Why 'The Office' Is Really About Pam Beesly On 'The Office Deep Dive'

Jenna Fischer Celebrates Her 35th Birthday At Prive Las Vegas

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It’s the second part of Jenna Fischer’s interview with Brian Baumgartner on The Office Deep Dive and it’s getting good. Jenna reveals something she’s always been disappointed about that she’s never before discussed, her favorite moment shooting a scene with John Krasinski, hilarious memories of Rainn Wilson on set, and how she burst into tears after the final scene. She and Brian take a close look at Pam’s relationships with Michael Scott, Dwight, and of course Jim (and how many fans can’t understand that they aren’t a couple in real life: “It’s a little like telling kids there’s no Santa,” Jenna says). And Brian calls Pam “the heart of the office,” but Jenna goes even further and lays out her reasons for believing that the whole show was really about Pam all along. Plus, will we get an Office reunion episode? Steve Carrell has a really good idea for it….

Jenna tells Brian all about how much she, John Krasinski, Greg Daniels, and the writers all debated about how much Pam and Jim were allowed to touch each other in scenes, if they were allowed to look into each other’s eyes, and all kinds of other details to make sure their relationship was real and believable throughout the show. Brian remembers well, saying, “Nothing….brought production to a screeching halt like a big Jim/Pam moment. And I say that with love and also utter frustration.” When Brian asks if she was worried their story would get dry once they got married, she says she wasn’t: “Greg was like, ‘You know what’s going to lose people, is if we keep manufacturing affairs and weird ways to keep them apart….what we’re going to do is bring them together and give them obstacles to overcome as a couple, rather than obstacles that keep them from being a couple.’” Clearly, that was the right move. 

Brian says Pam’s final line, “There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things,” is what Greg Daniels really thought the show was about, and Jenna agrees, but she also says she considers the documentary to be about Pam. “It’s not lost on me that when Pam was ready to break free of Dunder Mifflin, the show ended,” she points out; when we meet Pam, she’s trapped behind a desk, but slowly moves to sales, to murals, to building a family with Jim. “The documentary doesn’t stop when Michael leaves. It’s not a documentary about Michael. They decide to stop making the documentary when Pam leaves.” Brian isn’t so sure: “I think it’s really about Kevin,” he jokes. Hear all this great Office goodness and much more with Jenna Fischer on this episode of The Office Deep Dive.

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