‘The Office’: Rainn Wilson Really Cried During This Dwight and Pam Scene Because Jenna Fischer’s Performance Was So Emotional
Jenna Fischer nailed an emotional scene on The Office so perfectly that she made co-star Rainn Wilson cry too. The iconic Pam and Dwight scene required Fischer to feel emotion so strongly that she cried for real — and Wilson can be seen breaking character because her performance was so moving.
Jenna Fischer moved Rainn Wilson to tears
During the August 12 Office Ladies podcast, hosts Fischer and Angela Kinsey discussed a season 3 episode that involved a scene where Pam broke down in tears crying and Dwight happened to walk by.
In the episode, Pam helped Jim with a relationship issue he was having with Karen and ultimately fixed the argument the two were having, but Pam was left defeated because she still had feelings for Jim.
In the scene, Dwight happens upon Pam crying — and Fischer’s performance left Wilson emotional as well. While discussing the moment during the podcast, Fischer got a bit choked up.
The Office Ladies co-hosts gave some insight into Wilson’s performance in the scene, with Kinsey remarking, “I think I see Rainn as Dwight tearing up. But surely Dwight wouldn’t tear up, but I think Rainn, your friend, is tearing up watching you cry.”
Jenna Fischer was moved by Rainn Wilson’s real tears
Fischer felt very moved that Wilson got emotional during their scene, leading the two co-hosts to discuss how he possessed a quality that was so endearing.
“Angela, it’s making me get choked up when you say it because this is a little bit of a place where the line blurred between the Rainn that you and I know and Dwight,” Fischer explained. “Rainn simply couldn’t do that scene without empathizing with Pam. Every time we did a take, he teared up when I cried harder. It was like Rainn Wilson the man was incapable of sitting next to a person in pain without feeling their pain, and this is the thing that we know about Rainn.”
She continued, “It’s the thing that we love about Rainn, and when I saw it in the scene it just made me miss Rainn so much because that’s who Rainn is to me on a personal level.”
Fischer added, “It was a beautifully written scene and they gave us great time to figure it out and shoot it. I’m really proud of that scene. It’s one of my favorites from the series that I got to do.”
Jenna Fischer revealed how she cried during the scene
During the podcast, the former co-stars also discussed how challenging it is for an actor to tap into those emotions at the start of a scene. Fischer had a trick she used to get to that place — she listened to a sad playlist she created and when she started to cry, the camera crew started rolling.
“This is a really big challenge for an actor and so what they did was they made everything really quiet and no one talked to me for about a half hour,” she explained. “I put on the saddest music I could find, and it was sad because it was personal to me… It was music that brought up memories of breakups — music that I listened to at different times in my life when I was having a particularly hard time — so it would bring up a lot of emotions.”
