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Almost starring an alias, ruling the poker
tables in Edinburgh, and lollipops for the

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homeless, maybe there's more to the woman
behind Pam from The Office than you thought

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Here's the untold truth of Jenna Fischer. Growing up in St. Louis, Jenna
Fischer's idol was her mother, Anne, who often acted in church plays

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while Fischer and her sister Emily helped her
memorize her lines. Anne taught five-year-old

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Fischer in an acting workshop at her school,
and two important things happened. First

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While pretending a toy mailbox was
a microphone made the future Office

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star realize that she could be an actor, secondly,
she met a boy in that class named Sean Gunn

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Years later, when she ran into Gunn on a
visit home after she had moved to Los Angeles

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he told her he was going out to start his own acting career.
Once out there, he helped her make a number of vital contacts

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He got her into an acting showcase that
garnered the attention of the person who

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would become their manager, jumpstarting her
career. He also introduced her to his brother

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James, the director who would later become
Fisher's husband. Even after they split

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Fisher remained friends with the Gunn brothers. Jenna Fisher told
St. Louis art channel HEC-TV that when she first arrived in Hollywood

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she may have had an unrealistic
view of how soon she'd find success

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I'm gonna make it in six months.
And it was, it was not six months

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In fact, she went on to say that at that point, she
was in debt with no agent and horrible headshots

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She described herself as naive and wished she had
a mentor who would have helped her navigate things

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That's why she wrote The Actor's Life, A Survival Guide. It's not a book about
learning how to act, but a book about learning how to navigate the business

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of acting. Here, she points out, for example,
that only 5% of Screen Actors Guild members

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make over $100,000 a year. The median is $52,000.
And that's before agent and manager fees

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Even getting to the point where you have an agent is a difficult process.
Fisher also dishes out tips and advice based on her own experiences

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and talks a lot about food and taking advantage of
buffets, and urges actors to save food for later

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Prior to her breakthrough role in The Office,
Fisher wrote, directed, and starred in her own

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film, a mockumentary called Lollilove. Co-starring
her then-husband, director James Gunn, it depicted

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a rich couple attempting to improve the lives
of homeless people by giving them lollipops

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with uplifting messages on them. Co-starring
acting friends like Judy Greer, Linda Cardellini

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and Jason Segel, it gave Fisher a leg up
on the cringe comedy of mockumentaries

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Fisher earned a Screen Actors Guild Emerging Actor
Award at her hometown St. Louis Film Festival for

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the project, and she also received the Troma
Dance Kodak Independent Soul Award, presented

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to deserving directors of independent films.
Of the experience, Fisher told Playback

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"...it was a lot of hard work. The directing
was exhausting and the writing was painful

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It was very difficult to direct and star in a movie." She added that
the crew was so small on the movie that she ended up having to fill even

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more roles besides acting and directing, even
having to serve lunch. She summed it up by saying

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"'I'm good at multitasking, but that was too
much for me. I couldn't enjoy any one part

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the way I would have liked. I think I'll
stick to acting. That part was fantastic.

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In episode 43 of their podcast Office Ladies,
Jenna Fisher brought up to her co-host Angela

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Kinsey that she auditioned for the role of
Sydney Bristow on the television series Alias

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Fisher recalled that the scene she did during
her audition was extremely dramatic and emotional

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but ultimately it didn't land her the role
for a really disappointing reason, saying

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The feedback that my agent got was like, Jenna blew
us away. We absolutely loved it. Her scene was

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She just did a great job. We're gonna pass on her because
we just, unfortunately, don't think she's hot enough

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That was my feedback." Happily, all of this was followed
by Fisher and Kinsey discussing their idea of doing

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a mom detective show, where they
went around and solved minor crimes

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Of course, if Fisher had gotten the alias
role, she never would have had a shot at being

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Pam Beasley On The Office star Brian Baumgardner podcast An Oral History of the Office
the former Kevin Malone actor interviewed Jenna Fisher about her audition process

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Casting director Alison Jones told her in no
uncertain terms to play the part very real

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even going on to say, In fact, Jenna, dare to bore me. Fisher
had been a fan of the original The Office from England and

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the character of Don, and she knew that her
character had similar beats. At the same time

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she added her own experience as a receptionist
before she got her big break in Hollywood to

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create Pam's backstory in her mind,
and she used that in her audition

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When series showrunner Greg Daniels interviewed
her as though he was a documentarian

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he was stunned to see how realistic her performance was, especially when he
asked if she liked working as a secretary, to which she simply and wearily

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replied, no. Several seconds of silence
followed, and the rest is history

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I hope they get rid of me, because then I
might actually get off my ass and do something.

