Speaker 1: This is Jenna Fisher. I played Pam Beasley. Hi everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome back. Here we are. We're back baby the Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive. I'm your host, Brian Baumgartner. Today you will
Speaker 1: be hearing my conversation with Jenna Fisher. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. Jenna and I bonded during the run of
Speaker 1: the show. We were both nerds for television, and we
Speaker 1: would have long conversations about television and what we were
Speaker 1: doing in television. In a way, those conversations are what
Speaker 1: led me to want to do this podcast. Conversations that
Speaker 1: I had over the years with Jenna and recently since
Speaker 1: I started this podcast. And she obviously is the grand Puma.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the right phrase of podcast. Her
Speaker 1: and Angela obviously a host and produced office Ladies. Jenna
Speaker 1: and I over the last couple of years have been
Speaker 1: bonding once again over the office, what the office means
Speaker 1: today in the cultural zeitgeist, and she and I have
Speaker 1: had lengthy conversations about that very subject. And today you're
Speaker 1: gonna get to be a a fly on the wall.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for you to hear it. She is
Speaker 1: one of the most insightful, incisive, smart uh women that
Speaker 1: I know, and I'm so excited to talk about the
Speaker 1: thing that we both love, the office. So here she
Speaker 1: is Jenna Fisher. Bubble and squeak, I love it. Bubble
Speaker 1: and squeaker, Bubble and squeaker cookie, every moon, lift over
Speaker 1: the night, befo. Oh are you? What is this? I
Speaker 1: don't know? Are you? Oh my gosh, it's happening. You
Speaker 1: can see. I got all dressed up in my in
Speaker 1: my hat and puffy coat. I are we beginning? Have
Speaker 1: we begun? I mean you're ready? Looks Officially, you have
Speaker 1: papers and in a computer? Do you use a You
Speaker 1: don't use a computer during my podcast, I use papers
Speaker 1: and Angel uses notes note cards. See. I can scroll here,
Speaker 1: I can scroll through things, and I can skip on
Speaker 1: interesting things. But you're staring right in my eyes while
Speaker 1: you do Yeah, so I don't have to do this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's so loud and messy, and I was very distracted
Speaker 1: by that. It's slightly weird to be staring it out
Speaker 1: while someone's hand is like scrolling. I won't see it.
Speaker 1: I won't, I won't. I'm not going to scroll through
Speaker 1: fifteen pages. Fifteen pages. Listen, there's a lot here. This
Speaker 1: is a big day. It's a really big day. So
Speaker 1: two three, what were you doing before the office? I
Speaker 1: had been at this point finally making a living as
Speaker 1: an actor for one year. I'd been in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: over seven years, but I was finally earning my all
Speaker 1: of my living from just acting. I had done a pilot.
Speaker 1: You get paid a lot to do a pilot, so
Speaker 1: that was a big thing. But the pilot wasn't picked up.
Speaker 1: So I made a grandiose announcement to my management and
Speaker 1: agents that I would be quitting acting. I couldn't take
Speaker 1: it anymore. I couldn't take the rejection. I just was
Speaker 1: putting my heart out there and I just thought, I'm
Speaker 1: going to become a vet technician. I was very sure
Speaker 1: this is true, this is true. Don't remember this. I
Speaker 1: looked into it. It's a two year program. It's very
Speaker 1: full time. And my manager, Naomi oeden Kirk, she said
Speaker 1: to me, Jenna, will you give us one more year?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're so close, you really are. You don't
Speaker 1: understand this is what it is. My acting coach yelled
Speaker 1: at me and said, don't be stupid. You're doing great.
Speaker 1: This is what an actor's life is. It's a series
Speaker 1: of minor accomplishments and tons of rejection. So this is
Speaker 1: being an actor. You're doing it. So I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do one more year. And that was the year
Speaker 1: that I got the audition for Pam on the Office.
Speaker 1: By the way, I was also uh starting down my
Speaker 1: vet tech. I was working with an animal rescue group
Speaker 1: and I was taking care of cats in my own home.
Speaker 1: I was learning how to do things like fluids and
Speaker 1: all kinds of medical things. I did not know this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was trapped neutering and releasing cats in the wild word.
