‘Suits LA’: Brian Baumgartner and Patton Oswalt on ‘Getting to Let Loose’ After ‘Tricky’ ‘The Office’ Nod (Exclusive)

Suits LA’s latest episode saw Brian Baumgartner and Patton Oswalt playing fictional versions of themselves, and the actors spoke to PopCulture.com about that interesting reference to The Office and how it led to them letting loose.

Sunday’s episode “He Knew” saw Baumgartner wanting to do more dramatic stuff so that he wouldn’t be known for just The Office. In his words, he wanted to “kill Kevin Malone.” Baumgartner said that he had “talked about it” with the writers and producers, but it was something they had to dance delicately around.

“For me, it was a little bit of a tricky line because I certainly would not want to alienate fans of The Office or fans of Kevin Malone,” he explained. “But I thought the story was interesting, and I think that they had an approach which made it clear my feelings about him and the show, but that there was something else that I wanted to explore.”

“So I give them a tremendous amount of credit, one, for what they ended up coming up with, and two, their willingness to collaborate with this guest star who’s just coming in to do this episode. But they really listened to my feelings,” Baumgartner continued. “And I was saying to Patton earlier, by the time we got in and the script was there, I was all good with it. And it was just let’s make sure we get that. We were lucky enough to have some time to kinda just play around as well.”

Baumgartner, in the episode, wanted Tom Hanks to give him some advice and help him land auditions for more dramatic roles and he was also a client of Stephen Amell’s Ted Black. But he wasn’t really available considering he’s Tom Hanks, so instead, Lex Scott Davis’ Erica brought in Oswalt. Unfortunately, their meeting didn’t really go too well since they ended up arguing, which was later found out to be set up by Erica and Oswalt to get Baumgartner to believe he was truly capable of dramatic roles.

Regardless of the nature of the argument, Oswalt shared, “Getting to let loose like that is always a blast. I don’t do stuff like that in my life. So, getting to kind of go into the snarkier, darker side is always a blast.” Baumgartner, though, had a different take on it.

“I mean, for me to be able to express my true feelings about Patton was a real pleasure,” he joked. “For years, I wanted to call him and let him know exactly how I feel, and it’s weird. I had an opportunity on television to say what I thought, and it was so easy. It was so great. I have had the opportunity to work with a lot of tremendously talented and fun and creative individuals, but, none exceeded my time with Patton. Just from the first rehearsal and us coming into the room together, his willingness to play and be so funny and great was immediately just like, ‘Alright, well, this is gonna be a great day. It’s gonna be a fun day.’”

Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time that Patton Oswalt has played himself, or at least a version of himself, for a movie or TV show. He most recently did so in a 2024 episode of Hacks. But for Suits LA, he says this experience stood out because he plays “a way meaner version of myself than I’ve ever played in other TV shows and films. So this, definitely, I got to flex some new, maybe uncomfortable muscles, but it was still really, really fun to do that.”

Despite playing a meaner version of himself, would Oswalt be down to come back? “I would absolutely like to go back to Suits LA, especially if I do more stuff with Brian because there’s some unresolved stuff between us and the show and in real life,” he said. Baumgartner also shared that he would come back and work with Lex Scott Davis, who plays Erica, again.

It would certainly be entertaining if Baumgartner and Oswalt returned to Suits LA, especially if it’s anything like tonight’s episode. At the very least, Suits LA already has some other great guest stars coming aboard, including OG Suits stars Gabriel Macht and Rick Hoffman. New episodes of Suits LA air on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.