Jae and Trey Richards Find The Fun in Furniture as THE OFFICE MOVERS Premieres - Bell Media (2024)

CraveThe Office Movers

By BILL HARRISSpecial to The LedeEvery desk, every chair, every table is a potential payday in the Crave Original comedy THE OFFICE MOVERS, as long as the proprietors of the business know which corners can’t be cut.The first TV project from Brampton-born comedy duo Jae and Trey Richards, THE OFFICE MOVERS – which premieres Friday, Oct. 11 on Crave – focuses on the struggles of a fictional office-moving company in the Toronto area. Jae and Trey know the subject matter quite well, as they both worked in their family’s office-moving business in their younger years.Here’s what Jae, who plays Shazam Moving owner and boss Everett Saunders, and Trey, who plays younger brother and employee Eric Saunders, had to say about art imitating life:Q: The obvious first question is, who would ever hire this moving company? But then I realized, it’s all about price, right?JAE: “Exactly. My dad’s really an office mover. He has been in it for over 30 years. And part of the problem in that business is, they have these bids, and basically the lowest bid wins. So they don’t care how you get it done – if you’re coming in at a certain price, it’s yours. But with low rates come movers who are less trained. Sometimes they’re just random guys off the street.”TREY: “You’re asking for holes in your walls, for sure. You’re begging.”Q: That leads to some loud comedy in the show, but there are funny quiet moments, too. For example, after a glass door gets smashed, back at the office Everett sheepishly asks, “they called about that?” In what universe would they not call about that?TREY (laughing): “That’s great. I honestly feel like sometimes the quietest things, the softest things, the calmest things, are always the funniest. And for the people who are looking for those moments, they’ll find them, because they’re there.”JAE: “It’s those subtle moments that tee up the big moments. So it’s a lot of calm, and then boom, out of nowhere, it’s this big thing you didn’t see coming.”Q: This is based on your own experiences, but can you point to some specifics?TREY: “I literally shattered a glass door. Yeah, it was actually me, and it was basically my first day. It was winter, and they had the heat blasting inside. The moving dolly just barely touched the glass, honestly, so slightly, and I’m holding the handle, pulling it open, and the whole door shatters. So I’m left holding this handle, which is now just floating there, and I’m looking at my dad, like, ‘I had nothing to do with it.’ But it looks so bad on my part.”JAE: “The van, as well, is very real, just raggedy, very unsafe, no seats. Like, literally, 30 tickets would be written if an officer pulled us over.”Q: There’s comedic heart in all of this, too, like when the pizza guy comes to the door.TREY: “That was 100% real, not exaggerated at all.”JAE: “We were so excited about the pizza, and we were timing it, because if it went past a certain time, the pizza was supposed to be free. And then he gets to the door. There was denial at first, no, no, no. And we were like, hey, this is the time, tough luck. And then he’s like, please man, this comes out of my pocket, I have a family.Q: And he’s showing you the pictures of his kids!TREY: “Okay, that part was exaggerated. He didn’t pull out his wallet.”Q: There’s an irony at play in this show, in that they’re running a business, but their big dream is to cash out, and not be running the business.TREY: “That’s a good sign that you don’t love what you’re doing.”JAE: “But my dad, on the other hand, I feel like he always says he’s tired of working, but I think he loves it. I really think he genuinely enjoys office moving, because he has the opportunity to cash out, and he’s not taking it.”TREY: “Yeah, sometimes people love things more than they think. I hope this show helps my dad reflect on his journey, and to see that he inspired us in ways outside of office moving, for sure, but also how we’ve brought it back to that. So there has to be some sort of love to it, because, I mean, ignoring all the cuts, the blisters, the cold nights, I did have fun moving. I do have a lot of great memories.”Q: That said, while all jobs are hard in their own way, this one seems particularly tough.JAE: “There was one time when we emptied an entire building, 13 floors, one company. It was us.”TREY: “Honestly, just watching the whole show back, I feel like we just skimmed the top. There’s a lot more. There’s so much that we had to just say, we’ll get into this later, because we had to think about building that world for TV, and building that family dynamic, and just explain the rules of that world, to really help people capture it.”Q: So future seasons are already kind of mapped out?TREY: “You always gotta think ahead.”Q: Ultimately, is the lesson of this show, you get what you pay for?JAE: “I’d say so. Because there are sharper moving companies with real training, real uniforms, a little more elite. But the clients in our show weren’t paying for those.”TREY: “Yeah, you get what you pay for, I’m fine with that. But I’ll switch it up. I’ll switch it up to, ‘get it how you live.’ Everett (Jae’s character) is getting it how he lives. There are bills to be paid. Things are rough. He doesn’t have a good crew. He doesn’t have the best shot. He’s trying to make it out of the mud, get it done, and sell that business. Carla (the office administrator played by Heather Gallant) is amazing, but why is she there? She’s better than this. I want everyone who watches the show to know that Carla’s a good girl, because she is staying there literally to help Everett out. That’s real love.”Q: So this is really a love story?JAE: “It’s a romance, yeah, exactly.”billharristv@gmail.com@billharris_tv