Speaker 1: Then Allison Jones called and asked me to audition for
Speaker 1: the Office. Now I had been auditioning for Allison Jones
Speaker 1: for five years. So the first thing I went on
Speaker 1: a general meeting with Allison and uh it was a
Speaker 1: great meeting, and Allison called me into audition for a
Speaker 1: one line role on Freaks and Geeks. I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Then Allison called me to audition for Undeclared, which was
Speaker 1: a Jet Apatow show, for one line, and I got it.
Speaker 1: And then that one line led to a second episode
Speaker 1: where I had two lines. So this was my first
Speaker 1: recurring role. But this is all you know a while ago.
Speaker 1: Um I think I also through Allison, got my very
Speaker 1: first speaking role on television was for Spin City the
Speaker 1: Charlie Sheen years. So those were some a few of
Speaker 1: my ways that Allison had been in my life, and
Speaker 1: she was great. She also called me in for like
Speaker 1: a Steven Spielberg mini series that I bombed. It went nowhere.
Speaker 1: I was horrible, and she said, maybe drama is not
Speaker 1: your thing, and then yeah, you know it's You're gonna
Speaker 1: be fine. Don't worry. I'm still going to call you
Speaker 1: in for other things, but maybe drama is not your thing.
Speaker 1: So very quickly, my Alison Jones story was I moved
Speaker 1: to l A right before The Office started, and I
Speaker 1: knew the British version of the Office very well, and
Speaker 1: I knew they were doing an American version. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is the show that I must be on. And
Speaker 1: so I went to my agent at the time and
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, they're looking for people who are not known,
Speaker 1: and they said, this is a direct quote. They said,
Speaker 1: they're looking for unknown people, but not like you, unknown,
Speaker 1: not like totally. But my manager he kept calling and
Speaker 1: calling and calling, and I went and I met with
Speaker 1: Phillis then I met with Alison and then I ended
Speaker 1: up doing that. Well, so here's the thing that little
Speaker 1: caveat in the casting call that said known actors only.
Speaker 1: That was why this was my big break. And this
Speaker 1: was also why I had been so frustrated and wanted
Speaker 1: to give up, because I would go through these long
Speaker 1: audition processes for television shows and I would get as
Speaker 1: far as the on camera test part, and then they
Speaker 1: would give it to Alice and Hannagan. Alison Hannagan got
Speaker 1: like three parts that I was four. She I could
Speaker 1: not breakthrough Alice in Hannagan. But I was this unknown
Speaker 1: actor and I had absolutely nothing to offer a billboard
Speaker 1: on sunset boulevard. I had, you know, no name recognition.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't get these big lead parts until the office,
Speaker 1: when finally the thing that had been working against me
Speaker 1: was my gift, which was that I was unknown. Right,
Speaker 1: And now, what do you remember about the day off?
Speaker 1: Did you see anybody else there any other people that
Speaker 1: you you knew at the time or that ended up
Speaker 1: being cast, or was there anything specific about that day? Well,
Speaker 1: I've seen those casting sheets that Allison showed us at
Speaker 1: the end of the series, and I saw all the
Speaker 1: various well known now well known people who came in
Speaker 1: to read for the different parts, and none of those
Speaker 1: people were at my casting call that I remember, but
Speaker 1: I was. I was just very focused on my audition.
Speaker 1: Can we play that clip? You have a clip? M hmm.
Speaker 1: I hope they get rid of me, because then I
Speaker 1: might actually get off my ass and do something, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's many little girls dreams to grow
Speaker 1: up and be a receptionist. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do, but whatever it is, it's got to
Speaker 1: be a career move, not just another arbitrary job. And
Speaker 1: Jim's advice was that it's better to be at the
Speaker 1: bottom of a ladder that you want to climb than
Speaker 1: halfway up one you don't. Was that my audition? That's insane?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that? I mean? Was that was that you?
Speaker 1: Or was that was that scripted? That was scripted? So
Speaker 1: I had a monologue that was scripted that that talking head.
