Paul Lieberstein

On April 3, 2020 he announced plans for a sitcom about office life while isolated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a SuicideGirls interview, Lieberstein noted that "as an actor, which is just a very small percentage of me, I don’t feel Toby while I’m writing. It’s the hardest of the characters to access." In an interview for his alma mater, Hamilton College, Lieberstein commented on the bigger picture:

He wrote and directed his first feature film Song of Back and Neck in 2018 which made it into Tribeca Film Festival.

Lieberstein also worked as producer on the third and final season of the television drama series The Newsroom. In November 2017, it was announced that Lieberstein was replacing Kevin Etten as showrunner of the television show Ghosted.

When we are in pre-production, this is the best job in the world. Working 10 to 7, sitting around and brainstorming with the other writers, making things funnier and writing and rewriting scenes—that's as fun as it gets. Adding acting on top of all that makes for incredibly long, grueling days, sometimes 6 to midnight. But acting has its own rewards. Comedy becomes intensified in short scenes. Doing a scene with Steve Carell, trying to keep up with him, is as tough and fun and weird as any part of the process.

On March 22, 2012, it was announced that Lieberstein would step down from his showrunner role to focus on a planned spin-off series featuring Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, which was tentatively called The Farm and Lieberstein was set to be the showrunner. However, in October 2012, it was announced that NBC was not accepting the spin-off series.

Lieberstein received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Hamilton College on May 22, 2011.

On June 12, 2008, Variety magazine reported that he would become one of the executive producers of The Office.

Lieberstein was married for a second time, to Janine Serafin Poreba, on July 19, 2008, at the New York City restaurant Battery Gardens. They reside in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.

Lieberstein's work on The Office has resulted in numerous awards. In June 2007, Lieberstein shared in a Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Broadband Program – Comedy", for his work on The Office: Accountants webisodes. As an actor, Lieberstein shared in a 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series"; as a writer, he shared a 2006 Writers Guild of America Award for the series, in addition to a WGA Award nomination for "The Coup". As co-executive producer, he shared a 2006 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Comedy Series".

Lieberstein's first Emmy Award was as a producer, sharing a 1999 Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less)" for his work in King of the Hill.

He attended Staples High School where he wrote his first sitcom with some friends and played the vibraphone in band. He would follow that by attending Hamilton College where he joined Chi Psi and graduated in 1989 with a major in economics (he "wanted to be a financier of some kind"). Lieberstein wrote references to the fact that Office character Andy Bernard was a Chi Psi from Cornell into the storyline of several episodes of the show.

Paul Bevan Lieberstein (born February 22, 1967) is an American actor, screenwriter, and television producer. A Primetime Emmy Award winner, he is best known as writer, as executive producer, and as supporting cast member Toby Flenderson on the NBC sitcom The Office. He served as the series' showrunner from seasons five to eight.