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Jenna Fischer, Keeping It Real at 'The Office'
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Jenna Fischer, Keeping It Real at 'The Office'</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width"> <link id="favicon" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAYAAAAf8/9hAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAHlJREFUOBFjYBgFFIcA48cYpf/opvAv+YouxODXshZDbFONDSMLSJRv8V245KdYZTD7//8XcDFGRgkwe2O1NVzMv/UomA02AMQCaUQ2CCQG0ohsEEgMphHEBgEmCIWdRNeMTRXYBTBnw2iYQpjTYXx022Hio/RAhwAAjXEfJrIXnj4AAAAASUVORK5CYII="> <style> body { display: block; padding: 0px 20px; max-width: 550px; margin: 0 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; } .full-version-link { margin-left: 15px; } .slug-line { font-size: 1.1rem; margin-bottom: 15px; } .hr-line { position: relative; height: 4px; } .hr-line:after { background: linear-gradient(to right, #e60000 0%, #e60000 33.33%, #000000 33.33%, #000000 66.66%, #3366CC 66.66%); position: absolute; content: ''; height: 4px; right: 0; left: 0; top: 0; } hr.gray { border: .5px solid gray; } .story-title { line-height: 2rem; font-size: 1.5rem; margin: 0; } .topic-heading { line-height: 2rem; font-size: 1.5rem; } .topic-container>ul { padding: 0; line-height: 1.4rem; } .topic-container li { display: block; padding-bottom: 15px; } .topic-container { margin-top: 20px; } .topic-date { margin: 20px 0; font-style: italic; } .paragraphs-container { line-height: 1.5rem; } .button:link, .button:visited { background-color: white; color: black; border: 2px solid black; padding: 4px 8px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; } .button:hover, .button:active { background-color: black; color: white; } .lower-nav-container { margin-top: 40px; } .lower-nav-container li { margin-left: 0; display: inline; padding-right: 20px; } h6 { text-transform: uppercase; } </style> </head> <body> <header> <p>Text-Only Version <a class="full-version-link button" href="https://www.npr.org/91105876">Go To Full Site</a></p> </header> <main> <article> <div class="story-container"> <p class="slug-line"> <a class="slug-link" href="/">NPR</a> > <a class="slug-link" href="/1045">Movies</a> </p> <div class="story-head"> <h1 class="story-title">Jenna Fischer, Keeping It Real at 'The Office'</h1> <p></p> <p>Tuesday, June 3, 2008 • 11:35 AM EDT</p> <p>Heard on <a href="/91105884/2008-06-03">Fresh Air</a> </div> <div class="hr-line"></div> <div class="paragraphs-container"> <p>Jenna Fischer is probably best known for her role on NBC's comedy series <em>The Office</em>. She plays Pam, the receptionist — one of the show's most recognizably real characters. </p><p>If you've ever worked in a clerical position in an alienating office, you'll relate to what Pam goes through. In this interview, Fischer tells Terry Gross about creating all those pained looks and knowing smiles — and about how her five years as an office temp helped to prepare her for the role. </p><p>Fischer also costarred in the film comedies <em>Blades of Glory</em> and <em>Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.</em> And in the new film <em>The Promotion</em>, opening in select cities June 6, Fischer plays a Chicago nurse married to a supermarket assistant manager — who's competing for a promotion to store manager at the chain's newest property. </p><p>Fischer tells Terry Gross that she went into the audition "trying to look like a struggling nurse from Chicago" — only to hear later that producers didn't think she had enough Hollywood-style glamour. So she went in for a callback, tarted up in a low-cut blouse, tan body makeup and false eyelashes (courtesy of the hair-and-makeup crew from <em>Blades of Glory</em>). "I looked like a prostitute," she says, but she gave the same performance in that second audition. She got the part.</p><p>Glamour isn't all Hollywood execs look for in candidates, she says. Famous faces, blown up larger-than-life-size on movie posters, help sell tickets. Luckily, Fischer says, "<em>The Office</em> has given me a famous face, and I can compete" nowadays in ways that were harder earlier in her career.</p><p>Fischer talks to <em>Fresh Air</em> about her abortive career as a member of an all-girl singing group (which turned out to be a front for a high-priced call-girl ring), and about her very first screen role — in a sex-education film made especially for just-released mental-health patients.</p> </div> </div> </article> </main> <div class="hr-line"></div> <nav> <p>Topics</p> <ul> <li><a href="/1001">News</a></li> <li><a href="/1008">Culture</a></li> <li><a href="/1039">Music</a></li> </ul> </nav> <footer> <nav class="lower-nav-container"> <li><a href="/614470770">Contact Us</a></li> <li><a href="/179876898">Terms of Use</a></li> <li><a href="/179881519">Permissions</a></li> <li><a href="/179878450">Privacy Policy</a></li> </nav> <p>© NPR</p> </footer> </body> </html>