Speaker 1: I also did a scene. I did the scene where
Speaker 1: Michael fires Pam and she calls him a jerk, where
Speaker 1: he fake fires her as a joke, and then I
Speaker 1: had a just improvised interview with Greg. Greg Daniels was
Speaker 1: there at my first audition. I went, I guess straight
Speaker 1: to producers, as they call it. So Alison and Greg
Speaker 1: were there, and I remember Greg being very wringing his
Speaker 1: hands like in like a fun like he couldn't believe
Speaker 1: he's going to get to start this project and he's
Speaker 1: so excited, and and I just remember the way he
Speaker 1: was looking at me. He was very curious, kind of like,
Speaker 1: she's not doing much? Is she interesting? That's so well,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna start talking about myself again, because it's
Speaker 1: ultimately everything is about me. My thing was I knew
Speaker 1: that Kevin was the part that I should have, and
Speaker 1: Alison Jones is brilliant, but she had me reading for Stanley,
Speaker 1: and so I read Stanley as if it were Kevin Ah,
Speaker 1: And then I left the room thinking, well, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: and sure enough she ran after me and said, we
Speaker 1: had this other part that we want you to look at.
Speaker 1: And so then that's how that happened. Oh that's amazing. Um,
Speaker 1: the test process, how is that? Yeah? So normally when
Speaker 1: you test for a show, you just perform your scenes
Speaker 1: live in front of a conference room full of executives.
Speaker 1: But we were told that because the camera was such
Speaker 1: an essential part of our show, and relating to the
Speaker 1: camera was so important that they wanted to do an
Speaker 1: on camera series of test scenes with the final four
Speaker 1: actors for each part. So they called us into an
Speaker 1: actual office building for two days and they mixed and
Speaker 1: matched us and they taped us doing scenes. And it
Speaker 1: was great because we were able to give those looks
Speaker 1: to camera. We were able to react when we noticed
Speaker 1: the camera was there when we thought it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: really was such a huge element of the show. Greg's
Speaker 1: other argument for doing it that way was that the
Speaker 1: show was small and its acting and the moments that
Speaker 1: played the biggest were small moments, and he didn't really
Speaker 1: feel like auditioning in a conference room was going to
Speaker 1: give the executives the right feel for what he was
Speaker 1: going for what the show was. Yeah, totally genius. And
Speaker 1: now I think you have told this story or this
Speaker 1: is lore. What do you remember about Your manager calls
Speaker 1: you and says you've been cast as Pam. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think you might be wondering if The first question I
Speaker 1: asked was is John Krasinski playing Jim and that is true?
Speaker 1: And they said yes, And I was like, Okay, then
Speaker 1: we're going to be fine. Because I was a little worried.
Speaker 1: I was like, if it's not him, I hope I
Speaker 1: can still do it, because they mad to me with
Speaker 1: him a lot on our test day, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, this guy's making it real easy for me,
Speaker 1: so please cast me with him. It's a hard time
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Speaker 1: hire you need Indeed. Now, going back to the pilot,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that so like your test experience, right,
Speaker 1: there were a number of things that were unique and
Speaker 1: different that came from from Ken or Greg or a combination. Um,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that you remember that
Speaker 1: were different in the way that the pilot was shot
Speaker 1: from say a normal television show. I remember on the pilot,
Speaker 1: everyone in the cast had to be hair and makeup
Speaker 1: ready and at their desks starting at seven thirty am,
Speaker 1: and we would work quote unquote for thirty minutes. And
Speaker 1: Ken would walk around with just a camera operator and
Speaker 1: a boom and record us at our desks. Just be
Speaker 1: roll of us at our desks, right, And what what
Speaker 1: did you think of the pilot when you saw it?
Speaker 1: What did I think of the pilot when I saw
Speaker 1: I must have watched that pilot a gazillion times. I
Speaker 1: have a very embarrassing story about watching them. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1: So um, there was a friend of a friend who
Speaker 1: was this big deal manager and he really wanted to
Speaker 1: see the pilot. And I thought, well, I have a
Speaker 1: DVD of the pilot. Maybe I'll take it to his office.
