‘The Office’: What Angela Kinsey Was Thinking Whenever She Had to Make the ‘Angela Martin Face’
“Poop is raining from the ceilings. Poop!” The Office fans will recall this season 3 episode and, more importantly, the scowl on Angela Martin’s face in this scene. Played by the talent that is Angela Kinsey, Angela Martin was often sporting a bad attitude in the NBC comedy. During a phone conversation, Showbiz Cheat Sheet learned what Kinsey was really thinking about whenever Angela Martin was angry in The Office.
Angela Martin is a cold, stern accountant
You don’t get to become head of the Party Planning Committee by being nice! Angela Martin is one of the most no-nonsense characters from The Office, second only to Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson).
Throughout The Office, Angela always played by the rules, except for when she was cheating on her husband with Dwight. Angela may be one of the most critical and judgmental Dunder Mifflin employees — a trait that was probably born from her childhood beauty pageant days — but many fans love the energy she brings to the show. Fortunately, Kinsey isn’t too similar to the often-aggravated role she played on television.
Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey get stopped by ‘The Office’ fans for photos
During a conversation with Conan O’Brien, Kinsey talked about meeting fans of The Office. Whenever she’s with Jenna Fischer and fans stop them, something interesting happens. The fans want Fischer to smile, but they ask Kinsey to make her “Angela Martin face” — that signature scowl many people have come to know and love.
“They want her to smile and be Pam and then they pivot to me and I smile for the picture and they say, ‘Actually, can you do your Angela Martin face?'” she said on the Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. “There’s all these photos of Jenna smiling and I’m a grump right next to her!”
Angela Kinsey says becoming Angela Martin was like flipping a switch
We nearly stumped Kinsey when we asked what she thought about while making the iconic Angela Martin face. “That’s so funny — no one has asked me that question in all of the years I’ve been interviewed,” Kinsey said.
Ironically, there wasn’t anything in particular Kinsey thought about to help her achieve her signature look. “Is that scary that I could just flip the switch?” she laughed.
Playing Angela on ‘The Office’ was therapeutic for the actor
In reality, Kinsey grew up in a southern home where there weren’t many confrontations. Instead, Kinsey said her family would often use, “‘Bless her heart’ and then say something tacky” whenever they were frustrated with something.
“[You’d say] ‘Bless her heart’ and then you know you’re going to say something horrible,” Kinsey explained. “For me, Angela Martin was just so fun to play [because she’s] someone who didn’t put up any veil for their anger emotion.”
As someone who isn’t confrontational in her real life, Kinsey never wants to make a fuss or come off as a miserable person. But when it came to playing Angela Martin, “it was kind of fun to let out the grump!” For Kinsey, playing that role was one of the great joys of her life that happened to be therapeutic, too.
