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. Now, going back to
Speaker 1: the pilot, it seems to me that so like your
Speaker 1: test experience, right, there were a number of things that
Speaker 1: were unique and different that came from from Ken or
Speaker 1: Greg or a combination. Um, what are some of the
Speaker 1: things that you remember that we're different in the way
Speaker 1: that the pilot was shot from say a normal television show.
Speaker 1: I remember on the pilot, everyone in the cast had
Speaker 1: to be hair and makeup ready and at their desk
Speaker 1: starting at seven thirty am, and we would work quote
Speaker 1: unquote for thirty minutes. And Ken would walk around with
Speaker 1: just a camera operator and a boom and record us
Speaker 1: at our desks. Just be roll of us at our desks, right,
Speaker 1: And what what did you think of the pilot when
Speaker 1: you saw it? What did I think of the pilot
Speaker 1: when I saw it. I must have watched that pilot
Speaker 1: a gazillion times. I have a very embarrassing story about
Speaker 1: watching them. Okay, go ahead. So um. There was a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend who was this big deal manager
Speaker 1: and he really wanted to see the pilot. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I have a DVD of the pilot. Maybe I'll take
Speaker 1: it to his office. But I was so afraid of
Speaker 1: it leaking that I insisted that he watched it while
Speaker 1: I sit across from him. I wouldn't leave the office
Speaker 1: without the DVD. I was like, well, you can watch it,
Speaker 1: but you have to watch it right now while I wait,
Speaker 1: what was I doing? I was nobody. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Isn't that so weird? So bizarre? But he really wanted
Speaker 1: to see it because everybody in town wanted to see
Speaker 1: the pilot. Everyone wanted to see it. They were dying
Speaker 1: to see what this American version of the British show
Speaker 1: was going to be. Now, Brian, do you remember coming
Speaker 1: to my house and watching the pilot and sitting on
Speaker 1: 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 was like yeah, and I remember my dog
Speaker 1: got out and I had to chase my dog down
Speaker 1: the street. That's another story, but but that was sort
Speaker 1: of the beginning of us all gathering together to watch
Speaker 1: the show every week, which is what we did. That's
Speaker 1: so I've totally forgot about that. Um So, so we're
Speaker 1: in a real office space and we are doing this
Speaker 1: fake work, b rural stuff, like all of these elements
Speaker 1: to try to create sort of the ultimate reality. And
Speaker 1: to me that there's something interesting. Well, what would you
Speaker 1: say your 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 disk, 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 we've got b J and Craig Robinson
Speaker 1: that are stand up guys. Primarily to me, there's there
Speaker 1: was something about the creation of the ensemble that there
Speaker 1: were all of these funny people, but they all sort
Speaker 1: of had a different perspective, and there was something about
Speaker 1: the reality, sort of the ultra reality of being stuck
Speaker 1: in this room and doing this work and always being
Speaker 1: there together that that sort of helped meld us together
Speaker 1: in a weird way. Yeah, I think if we had
Speaker 1: all been improv performers, it would have been a ship show, right,
Speaker 1: Or if we were all theater people, we would have
Speaker 1: been taking off all of ourselves too. Seriously, the mix
Speaker 1: was important, like the way all of the ingredients came together.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, another thing that was really
Speaker 1: unusual was that we were all always at work, because
Speaker 1: if you weren't a scene, you were in the background
Speaker 1: of a scene. We would joke sometimes we'd be like,
Speaker 1: do none of us go to the bathroom? We never
Speaker 1: leave for lunch, Like we're always all at our desks.
Speaker 1: By season six or seven, people were going to the
Speaker 1: bathroom a little bit more from Time to Die more
Speaker 1: more often then Um, all right, well theoter nerd. How
Speaker 1: is Pam different from Jenna? Well, it would not take
Speaker 1: me three years to tell Jim that I had feelings
Speaker 1: for him. I mean, I would have dumped Roy much quicker.