Speaker 1: But I was so afraid of it leaking that I
Speaker 1: insisted that he watched it while I sit across from him.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't leave the office without the DVD. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you can watch it, but you have to watch it
Speaker 1: right now while I wait, what was I doing? I
Speaker 1: was nobody. I don't know. Isn't that so weird? So bizarre?
Speaker 1: But he really wanted to see it because he everybody
Speaker 1: in town wanted to see the pilot. Everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: see it. They were dying to see what this American
Speaker 1: version of the British show was going to be. Now, Brian,
Speaker 1: do you remember coming to my house and watching the pilot,
Speaker 1: sitting on my floor and gathering all together. Yes, I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Angela was talking to me about it recently and she
Speaker 1: was like, well, I remember you couldn't get the sound
Speaker 1: to work on your sound system And I was like really,
Speaker 1: and she's like yeah. And I remember my dog got
Speaker 1: out and I had to chase my dog down the street.
Speaker 1: That's another story, but but that was sort of the
Speaker 1: beginning of us all gathering together to watch the show
Speaker 1: every week, which is what we did. That's so I've
Speaker 1: totally forgot about that. Um so, so we're in a
Speaker 1: real office space and we are doing this fake work,
Speaker 1: b roll stuff, like all of these elements to try
Speaker 1: to create sort of the ultimate reality, and to me
Speaker 1: that there's something interesting. Well, what would you say your
Speaker 1: training was as an act as an actor? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I have a Bachelor of Arts and Theater from a
Speaker 1: little liberal arts college in rural Missouri called Treuman State.
Speaker 1: So this job was a dream job for me as
Speaker 1: a theater geek. To be able to do this acting
Speaker 1: exercise where I'm at my desk excuse me very much,
Speaker 1: but I'm acting, was like, oh, it was everything my
Speaker 1: training had prepared me for that. Yes, that's and so
Speaker 1: that was you. And then Rain and I knew each
Speaker 1: other a little bit from theater as well. And then
Speaker 1: you've got Angela and Oscar and Steve who are like
Speaker 1: improv right, and then we've got b J and Craig
Speaker 1: Robinson that are stand up guys. Primarily to me, there's
Speaker 1: there was something about the creation of the ensemble that
Speaker 1: there were all of these funny people, but they all
Speaker 1: sort of had a different perspective, and there was something
Speaker 1: about the reality, sort of the ultra reality of being
Speaker 1: stuck in this room and doing this work and always
Speaker 1: being there together that that sort of helped meld us
Speaker 1: together in a weird way. Yeah, I think if we
Speaker 1: had all been improv performers, it would have been a
Speaker 1: ship show, right, Or if we were all theater people,
Speaker 1: we would have been taking off all of ourselves too. Seriously,
Speaker 1: the mix was important, like the way all of the
Speaker 1: ingredients came together. And I think, you know, another thing
Speaker 1: that was really unusual was that we were all always
Speaker 1: at work, Because if you weren't a scene, you were
Speaker 1: in the background of a scene. We would joke sometimes
Speaker 1: we'd be like, do none of us go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: We never leave for lunch, like we're always all at
Speaker 1: our desks. By season six or seven, people were going
Speaker 1: to the bathroom a little bit more from time to
Speaker 1: die more more often that um, all right, well, theater nerd.
Speaker 1: How is Pam different from Jenna? Well, it would not
Speaker 1: take me three years to tell Jim that I had
Speaker 1: feelings for him. I mean, I would have dumped Roy
Speaker 1: much quicker. I would have been like, who's this guy?
Speaker 1: Because not just that, I mean when we meet Pam
Speaker 1: and Jim, they've already been working together for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, and then it's still three more years after
Speaker 1: that before they figure some stuff out. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I'm much more ambitious, much more of an entrepreneurial spirit
Speaker 1: then Pam. However, the way that we are very similar
Speaker 1: is that it took me a long time, like Pam,
Speaker 1: to figure out how to speak up for myself. Like Pam,
Speaker 1: I spent many years sitting at a reception desk, wishing
Speaker 1: that I was doing something else. I literally sat at
Speaker 1: reception desks and daydreamed about the day that I might
Speaker 1: be an actor. And Pam sits at that desk and
Speaker 1: she daydreams about being artistically expressed, and so I could
Speaker 1: really relate to that, that feeling of I want something
Speaker 1: more than what I'm doing, but I don't know how
Speaker 1: to get it exactly. But I will say that as Jenna,
Speaker 1: I was taking much more actions in my life to
Speaker 1: get out of my situation than I think Pam did.
