‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Said This Jim and Pam Moment Was 1 of the Hardest She Ever Laughed on the Show
The Office star Jenna Fischer shared the “hardest she ever laughed” while shooting was during a hilarious Jim and Pam scene. She clarified that the moment came in a close second to a classic Michael Scott moment where no one in the room could keep it together.
Jim bought his parents’ house for Pam on ‘The Office’
During the July 21 Office Ladies podcast, Fischer and Angela Kinsey discussed The Office Season 5 episode “Frame Toby.” In the episode, Jim surprises Pam with a house he bought for her — his parents’ house.
Jim shares how he’s going to reveal his surprise to Pam and he mentions some of the less desirable aspects of the house he bought.
“Today’s a big day. Today’s the day that I show Pam the house that I bought for us. Without telling her. But it’s my parents’ house, the house I grew up in and yeah, I bought it kind of impulsively. I mean, the price was good and I was helping out my mom. It’s got shag carpets. I mean you can’t blame my parents, it was the ’70s. And why would you want to buy ugly wood from trees when you can have paneling? And a painting of some creepy clown that is apparently crucial to the structural integrity of the building. She’s gonna love it. Right?”
Jenna Fischer said this is the ‘second hardest’ she laughed on ‘The Office’
After surprising her at his parents’ house, Jim gives a stunned Pam the official tour. She stops and looks at the painting and he explains that it can’t be removed.
“Yeah, I am really sorry about this,” Jim tells her about the painting. “I tried to move it but he is really nailed in there. Worried about art theft, I guess, lot of art thieves in this neighborhood.”
During the podcast, Fischer shared a behind-the-scenes detail about shooting the house scenes. The clown painting provided an especially challenging moment for Fischer and John Krasinski.
“The scene where Jim is trying to take the clown painting off the wall for Pam is one of the hardest I’ve ever laughed on the show,” she explained.
She clarified, “It is the second hardest time. The first was when we did the scene in ‘Dinner Party’ where Michael’s showing us the tiny TV on the wall. This is the second.”
Fischer explained that getting through the quick moment was no easy task. “Every time John tried to lift the painting on the wall, I could not stop laughing. I don’t know what it was,” she said. “Tears, tears, choking on our laughter. We laughed so hard. I looked for it in the bloopers and it’s not there. And I’m so upset it’s not there.”
The actor added, “It took us like an hour to shoot that tiny moment of him… trying to take the painting off the wall.”
John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer hid their laughter during the garage scene
After Jim gives Pam the tour, they end up in the garage, where he’s made a little art studio for her and he begins to explain that if she hates the house, it’s OK. She tells him she loves it and the scene ends on a funny note.
Fischer explained how the two had to hide their laughter. “So then at the end of the scene in the garage, when we’re hugging, I improvised the line, ‘What about the clown?’ And it made John laugh,” she shared. “And that’s why he’s like burying his head into my neck.”
“And then when he said, ‘Yeah, I can’t do anything about that,’ it made me laugh. And so I’m like smashing my face into his shoulder,” she added. “You can totally tell we’re breaking. And that’s why. It was because we were still — any time we brought up the clown painting, we lost it.”