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When The Office was still in the audition process, Jenna
Fischer was paired with John Krasinski as her scene partner

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They quickly developed an easy chemistry,
and Fischer was delighted when she learned

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both had nailed down their roles. After two
seasons where the show grew in popularity

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and the aching sweetness between the characters
of Jim and Pam left viewers looking for hopeful

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signs, things shockingly came to a head in
the season two finale, perhaps the single most

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important episode of the entire series.
I was just, um, I'm in love with you

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What? Director Ken Quaffis noted that they only
used a single camera to record the scene with their

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first kiss and kept it away from the actors,
giving the real sense of eavesdropping for

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the viewers. In the Office Ladies podcast episode
discussing the show, Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski

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revealed that they were kept away from
each other for an hour before the scene

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to add to its nervous intensity. Fischer said, We never rehearsed
it on stage together, and I remember they brought me to set

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All the lights were dim, there was no one around. It was super eerie.
Their sixth season wedding episode was also a monumental event

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even being shot on location in Niagara Falls.
Balancing an episode where the premise wasn't

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necessarily funny, with the cringe humor
associated with the show was a difficult task

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At one point, writer Greg Daniels was pushing
for Pam's ex-fiancé, Roy, to show up on a

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horse and object to the wedding. Later, when
Pam would flatly turn him down, he was going

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to leave the horse there. Even later, Dwight
would ride on the horse and it would accidentally

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go over the edge of the falls. This bizarre idea
got a cold reception, with Daniels recalling

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the entire staff and actors were yelling at me, don't ruin Jim and
Pam's wedding with a horse. Instead, they substituted the Dunder Mifflin

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employees recreating the viral video of a
family doing a dance to Chris Brown's Forever

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The genius of the episode was that Jim and Pam
had anticipated their friends interfering with

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their wedding with these kinds of antics, so
their actual ceremony was on a water-swept boat

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moments before. Fisher's known for her side-eye
exasperation and fairly conservative wardrobe

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from The Office. Certain films, however, have
seen her playing against type. In the 2007 figure

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skating spoof Blades of Glory, Fisher plays Katie
Van Waldenburg, the younger sister of the sinister

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skating siblings played by Amy Poehler and Will
Arnett. There's a scene where she's sent to seduce

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Will Ferrell's character in order to break up his
skating duo, but they can't quite go through with it

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Hey, I didn't sleep with Katie! I know! We didn't
even get to second base! Well, maybe I did

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She later reflected on the part, saying, In 2007's Walk
Hard, The Dewey Cox Story, Fisher plays Darlene Madison

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one of Dewey's backup singers, who eventually
tempts him into cheating on his wife. Fisher said

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playing Darlene was liberating, noting, Jenna Fisher actually wasn supposed to appear in then James Gunn first film 2006
Slither Gunn had cast a male actor to play the role of police dispatcher Shelby but he begged off at the last moment Gunn then

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gender-swapped the role and gave it to Fisher,
adding a few more scenes as she became one

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of many victims of an alien hive mind. By the
time the movie debuted, Fisher had suddenly

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become famous thanks to the success of season
two of The Office, and she wound up doing a

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lot of publicity for Slither. After She and Gunn divorced, Fisher
met screenwriter Lee Kirk in 2008, and he pitched her an idea that

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became the film The Giant Mechanical Man, a
quirky love story that they developed together

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This was her first producing credit, and she also
starred in the movie. As they nurtured the product

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through the national financial collapse in 2008,
they fell in love, got married, and had a child

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After years of delays, the actual shoot was just
19 days. Fisher joked about her marriage after the

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movie was completed, saying, "'I don't know what we're
going to talk about anymore, because for the last four years

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we've been talking about the giant mechanical man.'" Fisher started her
career on the stage, and she's had a number of opportunities to give

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back to her roots. While The Office was starting
to wind down, she worked with her husband Lee

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Kirk in a 2010 revival of his absurdist play,
Sad Happy Sucker. Workshopped three years earlier

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Fisher put on her producer hat as Kirk
directed it at the Lyric Hyperion Theater

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As The Office was airing its final episode in
May of 2013, Fisher debuted in the off-Broadway

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production Reasons to be Happy, written by Neil
Labute. Labute personally offered her the role

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and also directed the play, which ran for a
month. As a result, Fisher wasn't able to watch

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the finale of The Office with her old castmates,
but former co-star BJ Novak was in New York and

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came out to support her. In 2016, Fisher
co-starred in Steve Martin's play Meteor Shower

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about a couple attending a meteor shower
viewing party at another couple's house

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It set a box office record at San Diego's Old
Globe Theater, making nearly $1 million over

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its six-week run. Fisher played Corky, who has
the cracks in her marriage undermined and exposed

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by the other party guests. Playing poker has
become one of Jenna Fisher's many hobbies

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When she and Lee Kirk went on their honeymoon
to Scotland in 2010, they tried to beat their

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jet lag by staying up just late enough
to wake up bright and early the next day

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In an effort to stay awake, they wandered around
Edinburgh and happened upon a pub holding

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a poker tournament. They both entered,
and Kirk did well, finishing fifth

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However, they didn't leave just yet
because Fisher was doing even better

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As she told Hemispheres, Somehow, through a combination
of weariness, adrenaline, caffeine, and a little alcohol

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I was playing the best poker of my life. My instincts were heightened. I seemed to
have a perfect read on every player at the table, my stack growing with every hand

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I felt like I was floating in some
kind of European poker heaven.