Speaker 1: I would have been like, who's this guy? Because not
Speaker 1: just that, I mean when we meet Pam and Jim,
Speaker 1: they've already been working together for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and then it's still three more years after that before
Speaker 1: they figure some stuff out. I mean, I I'm much
Speaker 1: more ambitious, much more of an entrepreneurial spirit than Pam. However,
Speaker 1: the way that we are very similar is that it
Speaker 1: took me a long time, like Pam, to figure out
Speaker 1: how to speak up for myself. Like Pam, I spent
Speaker 1: many years sitting at a reception desk wishing that I
Speaker 1: was doing something else. I literally sat at reception desks
Speaker 1: and day dreamed about the day that I might be
Speaker 1: an actor. And Pam sits at that desk and she
Speaker 1: daydreams about being artistically expressed, And so I could really
Speaker 1: relate to that, that feeling of I want something more
Speaker 1: than what I'm doing, but I don't know how to
Speaker 1: 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 that was the messaging that I was
Speaker 1: getting from my parents. You gotta go for it. Do
Speaker 1: what you love in life. Even if you aren't successful,
Speaker 1: you'll be glad you did it. I mean, I had
Speaker 1: those kind of parents. They didn't support me financially as
Speaker 1: an actor, but they supported my spirit and they were
Speaker 1: always is there for that pep talk, And I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I can explain how valuable
Speaker 1: that was. And it was clear to me that Pam
Speaker 1: didn't have some of those tools and her toolbox. Do
Speaker 1: you do you think that Greg and the writing staff,
Speaker 1: because in a way they were masterful about this, right
Speaker 1: about finding things, finding things that were true to you
Speaker 1: the actor, and incorporating them into the story. Do you
Speaker 1: think that Pam's want and desire to be an artist
Speaker 1: and to be seen in that way? Do you think
Speaker 1: that there's anything that was taken from you. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: because if I remember correctly, I feel like the character
Speaker 1: on the British show had some minor desire to be
Speaker 1: an artist. Doesn't doesn't the Tim character give Don some
Speaker 1: drawing pencils at some point? Am I making that up?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I don't know, But um I do
Speaker 1: know that Greg used to ask me questions about my thoughts,
Speaker 1: and that that was so unusual. The fact that several
Speaker 1: of our writers were also actors, so they were down
Speaker 1: with us, they were observing us all the time. I
Speaker 1: mean you, Angela and Oscar single handedly created that insane
Speaker 1: dynamic between the three of you through I believe improvisation
Speaker 1: when you were bored in the background, and so then
Speaker 1: you've got Mindy, b J and Paul watching you guys
Speaker 1: and then taking that back up to the writer's room
Speaker 1: and flushing it out. It was genius that Gregg did
Speaker 1: it that way. But then more than that, Greg truly
Speaker 1: believed that no one knew our characters more than we did,
Speaker 1: and he would ask us questions all the time. He
Speaker 1: cared about our opinions. He wanted to know all the time,
Speaker 1: what do you think Pam would think of this situation.
Speaker 1: He was always very curious. He also knew that I
Speaker 1: worked in offices and that I had worked as a receptionist,
Speaker 1: and he used to ask me questions, what's the craziest
Speaker 1: thing one of your boss has ever made you do?
Speaker 1: And I can't remember if I told the story to
Speaker 1: him before or after, But there's that episode where Michael
Speaker 1: is refusing to sign all of his documents until the
Speaker 1: end of the day. He just keeps putting it off
Speaker 1: and putting it off and putting it off. And I
Speaker 1: told Greg I had this boss once that every month,
Speaker 1: at the end of the month, he had to turn
Speaker 1: in this boiler plate report and he would put it
Speaker 1: off and put it off. In one time, he put
Speaker 1: it off so long I had to drive to l
Speaker 1: a X because that was the last FedEx pickup. And
Speaker 1: I was so pissed. And Greg was like he loved
Speaker 1: those stories. He loved whenever we told him stories like that,
Speaker 1: and they would get used. Okay, so was you have
Speaker 1: the pilot we eventually air. It's striking to me that
Speaker 1: you started like December ish right of like two thousand
Speaker 1: three into January. We shot the pilot in February of
Speaker 1: two thousand four, and it's thirteen months before anything gets
Speaker 1: on the air. It's not so, I mean, it's well,
Speaker 1: I've got a story about that. We shot the pilot
