‘The Office’: Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson Were ‘Cracking Each Other Up’ During This Hilarious Scene
The cast of The Office often found it challenging to get through scenes without breaking. During the Office Ladies podcast, Jenna Fischer revealed a moment when Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson were “cracking each other up” so much, she said the scene “went on forever.”
Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson couldn’t get through 1 scene in the ‘Hot Girl’ episode
While discussing The Office Season 1 episode “Hot Girl” during a November 2019 episode of the Office Ladies podcast, Fischer and co-host Angela Kinsey got into some behind-the-scenes details.
In the episode, a woman named Katy, played by Amy Adams, comes to the office and sells handbags in the conference room for the day. Dwight and Michael attempt to get flirty with her, but neither succeeds at wooing Katy.
Fischer recalled a line that Wilson delivered in a scene with Carell that had them laughing so hard they couldn’t get through it.
“Michael tells Dwight that he is going to be giving Katy a ride home,” Fischer recalled. “And Dwight asking if he loves her — ‘Do you love her? Do you love her?’ I remember they could not get through that scene.”
“The two of them were cracking each other up. It went on forever,” she added.
“Not only do we love that Dwight is like, ‘Do you love her?’,” Kinsey interjected. “I love that Michael’s like ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t say.'”
In the scene, Dwight tells Michael, “Please, I am your inferior and I’m asking you this favor. Can you promise me that it will just be a ride home?” and Michael says he can’t promise that.
When Dwight asks, “Do you love her?,” Michael says, “Dwight, no. I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. I don’t know how I feel.”
Jenna Fischer found this scene with John Krasinski challenging
In the “Hot Girl” episode, Jim convinces Dwight to approach Katy by buying a purse from her. After talking Dwight into it, Jim and Pam have a little fun by voicing the conversation from a distance.
Fischer admitted that it was hard for her to do the scene because it required improvising and she didn’t feel so quick on her feet in the moment.
A fan wondered about whether the scene was scripted. “When Jim and Pam start awkwardly narrating the interaction, was that scene scripted or did John and Jenna just play off whatever Rainn decided to do?” the fan asked the Office Ladies hosts.
“It was improvised,” Fischer said. “We were on set and we had a little scripted scene and then it was suggested that we narrate what was going on. I think it was John’s idea.”
“So Rainn knew that we were going to do that,” the actor continued. “So he started doing all kinds of crazy stuff with the purses like slamming on the desk … to give us weird things to say.”
She admitted that improvisation isn’t one of her better acting skills, however. “And I really froze. I am not a great improviser in like comedy, improv, sketch comedy,” Fischer said. “I took a couple of those classes and I always really tanked. I froze.”
“I’m very good at improvising in a specific character, but not if the specific character has to be funny and say clever things,” she added. “That’s not my forte.”
