While fans of The Office are well aware of Dunder Mifflin's undeniable HR violations,
the actors themselves have also faced some major drama. These lesser known facts about
the cast of The Office reveal deeper layers of the people person's paper people.
Nearly a decade before Jenna Fischer scored the role of Dunder Mifflin's very own receptionist,
Pam Beesly, she almost quit acting. In 2017, the actress wrote in a piece for The New York
Times that she'd moved from her hometown of St. Louis to Los Angeles after earning her
theater degree, but blew through her savings in just six months. To top that all off, she
just couldn't land a single acting gig.
She wrote:
"My car engine had blown up and my cat was so depressed he was licking out patches of
his fur."
Eventually, Fischer picked up a day job as a real-life receptionist.
One day, however, when she was, quote, "wallowing in [her] depression with a giant bowl of Lucky
Charms," Fischer got the call: She'd landed her first real acting job in a low budget
sex education video that was shot in an apartment bathroom. It only paid $100, but would give
her enough hope to trudge forward. Eight years later, she landed The Office. And the rest,
as they say, is television history.
"Be strong. Trust yourself, love yourself. Conquer your fears. Just go after what you
want."
Dwight Schrute may have famously survived a concussion in The Office's season two episode,
"The Injury," but in real life, Rainn Wilson accidentally hurt those who played his on-screen
coworkers.
In his 2015 memoir, Wilson confessed:
"I have literally wounded pretty much everyone in the cast."
Wilson detailed that he "hit John Krasinski in the eye and enormous
nose with an icy snowball and various other desktop objects,"
And he also revealed that he, quote, "accidentally punched" Phyllis Smith and Brian Baumgartner
— the actors who portray Phyllis and Kevin, respectively — more than once, gave Angela
Kinsey "debilitating bruises" by throwing her, quote, "on top of desks and car hoods"
and spanking her "far too hard" during Dwight's romantic scenes with Angela Martin.
But that's not all! It was poor Leslie David Baker — who played Stanley Hudson — who
might have gotten the worst of Wilson's clumsiness after he, quote, "accidentally kicked sand"
into Baker's eye while filming the season three "Beach Games" episode. Barker had to
be rushed to the hospital, where he was treated for a scratched cornea.
In his memoir, Wilson wrote:
"This is my chance to apologize to the entire cast. I'm sorry. It's a wonder that I was
never sued."
If you thought you got emotional when Steve Carell left The Office in 2011, just imagine
how the cast felt … including one John Krasinski, who played lead Jim Halpert. The actor apparently
experienced a slight emotional breakdown while taping his last scene with the Dunder Mifflin
patriarch.
"Why am I so sad? Am I doing the wrong thing?" "Absolutely not. It's just that, sometimes,
goodbyes are a b****."
In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2013, Krasinski revealed that his castmates were,
quote, "crying all over the place" on Carell's last day of filming. After telling his co-stars
that it wasn't a big deal because they'd see Carell again, the actor believed he'd be able
to play the duo's final scene off like a tough guy. Nonetheless, Krasinski understandably
soon found himself flooded with emotions. He told Rolling Stone:
"As soon as they called 'action,' nothing came out but moaning. Two men had a complete
emotional breakdown on camera. For the first four takes, I don't think anything was usable."
Steve Carell has a lot more experience in the world of paper than you might think. Before
he was a bigwig at Dunder Mifflin, this Hollywood star worked as a rural mailman to save up
money ahead of his move to Chicago to become an actor. He used his own car to make deliveries
… but didn't necessarily have a knack for it.
Calling it the "hardest job" he's ever had, Carell told 60 Minutes in 2014:
"I was terrible at it — so bad. The first day I delivered mail, they had to go out looking
for me because it was like nine at night, and I wasn't back … I got a flat tire, so
the postmaster of Littleton was out with a flashlight looking for me at night."
But while the gig was probably well worth it — considering the entire trajectory of
the actor's career — not everyone ended up receiving their mail on time: Carell told
60 Minutes that he found a stack of mail under the seat of his car once he finally made it
to the Windy City. Whoops!
Rashida Jones may be better known as Parks and Recreation's Ann Perkins than she is for
her role of Karen on The Office. Nonetheless, the latter show helped skyrocket her to fame,
and led her to eventually becoming an original writer on Toy Story 4. However, she ended
up leaving Pixar with fellow original writer Will McCormack in the wake of controversy
in 2017.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the duo left after Brenda Chapman, Pixar's sole female
director, was fired over creative differences and replaced with a man. At the time, they
claimed in a statement that the studio had cultivated, quote, "a culture where women
and people of color do not have an equal creative voice." Jones later opened up about why she
felt a responsibility to take a stand against this alleged lack of gender equality and part
ways with the animation giants.
In 2018, she told Net-A-Porter:
"That situation was complicated. You look at [Pixar's] track record and it was one woman
directing one film in 25 years, and she was fired. But that doesn't look different from
most studios in Hollywood."
Jones added,
"All I can be is myself, and speak up and be honest when I feel things don't reflect
the world as it today. As a corporation, you will be held accountable."
"I'm saying that you're being sexist."
"No, I'm being misogynistic. That's insane. I am not being sexist."
"That's — it's the same thing."
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