Speaker 1: It took Pam a lot longer, but she had a
Speaker 1: lot of more um forces against her than I did.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure Pam's mom was saying things
Speaker 1: to her, or her parents were saying things to her like, honey,
Speaker 1: you can do anything you want to do. If you
Speaker 1: want to be an artist, you go be an artist.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the messaging that I was getting
Speaker 1: from my parents. You gotta go for it. Do what
Speaker 1: you love in life. Even if you aren't successful, you'll
Speaker 1: be glad you did it. I mean, I had those
Speaker 1: kind of parents. They didn't support me financially as an actor,
Speaker 1: but they supported my spirit and they were always there
Speaker 1: for that PEP talk. And I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if I can explain how valuable that was. And
Speaker 1: it was clear to me that Pam didn't have some
Speaker 1: of those tools in her toolbox. Do you do you
Speaker 1: think that Greg and the writing staff, because in a
Speaker 1: way they were masterful about this, right about finding things,
Speaker 1: finding things that were true to you the actor, and
Speaker 1: incorporating them into the story. Do you think that Pam's
Speaker 1: want and desire to be an artist and to be
Speaker 1: seen in that way? Do you think that there's anything
Speaker 1: that was taken from you? I'm not sure, because if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, I feel like the character on the
Speaker 1: British show had some minor desire to be an artist.
Speaker 1: Doesn't Doesn't the Tim character give Don some drawing pencils
Speaker 1: at some point? Am I making that up? I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I don't know, But um I do know that Greg
Speaker 1: used to ask me questions about my thoughts, and that
Speaker 1: that was so unusual. The fact that several of our
Speaker 1: writers were also actors, so they were down with us,
Speaker 1: they were observing us all the time. I mean you,
Speaker 1: Angela and Oscar single handedly created that insane dynamic between
Speaker 1: the three of you through I believe, improvisation when you
Speaker 1: were bored in the background, and so then you've got Mindy,
Speaker 1: b J and Paul watching you guys, and then taking
Speaker 1: that back up to the writer's room and flushing it out.
Speaker 1: It was genius that Greg did it that way. But
Speaker 1: then more than that, Greg truly believed that no one
Speaker 1: knew our characters more than we did, and he would
Speaker 1: ask us questions all the time. He cared about our opinions.
Speaker 1: He wanted to know all the time, what do you
Speaker 1: think Pam would think of this situation? He was always
Speaker 1: very curious. He also knew that I worked in offices
Speaker 1: and that I had worked as a receptionist, and he
Speaker 1: used to ask me questions, what's the craziest thing one
Speaker 1: of your boss has ever made you do? And I
Speaker 1: can't remember if I told the story to him before
Speaker 1: or after, But there's that episode where Michael is refusing
Speaker 1: to sign all of his documents until the end of
Speaker 1: the day. He just keeps putting it off and putting
Speaker 1: it off and putting it off. And I told Greg
Speaker 1: I had this boss once that every month, at the
Speaker 1: end of the month, he had to turn in this
Speaker 1: boiler plate report and he would put it off and
Speaker 1: put it off. And one time he put it off
Speaker 1: so long I had to drive to l a X
Speaker 1: because that was the last FedEx pickup, and I was
Speaker 1: so pissed and Greg was like he loved those stories.
Speaker 1: He loved whenever we told him stories like that, and
Speaker 1: they would get used. Okay, so we shoot the pilot,
Speaker 1: we eventually air. It's striking to me that you started
Speaker 1: like December ish right of like two thousand three into January.
Speaker 1: We shot the pilot in February of two thousand four,
Speaker 1: and it's thirteen months before anything gets on the air.
