it." Gary Cole, the actor who plays Milton's boss Lumbergh in "Office Space," is also in town for the anniversary showing and speaks with Working America about workplaces, having a union and why the film "took on a life of its own" long after it first appeared in theaters. Click here for the interview. - Chris Garlock