‘The Office:’ Jenna Fischer Wasn’t the Only Emotional One in the Season Three Finale
The Office fans hold the love story of Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly close to their hearts. Portrayed by John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer, viewers watched the couple go from flirtation to marriage during the show’s nine seasons.
With the audience invested in the will-they-or-won’t-they storyline, Fischer revealed even the director got emotional when Jim finally asked Pam for a date at the end of season three.
Interesting instructions for ‘The Office’ audition
In an interview with NPR in 2013, Fischer described how a casting director advised her to approach the audition for the role of Pam.
“What she said was, don’t come in looking pretty… a lot of times, when you go in on an audition, they want you to look inappropriately sexy or hot for the role,” Fischer said. “I used to get called in to play things like, oh, like, a third-grade schoolteacher but look really hot… When I went in for The Office, the casting director said to me, please look normal. Don’t make yourself all pretty.'”
Fischer also received another interesting directive. “Dare to bore me with your audition,” she recalled. “Those were her words. Dare to bore me.”
Jenna Fischer spills on how ‘The Office’ is filmed
The mockumentary-style comedy became a groundbreaking format launched by the NBC sitcom. Filmed during full scenes and also with characters doing individual “talking head” interviews, the directors of The Office were practically cast members themselves.
“When we’re just shooting the show and it’s a scene, the camera operator is this man named Randall Einhorn,” Fischer described. “And he’s our director of photography. We will look at him, we’ll give him the look, or we’ll look into the camera at him. He’s become another character or another actor on the show to us. So, we do actually act with him.”
Fischer revealed how emotionally invested those running the camera will become with certain scenes.
“It’s really cute – whenever Pam smiles at the camera, Randall can’t help but smile back,” The Office star said. “There are scenes that we’ve done that have been really touching. And you’ll look at Randall, and he’ll be, you know, sort of teared up.”
Are there any tissues in ‘The Office?’
Fischer went on to explain how the interview segments are filmed, with a cast favorite director at the helm for the season three finale.
“When we shoot our talking heads… the director of the episode serves as our documentarian for that week,” she told NPR in 2013. “One director we’re particularly attached to is Ken Kwapis. He directed our very first episode… last year, he directed the finale. And he’s always taken a particular interest in Pam and her journey. So, I feel very close to him.”
At the end of the third season, Jim and Pam are finally both unattached and Jim finally gets his nerve up to ask the Dunder Mifflin receptionist for a date. Apparently, the scene was so moving it resulted in some happy tears on both sides of the camera.
“When Jim burst into the conference room while Pam’s giving an interview, and he finally asks her out on a date, I turned to the camera. In the moment that they used, I’m sort of tearing up,” Fischer described. “When I looked back at the camera, I saw Ken Kwapis… his eyes were full of tears. And he smiled at me and gave me a little wink.”
The Office alum noted that due to their unique format, she was able to interact with those behind the camera more closely than in a typical shooting style.
“It was a really powerful moment between me and the director,” Fischer shared. “There’s a lot of acting that happens on the show that is with our crew members or, you know, people – that doesn’t normally happen when you’re making a movie or a television show.”
