Jim from The Office isn't exactly the first guy who comes to mind when you think NASCAR and Sprint Cup. Probably not even the 49,903rd guy. Look, let's be honest: John Krasinski might be the last guy.
Consider: He was born in Newton, Mass., studied theater at Brown and, for the past five years, has been married to English-born Emily Blunt. Nothing about his résumé screams "race fan." He's the first to admit it.
Yet on Sunday, he will serve as the grand marshal for the AAA Texas 500 Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. It's part of a promotional tour for his latest film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, about the 2012 attack on the American compound in Libya that continues to dominate headlines. The movie is set for release Jan. 15.
But don't expect a recap of the congressional hearings. The film, based on a nonfiction retelling of the raid, was directed by Michael Bay, best known for the Bad Boys and Transformers films, as well as The Rock and Armageddon.
Krasinski will be joined at the race's starting line by members of the security team who survived the raid on the Libyan compound. Here are highlights from our phone interview:
I assume this is the first time you've done something like this.
Yes. First time. I remember Chris Evans did it a couple of years ago, and I texted him, "That had to be one of the coolest things ever."
And what did he say?
He said it was. He also said, "It was a lot louder than I thought."
So how does this happen? I mean, obviously it's in the middle of a promotional tour, but it's not like you're the only guy with a movie coming out.
I got a call from NASCAR asking if I would do it, and I believe my exact response was, "Hell, yes." I've been a NASCAR fan since college. A couple of my friends got me into it. Being a boy from Boston, NASCAR isn't as much in our blood as, say, the Red Sox or the Bruins or Celtics, but ...
So you're saying being from Boston, it's anything other than NASCAR.
Right. So I actually sat down and learned about the Cup Series and the championship, and it was really fantastic. And bizarrely one of my first jobs ever was an AT&T broadband commercial with [NASCAR driver] Matt Kenseth, and somewhere floating around the Internet is the three-minute video of me improv-ing the whole day. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done to this day. I had not seen the video in years and years and years, but I remember it truly being one of the most fun days I've ever had.
The biggest compliment paid me was I was told when I arrived in North Carolina, Matt Kenseth didn't want to say anything. He was just going to be the subject of my weird fanaticism. But after a whole day of improv-ing and having fun, it looked like I was having too much fun so he wanted to join in.
Is it odd doing an event like this while out promoting a movie about the attack in Benghazi, which has become so politicized?
A couple of the guys in the movie are big NASCAR fans, so I talked about it with them. But to me it's such a big event and to do something like this on a big promotional tour is way more fun than something else that could come up.
Like being trapped all day in a room full of journalists?
Exactly.
