Actor Brian Baumgartner, aka Kevin Malone from “The Office,” stepped up to the podium and started his speech at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School’s convocation today.

“I just want to say how much of an honor it is to be back here,” said Baumgartner, a Sandy Springs native who attended the Sandy Springs school from kindergarten through eighth grade before transferring to the Westminster Schools in Buckhead for high school. At the time, Holy Innocents’ did not have grades nine through 12. Fellow Westminster alum Ed Helms also is on “The Office.”

Baumgartner then took a call on his cell phone. After hanging up, he said, “That was a lesson of exactly what not to do [during a speech].”

“How many of you have cell phones?” he asked the student body. After many students raised their hands, the 37-year-old said, “Dear goodness. If I teach you one thing today, it is to not use your cell phone when you’re in the car with another person, in line at Starbucks or McDonald’s, or when eating dinner with any other person. … When you use cell phones you close yourself off from experiences.

“What I want you to take from today is to always be open to new experiences.”

Baumgartner played soccer, basketball and baseball as a child until a right leg problem he was born with required surgeries in the fifth and seventh grades.

“I was in a wheelchair in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades, then in a walker and a cane,” he said. “I had to re-learn to walk. Sports were not an option anymore. I tried to do something else and that was theatre. The first acting I ever did was here at Holy Innocents’. I chose to participate in acting and it led me somewhere I never thought it would lead me.”

Niki Simpson, Baumgartner’s English and drama teacher at Holy Innocents’, introduced him.

“[In acting] you must get the pause right. … What sets him apart is he really gets the pause right,” she said. “Even when he played Santa Claus, he got the pause right.”

Baumgartner lived in Minneapolis for eight years, spending five as artistic director of Hidden Theatre in Minneapolis, where he received multiple awards. In Minnesota and California, he performed at regional theatres that each won special Tony Awards. Baumgartner moved to Los Angeles in 2003 and worked on TV shows “Arrested Development,” “Everwood” and “Jake in Progress” before landing his current role on “The Office.”

The show is based on the British series with the same name, created by Ricky Gervais. The American show's seventh season premieres Sept. 23. Last month NBC announced lead actor Steve Carrell would be leaving "The Office" after this season. But Baumgartner said the show will go on without Carrell.

“We have already started [filming this season]. We have already shot six episodes,” he said. “I certainly think it’s an exciting opportunity. Every year we bring in something new. Ultimately what the writers have done is reinvent the show each year.”

Baumgartner said each episode is scripted but there is flexibility for the actors to ad-lib when possible. He had an idea the show would be a hit early on.

“It was a different process,” he said. “But when we filmed the episode after the pilot, ‘Diversity Day,’ I knew if people gave it a chance, it could be something special. That episode touched on some issues that hadn’t been brought up on TV since ‘All in the Family.’”

Baumgartner’s immediate family still lives in Atlanta, and he said he visits them when he can. Parents Bruce and Cherry Baumgartner split time between homes in Buckhead and Hilton Head, S.C., and his sister, Laura Traylor, resides in Virginia-Highland.

Did his parents feel like he would be this successful?

“I did. He didn’t,” Cherry Baumgartner said, pointing to her husband. “He was the more realistic one.”

Bruce Baumgartner added, “He put seven years of acting experience in before moving to Los Angeles.”

Other than “The Office,” Brian Baumgartner has two current projects as a producer. One is a special NBC Sports series called “Golf Therapy: Life Lessons in the Pursuit of Par,” and the other is a web series of turtle races, based on the ones he experienced at Holy Innocents’ growing up, that is shown on www.collegehumor.com.

“It [the races] taught us a really important lesson, which is don’t be afraid to stick your neck out,” Brian Baumgartner said.