‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Reveals the Reason Jim and Pam Work So Well Together
The Office wouldn’t be The Office without Jim and Pam’s love story.
From the moment Jim Halpert fell in love with the funny receptionist with the curly hair, fans of the sitcom were invested in the outcome of PB&J. After one Niagara Falls wedding, two kids, and nine seasons, The Office fandom went on quite the journey with the sitcom’s star couple. There’s no doubt that Jim and Pam are soup snakes. According to Jenna Fischer, there’s a reason Pam and Jim work so well together.
Jim and Pam are such a believable couple because John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer ‘have real chemistry’
From the moment they auditioned together, Fischer felt she and John Krasinski had chemistry.
“[John Krasinski] wasn’t just the best Jim — he was Jim,” Fischer writes in her book, The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide. “I remember the day we met. As I was being shown to the actor’s holding room, he was just being called in to read with another potential Pam… As he passed by, he introduced himself, and we shook hands. It was if lightning struck through the center of the room.”
And the feeling was mutual. After they auditioned together, Krasinski told Fischer he thought she should get the part of Pam.
“John and I were walking out of an audition scene, and he suddenly turned to me and whispered, ‘You’re my favorite Pam. I hope you get this job,’” Fischer writes. “It was exactly as sweet and cute and supportive as anything Jim would say to Pam. I smiled really big and said, ‘I’m so glad you said that because you’re my favorite Jim and I don’t think anyone could do it except for you.’”
During the casting process, Fischer told The Office team that she “couldn’t do Pam without him.” And the rest is history.
On an episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Fischer spoke again about the chemistry she shared with Krasinski.
“John and I have real chemistry,” she said. “There’s like a real part of me that is Pam and a real part of him that’s Jim and those parts of us were genuinely in love with one another.”
Fischer continued: “But in real life, we aren’t totally Pam and totally Jim, so in real life, we’re not the perfect match.”
‘The Office’ fans used to wish Jenna and John were together in real life
Because their chemistry was so palpable on-screen, many devout Office fans just couldn’t bear the thought of Fischer and Krasinski not being together in real life. In fact, Fischer’s interview with Cohen was taken out of context by some of the more intense PB&J shippers. But both Krasinski and Fischer eventually made it clear that they were never in love at any point.
In July 2010, just seven days apart, Fischer married writer Lee Kirk and Krasinski married actor Emily Blunt.
But Krasinski and Fischer will always be friends because of their time on The Office.
“He was my partner,” Fischer said on the show. “We will always be close because of it.”
