‘The Office’: Jenna Fischer Reveals Why Jim and Pam Scenes Could Take Hours to Debate
The Office fans waited years for Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) to get together. Their costars waited hours for them to film their longing scenes every week. Now that it’s all over, they can laugh about it.
Brian Baumgartner reran Fischer’s episode of his Off the Beat podcast on March 7. Baumgartner called her out on the Jim and Pam delays, but Fischer copped to them.
The reason ‘The Office’ would spend hours debating Jim and Pam scenes
Jim and Pam were The Office’s will they or won’t they relationship for several seasons. Eventually, they did, got married and had children. But, for the seasons in which The Office played Jim and Pam vague, they took extra care, and that took time.
“For example, shooting a scene over and over and over again where this time they can touch hands,” Fischer said on Off the Beat. “But then we have to do one where they don’t touch hands because it might be too much if their hands touch. That might be going too far. Or, do we end it with a hug or should he kiss her cheek before? All these little ways, how much were they allowed to literally touch one another, look in each other’s eyes, swoon at each other. We would spend hours debating and shooting alternates of these Jim/Pam scenes. It is not an exaggeration.”
Brian Baumgartner confirms Jim and Pam cost ‘The Office’ hours every week
Baumgartner played Kevin, a Dunder Mifflin employee who was often just in the background for those scenes. Still, that meant he had to be in the background while they spent hours debating just how close Jim and Pam could get this week on The Office.
“Nothing, throughout the entire history of the show, brought production to a screeching halt like a big Jim/Pam moment,” Baumgartner said. “And I say that with love and also with utter frustration.”
Perhaps it got faster in later seasons when they didn’t have to tease anymore. Neither Fischer nor Baumgartner commented on what happened once Jim and Pam got married.
Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski supported each other
During those debates, Fischer said she and Krasinski usually agreed. They were in discussion with The Office creator Greg Daniels and the show’s writers.
“We really, really cared,” Fischer said. “John and I would fight hard for what we believed and we were usually on the same page with Jim and Pam. We had a singular mind when it came to Jim and Pam for the most part. There was often one Jim/Pam moment per episode and it was either where they’re going to connect in some super special swooney way or they’re going to misstep in some way where one of them gets their feelings hurt. And there was this very fine line that we had to walk all the time.”