Speaker 1: in March of two thousand four, and my thirtieth birthday
Speaker 1: was March seven of two thousand four, and I did
Speaker 1: not invite any of you to my thirtieth birthday party
Speaker 1: because I assumed I would never see you again. I
Speaker 1: was so sure that making the pilot was the end
Speaker 1: of our show, that it would never get picked up,
Speaker 1: not because it wasn't good, but because it was so
Speaker 1: good and so weird and so special that no one
Speaker 1: would give us a chance. I thought, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: All the word on the street was just how fun
Speaker 1: making your pilot? That's all it'll be. And then, similarly,
Speaker 1: have fun making your next five episodes. They'll probably just
Speaker 1: be yours to own on a DVD enjoy. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so then we go back, We make these five episodes
Speaker 1: in a complete bubble, and then it was not until yeah,
Speaker 1: like that following what was it? Was it like April
Speaker 1: of two thousand five? They started March of two thousand five,
Speaker 1: they finally start airing and they had to tell us
Speaker 1: by May if we were picked up for the second season,
Speaker 1: then yes, yeah, crazy, and we were a disaster, like
Speaker 1: a ratings disaster. Well, if if it were today, we
Speaker 1: would be a ratings hit right off the bat, because
Speaker 1: but yes, we were a ratings disaster. But then you
Speaker 1: know what happened, and I know exactly why we got
Speaker 1: picked up. It was that four year old Virgin came out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fort year old Virtue came out. And I can I
Speaker 1: can hear in my imagination a conference room filled with
Speaker 1: NBC executives all saying, we aren't going to be the
Speaker 1: assholes who let Steve Correll, the number one box office comedy,
Speaker 1: start out of his television contract. Right, we're picking up
Speaker 1: this show for six episodes of season two. Again, six
Speaker 1: episodes is all we got for season two. But then
Speaker 1: they really did Taylor the show more to Steve, more
Speaker 1: to what Steve would be as Michael rather than um
Speaker 1: as inspired by David Brent. So what do you remember?
Speaker 1: What differences do you remember between one and two? Like
Speaker 1: artistic changes, artistic changes. I think the biggest thing I
Speaker 1: noticed was when we started season two, Steve had lost
Speaker 1: like what twenty pounds are more. I don't know. He
Speaker 1: was so fit because he had gotten in shape for
Speaker 1: four year old virgin. And they started allowing the character
Speaker 1: of Michael to be more sympath addict. They would let
Speaker 1: him break our heart a little bit. Even in the Dundees,
Speaker 1: for example, you see a bunch of people heckel Michael,
Speaker 1: and then you see the people in the office stand
Speaker 1: up for Michael. And in the first season none of
Speaker 1: us ever stood up for Michael. We all just hated Michael.
Speaker 1: But they started to allow Steve to display vulnerability, which
Speaker 1: he's so good at. But then also you have an
Speaker 1: episode in season two, like the Client, where you see
Speaker 1: Michael start out as what seems like a total buffoon
Speaker 1: and turn into a masterful salesperson. Right, you see a
Speaker 1: reason that he actually has this job. Yes, And I
Speaker 1: think those were differences. In the first season, we just
Speaker 1: really leaned into his mean spirited buffoonery the ways he
Speaker 1: irritated us. But now in season two we were bringing
Speaker 1: out sprinklings of these very redeeming qualities in him. Or
Speaker 1: even the Halloween episode in season two where at the
Speaker 1: very end, after he's had this horrible day of having
Speaker 1: to fire someone, you see him hand out candy to
Speaker 1: these little kids. It makes me cry every time I
Speaker 1: watch it every time, or the end of Office Olympics
Speaker 1: where he's crying because everyone is so genuinely applauding for
Speaker 1: his purchase of a condo. These little moments in each episode.
Speaker 1: There seemed to be one in each episode that was
Speaker 1: very different from season one. Right um season two, everything
Speaker 1: everything changed, Right, so we have six episodes, and then
Speaker 1: we do six episodes, and then didn't we get four more?
Speaker 1: And then three more and then two? And then what
Speaker 1: I remember very clearly was sometime after the New year,
Speaker 1: they said, okay, you can finish two, and then within
Speaker 1: two weeks we had an order for season three, a
Speaker 1: full order. I did not remember that. Yes I do.
Speaker 1: Do you think I'm wrong? No, I don't ge're wrong.
Speaker 1: I always wondered because to me, I did not feel
Speaker 1: like I had job security until Steve won the Golden Globe.
