‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Used Her Feelings of Missing John Krasinski to Play Pam in Season 3
Season 3 of The Office takes a turn with Jim (John Krasinski) leaving the Scranton office to go to Stamford. That means he’s separated from Pam (Jenna Fischer) and everyone else. Fischer talked about how she used her feelings of missing Krasinski to play Pam.
Jenna Fischer said a part of her fell for John Krasinski
Pam and Jim had a lot of chemistry that helped them work as a couple. Fischer talked about getting to play that character with Krasinski.
“There’s like a real part of me that is Pam, and there’s a real part of him that’s Jim, and those parts of us were genuinely in love with one another,” she said on Watch What Happens Live. “But, in real life, we aren’t totally Pam and totally Jim. So in real life we’re not like the perfect match.”
Season 2 ended with their characters kissing. But things changed for season 3.
Jim goes to the Stamford office in season 3 of ‘The Office’
Season 3 starts with Jim working in the Stamford office. He has new co-workers with Karen Filippelli (Rashida Jones) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms.)
He has an awkward start in the new office because his pranks don’t go over well on Andy. Karen also gives him a hard time with her own pranks.
Jim doesn’t spend much time with the people in the Scranton office and that’s on purpose. He leaves after he tells Pam that he wants to be more than friends and she turns him down.
Fischer used her feelings of missing Krasinski
Fischer and Angela Kinsey talked about the episode “Gay Witch Hunt” on their podcast, Office Ladies. They described what it was like to be without Krasinski.
“I remember it was super weird that we didn’t have him with us for like six or eight weeks,” Fischer said. Kinsey said they would sometimes run into him for a wardrobe fitting or lunch and they would ask about filming on a different set.
“He was so super gushy about Ed [Helms] and Rashida [Jones] and working over on the Stamford set,” Fischer said. “He seemed like he was having the best time and again I think I had a little fomo. I was like ‘What’s happening over in Stamford? Why’s it so great over there?'”
The Stamford scenes were shot on different days than the original cast so they wouldn’t see each other. Kinsey said this helped “build the tension.”
Fischer admitted, “Oh Angela, I completely used all of my feelings with John being over on that other set to the character of Pam. Because you really became closest with the people you had the most scenes with because you had to spend so much down time with them and for those whole two first years of the show I was paired with John so often.”
She continued, “He really was my buddy. I spent a lot of time with him and now he was just gone.” It’s a good thing that Pam and Jim eventually reunited.