Speaker 1: It's not so I mean, it's well, I've got a
Speaker 1: story about that. We shot the pilot in March of
Speaker 1: two thousand four, and my thirtieth birthday was March seven
Speaker 1: of two thousand four, and I did not invite any
Speaker 1: of you to my thirtieth birthday party because I assumed
Speaker 1: I would never see you again. I was so sure
Speaker 1: that making the pilot was the end of our show,
Speaker 1: that it would never get picked up, not because it
Speaker 1: wasn't good, but because it was so good and so
Speaker 1: weird and so special that no one would give us
Speaker 1: a chance. I thought, well, I don't know. All the
Speaker 1: word on the street was just have fun making your pilot,
Speaker 1: that's all it'll be. And then similarly, have fun making
Speaker 1: your next five episodes. They'll probably just be yours. To
Speaker 1: own on a DVD Enjoy. So yeah, so then we
Speaker 1: go back, we make these five episodes in a complete bubble,
Speaker 1: and then it was not until yeah, like that following
Speaker 1: what was it? Was it like April of two thousand
Speaker 1: five they started March of two thousand five they finally
Speaker 1: start airing, and they had to tell us by May
Speaker 1: if we were picked up for the second season. Then yeah, crazy,
Speaker 1: and we were a disaster, like a ratings disaster. Well,
Speaker 1: if if it were today, we would be a ratings
Speaker 1: hit right off the bat, because but yes, we were
Speaker 1: a ratings disaster. But then you know what happened, and
Speaker 1: I know exactly why we got picked up. It was
Speaker 1: that four year old virgin came out. Yeah, four year
Speaker 1: old virgin came out. And I can I can hear
Speaker 1: in my imagination a conference room filled with NBC executives
Speaker 1: all saying, we aren't going to be the assholes who
Speaker 1: let Steve Correll, the number one box office comedy start
Speaker 1: out of his television contract. We're picking up this show
Speaker 1: for six episodes of season two. Again, six episode odes
Speaker 1: is all we got for season two. But then they
Speaker 1: really did Taylor the show more to Steve more to
Speaker 1: what Steve would be as Michael rather than um as
Speaker 1: inspired by David Brent. So what do you remember. What
Speaker 1: differences do you remember between one and two, like artistic changes,
Speaker 1: artistic changes. I think the biggest thing I noticed was
Speaker 1: when we started season two, Steve had lost like what
Speaker 1: twenty pounds are more? I don't know. He was so
Speaker 1: fit because he had gotten in shape for four year
Speaker 1: old virgin. And they started allowing the character of Michael
Speaker 1: to be more sympathetic. They would let him break our
Speaker 1: heart a little bit. Even in the Dundees, for example,
Speaker 1: you see a bunch of people heckel Michael, and then
Speaker 1: you see the people in the office stand up for Michael.
Speaker 1: And in the first season none of us ever stood
Speaker 1: up for Michael. We all just hated Michael. But they
Speaker 1: started to allow Steve to display vulnerability, which he's so
Speaker 1: good at. But then also you have an episode in
Speaker 1: season two, like the Client, where you see Michael start
Speaker 1: out as what seems like a total buffoon and turn
Speaker 1: into a masterful salesperson. Right, you see a reason that
Speaker 1: he actually has this job. Yes, And I think those
Speaker 1: were differences. In the first season we just really leaned
Speaker 1: into his mean spirited buffoonery, the ways he irritated us,
Speaker 1: but now in season two we were bringing out sprinklings
Speaker 1: of these very redeeming qualities in him. Or even the
Speaker 1: Halloween episode in season two where at the very end,
Speaker 1: after he's had this horrible day of having to fire someone,
Speaker 1: you see him hand out candy to these little kids.
Speaker 1: It makes me cry every time I watch it every time.
Speaker 1: Or the end of Office Olympics where he's crying because
Speaker 1: everyone is so genuinely applauding for his purchase of a condo.
Speaker 1: These little moments in each episode, there seem to be
Speaker 1: one in each episode that was very different from season one.