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Fisher won it all, and the couple then
went back to their hotel and collapsed

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She's even brought her skills to the show Celebrity Poker Showdown. When Jenna
Fisher starred in the 2011 movie Hall Pass, she made an instant connection with

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her co-star Christina Applegate. The movie is about two married
men who get a hall pass from their wives for a week, meaning

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they can do anything they want, including seeing other people. Of course,
that means their wives, played by Fisher and Applegate, get to play as well

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Speaking about Applegate to Collider, Fisher said, "'What happened
immediately is that Christina and I clicked, like two peas in a pod

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We just had the best time. Every time we were
on set together, we hung out the whole time.'

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While Fisher praised the overall chemistry of
the ensemble, she also felt like Applegate

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was her teammate in a competition, saying, "'When it was finally
time to do our scenes with the four of us together, we really did

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have a boys-against-the-girls chemistry
going. We were a force to be reckoned with.

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After The Office ended in 2013, Fisher's career
slowed, and after having a second child in

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2014, she was limited to guest-starring jobs. However, she landed
the part of Andy Burns, the wife of Matt LeBlanc, on his show Man

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with a Plan. She was hoping the CBS show
would be her next long-running role

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On the day the show was announced she got a phone call I said I said it bad news isn it And they said yeah And I said we didn get
picked up And they were like no it worse The show in fact did get picked up for more episodes However after showing the episodes

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to focus groups, they decided that Fisher
wasn't right for the part and fired her

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Watching it later, she realized the focus
groups that said they didn't believe Pam and

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Joey is a couple actually might have been right, admitting, we kind of seemed
like two people doing good performances, and they were both quite good shows

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but they weren't the same show. LeBlanc's show
lasted four seasons before being canceled in 2020

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Fisher was replaced by Liza Snyder, but she went
on to have a solid two-year run on splitting up

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together. It only lasted 10 episodes, but Jenna
Fisher had a compelling role in the 2015 NBC

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science fiction comedy series You, Me, and the
Apocalypse. The show centers around an ensemble

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cast reacting to the knowledge that an asteroid
will be hitting Earth in about a month, causing

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the end of the world. Fisher plays Rhonda, a
seemingly mild-mannered librarian who's in prison

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She was sent there for hacking into the
NSA, but she only did it to protect her son

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A hacker springs her from prison, and she
becomes the sidekick to a white nationalist

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played by Megan Mullally. Fisher took the role
after taking time off following the birth of her

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daughter. Of the show's bizarre
premise, she told the Los Angeles Times

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I get to do stunts and be in shootouts. I take
someone hostage at one point. I never get asked

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to do stuff like that because no one wants
to see Pam doing that. So it was fun.

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After her role as Pam, it can be hard to
picture Jenna Fisher in a gritty action drama

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but she had a memorable role in Clint Eastwood's
2018 action thriller The 1517 to Paris. A

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dramatization of real-life events, the movie
depicts the events surrounding an incident when

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three Americans disarmed and detained
an armed terrorist on a train in France

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Fisher played a mother to one of the men,
appearing in dramatizations of their childhood

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Fisher has entered the part of her career
where she's playing these older maternal roles

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but playing it seriously was something
new for her. Of Eastwood, she said

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Every story you have heard about working for
Clint Eastwood is absolutely true. He's prepared

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he's efficient, he's inspirational. He gives
great acting notes. It's crazy that his crew

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has been working with him so long they have
a shorthand, so the day goes by very quickly.

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Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey may
have been adversaries on The Office

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but in real life, they became immediate best
friends. Both kept detailed journals and memos

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of their office experience. As they were looking
through boxes of memorabilia, Kinsey told Vulture

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"'I said to her, I really wanted to rewatch
the show fully. I hadn't done that since we

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made the show, and neither did Jenna. So we
collectively had this, why don't we do this

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moment. Why not? It's the anniversary, so let's
reminisce and share the memories with the fans.

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And thus, Office Ladies was born. Their natural
chattiness translated perfectly over to the

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podcast format. While they do go through
a detailed exploration of each episode

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their frequent tangents and debates set it
apart from similar Office-related media

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"'I was driving yesterday and I was chewing
a piece of gum and I was popping my gum

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and I bit the shiitake out of my
tongue. It's so bad. Look at it.'

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It only makes sense that the success of
The Office Ladies' podcast led to a book

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titled The Office BFFs — Tales from the
Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There

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The book covers a lot of the same ground as the
podcast. What the book really brings is some of

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the things alluded to on the podcast, like both
stars' detailed journaling, as well as scores of

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photos recording their experiences while working.
The Office was famous for making its background

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actors stay for every scene, because they were
pretending to film a real office. This resulted

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in background actors needing to find ways to
amuse themselves, and it's one of the things

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that led to Fisher and Kinsey becoming friends.
Fisher said the bonding began after the basketball

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episode from the first season, when they sat
on a bench next to each other for two days

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They got giddy at the end, skipping
across the parking lot arm in arm

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Star Steve Carell saw them, and Fisher remembered he said, "'No
matter what happens, this is what you'll take with you. This.

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And he pointed at the two of
us. He was so right." Thank you