‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Says She Can ‘Barely Watch’ This Michael Scott Scene Because It’s ‘So Uncomfortable’
The Office has no shortage of cringey moments — with the bulk of them coming from Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell. During an episode of the Office Ladies podcast, host Jenna Fischer explained how there’s one talking head interview in particular that she can “barely watch” because it makes her uncomfortable.
Michael Scott gets annoyed with Andy
During the August 26 episode of the Office Ladies podcast, Fischer and her co-host Angela Kinsey discussed the season 3 episode “The Return,” which sees Dwight (Rainn Wilson) away at another job and Andy (Ed Helms) trying to step in as Michael’s right-hand man.
Andy’s attempts to kiss up to his boss make Michael increasingly more annoyed until he tells off Andy which, coupled with a prank Jim has pulled on him, sends Andy into a rage and he punches the wall.
During the episode, Michael asks Jim (John Krasinski) what he thinks of Andy and Jim tells him, “Andy’s a yes man.” Michael addresses the idea of Andy being a butt kisser in a talking head story about his childhood experience with literal butt kissing.
The moment, Fischer said, was uncomfortable.
This moment makes Jenna Fischer ‘uncomfortable’
In the talking head interview, Michael explains that when he was five, his mother was tucking him into bed and attempted to give him a raspberry on his tummy.
He squirmed away and her raspberry kiss landed on his butt. He wasn’t a fan. “It was just the worst,” he explains. “So I know what it’s like to have your butt kissed, literally, and it’s terrible. And it better not be what Andy is doing.”
During their chat about the episode, Kinsey gushed about Carell’s performance and how fans got to see a different side of him when Andy annoyed him.
“Steve is so brilliant in this episode,” Kinsey explained. “I know we talk about how good he is every week but he had to… the way he reacts to Andy is like a whole new version of Michael Scott we haven’t seen. And he’s so brilliant.”
Jenna agreed, but pointed out how uncomfortable one of his talking heads was. “He has this talking head that I can’t even barely watch because… the way Steve delivers it is so masterful but the whole thing just makes me so uncomfortable,” she explained. “Whenever Michael talks about his childhood, I get scared. I just feel like, I don’t want more details about his loneliness and his need for attention and his… all of it.”
Kinsey noted, “His awkward interactions with his mom and stepdad Jeff… yeah. I know.”
Jenna Fischer said another scene about Michael’s childhood ‘hit me so hard’
During an April episode of Office Ladies, Fischer shared another Michael moment that was difficult to watch. In a season 2 episode, Michael shows an old video of himself on a children’s show.
When he’s asked what he wants to be when he grows up, the young Michael says, “I want to be married and have 100 kids so I can have 100 friends and no one can say no to being my friend.”
“This is when I had to turn off the episode,” Fischer explained.
“It hit me so hard, I don’t know why… this idea of just this little kid longing for friends… and Steve’s acting is so good in that moment,” she added.