Speaker 1: Right um season two, everything everything changed, Right, so we
Speaker 1: have six episodes, and then we do six episodes, and
Speaker 1: then didn't we get four more? And then three more,
Speaker 1: and then two? And then what I remember very clearly
Speaker 1: was sometime after the New year, they said, okay, you
Speaker 1: can finish two, and then within two weeks we had
Speaker 1: an order for season three, a full order. I did
Speaker 1: not remember that. Yes I do. Do you think I'm wrong? No,
Speaker 1: I don't, You're wrong. I always wondered, because to me,
Speaker 1: I did not feel like I had job security until
Speaker 1: Steve won the Golden Globe. Well there was that, and
Speaker 1: then there was iTunes. Yeah, they started doing the video iPods.
Speaker 1: The Christmas episode went to number one like that, and
Speaker 1: the Christmas episode on TV was our highest rated show.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, from December to January
Speaker 1: suddenly things changed. And then after season two we won
Speaker 1: the Emmy. Yes, is there anything specific about that night
Speaker 1: that you remember? I remember that Emmy's because at this
Speaker 1: point now we had become a bit of a critical darling.
Speaker 1: So in the beginning, the critics hated us and they
Speaker 1: only compared us to the British show. And then we
Speaker 1: had turned them around now in time for this Emmy Awards,
Speaker 1: and so being at these awards, we were the new
Speaker 1: kids on the block. We were super fresh. The critics
Speaker 1: loved us, but we were still not a front runner
Speaker 1: to win, and so it was a complete surprise when
Speaker 1: we won. Many people there had no idea who we were.
Speaker 1: They didn't recognize us. It's funny, I remember, um. I
Speaker 1: remember running into the cast of Scrubs and they were
Speaker 1: like the big deal guys and we were the newbies
Speaker 1: and they were super nice to us, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's Scrubs. Cut to like eight years later.
Speaker 1: I remember then being at an awards show and running
Speaker 1: into the next batch, the new freshman class of TV,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, Oh, I'm Scrubs. Now, we're Scrubs.
Speaker 1: We're We're like the kids who've been around the block
Speaker 1: a few times. Totally. See mine wasn't mine was Porsche
Speaker 1: DROSSI Oh, you ran into at the first Emmy super nice,
Speaker 1: so great. Yes, And that's what I thought. UM. Going
Speaker 1: back a little bit. Another thing that I think made
Speaker 1: us really unique, um and also sort of that ultra
Speaker 1: realism was Scratton. Yeah, and making the decision for it
Speaker 1: to be Scranton. Well, and I know that they did
Speaker 1: a lot of research when it came to just the
Speaker 1: things that were around the office, local radio stations, hers
Speaker 1: potato chips from Pennsylvania, we're in our vending machine, really
Speaker 1: creating this realism, the Lackawanna County, um coal mine, things
Speaker 1: like that, you know, working all that stuff into the show.
Speaker 1: I know it really always broke Greg's heart that we
Speaker 1: never shot an episode in Scranton. Every year they would
Speaker 1: toy with the idea of taking us there, and it
Speaker 1: was just always cost prohibitive. I know Greg's dream was
Speaker 1: that we would shoot the St. Patrick's Day parade. This
Speaker 1: is so crazy that you're saying this. That was literally
Speaker 1: when asked my biggest regret, that was it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say the same. My biggest regret was that we
Speaker 1: never shot in Scranton. But the city of Scranton. I
Speaker 1: remember one year they were really looking into this parade idea,
Speaker 1: and they agreed to move their parade two months earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, because we would have to shoot before St.
Speaker 1: Patrick's Day. So they were going to have their St.
Speaker 1: Patrick's Day parade in January, and they just couldn't figure out,
Speaker 1: cost wise how to get the entire cast and crew there.