Speaker 1: Well there was that, and then there was iTunes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they started doing the video iPods. The Christmas episode went
Speaker 1: to number one like that, and the Christmas episode on
Speaker 1: TV was our highest rated show. So it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, from December to January, suddenly things changed, and
Speaker 1: then after season two we won the Emmy. Yes, is
Speaker 1: there anything specific about that night that you remember? I
Speaker 1: remember that Emmy's because at this point now we had
Speaker 1: become a bit of a critical darling. So in the beginning,
Speaker 1: the critics hated us and they only compared us to
Speaker 1: the British show. And then we had turned them around
Speaker 1: now in time for the this Emmy Awards, and so
Speaker 1: being at these awards, we were the new kids on
Speaker 1: the block. We were super fresh. The critics loved us,
Speaker 1: but we were still not a front runner to win,
Speaker 1: and so it was a complete surprise when we won.
Speaker 1: Many people there had no idea who we were. They
Speaker 1: didn't recognize us. It's funny, I remember um. I remember
Speaker 1: running into the cast of Scrubs and they were like
Speaker 1: the big deal guys, and we were the newbies and
Speaker 1: 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 award 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 Scranton. 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, coal mine.
Speaker 1: It was like that, you know, working all that stuff
Speaker 1: into the show. I know it really always broke Greg's
Speaker 1: heart that we never shot an episode in Scranton. Every
Speaker 1: year they would toy with idea of taking us there,
Speaker 1: and it was just always cost prohibitive. I know Greg's
Speaker 1: dream was that we would shoot the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
Speaker 1: This is so crazy that you're saying this. That was
Speaker 1: literally when asked my biggest regret, that was it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say the same. My biggest regret was that
Speaker 1: we never shot in Scranton, but the city of Scranton.
Speaker 1: I remember one year they were really looking into this
Speaker 1: parade idea and they agreed to move their parade two
Speaker 1: months earlier, you know, because we would have to shoot
Speaker 1: before St. Patrick's Day. So they were going to have
Speaker 1: their St. Patrick's Day parade in January, and they just
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out, cost wise how to get the entire
Speaker 1: cast and crew there. Right, to me, it's it's this
Speaker 1: weird like dichotomy thing where even though it was about
Speaker 1: Scranton where very few people had gone right on a
Speaker 1: national scale, like people don't know those places, but having
Speaker 1: those details sprinkled into me somehow translated to making it
Speaker 1: more universal. I absolutely agree with you. I think as
Speaker 1: a person who grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, me
Speaker 1: and other people who grew up there, we so identify
Speaker 1: our city as part of us, and so it made
Speaker 1: it more universally real that we identified so strongly with
Speaker 1: the city we were in Scranton, and I think that's
Speaker 1: true of a lot of people where you grow up, right. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: there's just I love that city and there's something about
Speaker 1: my connection to that city. Do you remember the I
Speaker 1: can't remember the year, but the presidential election right where
Speaker 1: everybody who was running somehow suddenly everybody was from Scranton, right,
Speaker 1: like Joe Biden, Scranton connection, Hillary Clinton. They're all trying
Speaker 1: 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 the 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 now, 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 my Space Yes we're going to discuss Yes. 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
Speaker 1: Remote yeah, all of the stuff. Yes, the idea of
Speaker 1: these bloggers. We had a bunch of fan sites. We
Speaker 1: had Office Tally dot com run by Jenny Tan and
Speaker 1: this gal, Jenny did such a good job of running
Speaker 1: this website that she would we would invite her to
Speaker 1: visit the set and give her exclusives and things. And
Speaker 1: then there was Northern Attack that was based on that
Speaker 1: line from Diversity Day as Abraham Lincoln said, I will
Speaker 1: attack you with the north Northern Attack. I love northern,
Speaker 1: so give me my remote Northern Attack. All of these
Speaker 1: TV websites and bloggers people started blogging about us, and
Speaker 1: we were cool, right, like, oh no, totally yeah, And
Speaker 1: so this was happening for the 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
Speaker 1: Lang Lee. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer, our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor is Diego Tapia.
Speaker 1: My main man in the booth is Alec Moore. Our
Speaker 1: theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend
Speaker 1: Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olansky