‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Admits She Was Jealous of These Cast Members

The cast of The Office were a tight-knit group — so when there was an occasion where some of the cast went off for a storyline away from the Scranton office, their absence was felt. During an episode of the Office Ladies podcast, hosts Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey admitted that they had some FOMO about other cast members.

‘The Office’ would focus on some characters in a different setting

During the July 1 Office Ladies podcast, Fischer and Kinsey chatted with their guest, Mindy Kaling, about the “Diwali” episode and they discussed how there were times when a smaller group of characters would have an arc.

“I really liked the Stamford episodes,” Kaling said of the episodes with Jim, Karen, and Andy when Jim transferred to a different branch. Kaling, who was a writer on the show in addition to playing Kelly, noted, “Sometimes when we did that it worked really well.”

“The best example of that was the Michael Scott Paper Company, which was like, to me, one of my favorite arcs we’ve ever done,” Kaling explained. “I don’t think I wrote any of the episodes for you guys there but it has, I think, that pairing of people, that group of people on their mission was one of the times I was like ‘wow this is just like equally, if not more funny” than what was happening in the Dunder Mifflin office.

“I loved being in Michael Scott Paper Company. I kind of didn’t want that arc to end,” Fischer noted.

Kaling added, “It could have been its own movie… It felt like it was its own Bad News Bears type movie.”

Kinsey and Fischer had FOMO

While those smaller groupings from the main cast provided an opportunity for more storytelling, Fischer and Kinsey found, in the case of the Stamford storyline, that they were jealous of John Krasinski, Ed Helms, and Rashida Jones, who played Jim, Andy, and Karen.

Kinsey and Fischer talked about how they felt some major FOMO (fear of missing out) and were jealous of the Stamford Office actors.

“What I really liked about Stamford was that was a really funny group of people there, even the people that didn’t have big parts,” Kaling shared.

“We talked a little bit about having, over on the Scranton set, like Angela and I having a little bit of FOMO and jealousy of how much fun they were having over on Stamford because everybody was so funny,” Fischer explained. “And also they would only have to work like one and a half days a week, they were super relaxed and just like having the best time and then they got four days off. And we were just like ‘hey…’”

Fischer found it ‘super weird’

Kinsey and Fischer spoke about their jealousy before in the May 20 Office Ladies podcast episode. “The Stamford branch was over on our warehouse set… we had two big soundstages and one soundstage was completely dedicated to the Scranton branch and the other soundstage was our warehouse set and also what we called our swing set,” Fischer explained. “So anytime we had to build, for example, the New York offices, they had a section of the warehouse that they could put up the New York offices and then they would take them down.”

Fischer said that Krasinski filming on the other soundstage was “super weird.”

“He was so super gushy about Ed and Rashida and working over on the Stamford set. He seemed like he was having the best time. I think I had a little FOMO,” she continued.

Kinsey added, “And then when we had table reads and they were all there they had like inside jokes.”