Speaker 1: Right to me, it's it's this weird like dichotomy thing
Speaker 1: where even though it was about Scratton where very few
Speaker 1: people had gone right on a national scale, like people
Speaker 1: don't know those places, but having those details sprinkled into
Speaker 1: me somehow translated to making it more universal. I absolutely
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think as a person who grew
Speaker 1: up in St. Louis, Missouri, me and other people who
Speaker 1: grew up there, we so identify our city as part
Speaker 1: of us, and so it made it more universally real
Speaker 1: that we identified so strongly with the city. We were
Speaker 1: in Scranton, and I think that's true of a lot
Speaker 1: of people where you grow up. Right. No, absolutely, there's
Speaker 1: just I love that city and there's something about my
Speaker 1: connection to that city. Do you remember the I can't
Speaker 1: remember the year, but the presidential election right where everybody
Speaker 1: who was running somehow suddenly everybody was from Scranton, right,
Speaker 1: like Joe Biden, Scranton connection, Hillary Clinton. They were all
Speaker 1: trying to get into the office. Totally, it was all like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I used to go and
Speaker 1: visit Grandma and she would you know. It was this
Speaker 1: crazy like became this sort of cultural touchstone, like the
Speaker 1: heart of the nation is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I
Speaker 1: love it. Um we talked about there was an interesting
Speaker 1: thing where, you know, the ultimate question is why the
Speaker 1: show is what it is out, which will examine in
Speaker 1: a minute. But it seems like we were writing this
Speaker 1: digital wave right like the show started. We're going to
Speaker 1: do a show about a dying industry, and at the
Speaker 1: same time that we're doing a show about a dying industry,
Speaker 1: the technological advances we end up writing this wave. Well,
Speaker 1: early on you might remember a bunch of us were
Speaker 1: on MySpace. Yes we're going to discuss We're well, Angela,
Speaker 1: b J and I and you did as well. We
Speaker 1: had these MySpace pages that were on our computers while
Speaker 1: we were in scenes, and we were interacting with people
Speaker 1: on my Space. We were blogging, but we were also
Speaker 1: I would type things to people like an instant message,
Speaker 1: like Hey, when you watch the such and such episode
Speaker 1: in this scene, you'll know I was typing this to you.
Speaker 1: And we just it was like before Twitter, before Instagram,
Speaker 1: before social media. It was really before Facebook. My Space
Speaker 1: was the place that there was this social interaction totally.
Speaker 1: And then there was iTunes that was huge for us.
Speaker 1: And then there were the webisodes, the first show that
Speaker 1: did that online content and obviously sort of culminating in
Speaker 1: in Netflix. How do you think that the that those
Speaker 1: things helped us either reach an audience or well, I
Speaker 1: think it connected people deeply to the show. And to
Speaker 1: have the actors of the TV show that you really
Speaker 1: love interacting with you, answering your questions, caring as much
Speaker 1: as you do, it kind of makes you feel like
Speaker 1: you're part of it. In a more real, intimate way,
Speaker 1: and also it was real. That connection was real. There
Speaker 1: would be times when the writers and Greg would read
Speaker 1: some Twitter feedback about an episode or a storyline, and
Speaker 1: it did affect things going forward. Give me my Remote
Speaker 1: I think was a website to where give me my remote? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of the stuff. Yes, the idea of these bloggers.
Speaker 1: We had a bunch of fan sites. We had Office
Speaker 1: Tally dot com run by Jenny tan and this gal,
Speaker 1: Jenny did such a good job of running this website
Speaker 1: that she would we would invite her to visit the
Speaker 1: set and give her exclusives and things. And then there
Speaker 1: was Northern Attack that was based on that line from
Speaker 1: Diversity Day as Abraham Lincoln said, I will attack you
Speaker 1: with the North Northern Attack. I love Northern, so give
Speaker 1: me my remote. Northern Attack. All of these TV websites
Speaker 1: and bloggers people started blogging about us, and we were cool, right, like,
Speaker 1: oh no, totally yeah. And so you were part of something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were part of something. You were part of a
Speaker 1: movement in a way, and and our show was part
Speaker 1: of that movement. I think, all right, we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: there for now, but we are going to be back
Speaker 1: with more Jenna, Oh my gosh, it's so good. It's
Speaker 1: so good. I'm gonna make you wait for it until then.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, all of you, and have have
Speaker 1: a fantastic week. The Office. Deep Dive is hosted and
Speaker 1: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My
Speaker 1: main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our theme
Speaker 1: song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,
Speaker 1: and the episode was mixed by Seth Olandsky