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The Craziness of Being on The Office with Steve Carell and Starring in a Movie with Will Ferrell and Jon Heder: “It's pretty cool. The bar was set pretty high for me in terms of quality of people and quality of comedy. To go on The Office and be working with really some of the funniest people in the business - writers and otherwise… I couldn't believe on my break I got to work with basically the other most funny people in Hollywood. It was pretty insane. Yeah, I spend a lot of my life laughing. It's pretty cool.
When I met my husband [Slither writer/director James Gunn], I fell in love with him for his sense of humor. He said the only down side to my success is it's harder to make me laugh at home. He said, ‘I really have to step it up because you're with comedy geniuses all day.’ He's like, ‘You used to think I was so funny. You thought I was the funniest man alive.’ He really has to step it up now because I spend my days with Steve Carell and Will Ferrell. [My husband and I] hung out last night and we laughed for a half an hour. We had this one bit that we did for like half an hour. It was incredibly funny to me. He can still hold his own. He shouldn't worry.”
And Speaking of The Office…: Can the show still maintain its high standards if the ‘will they or won’t they’ romantic storyline between Fischer as Pam and John Krasinski as Jim is resolved? “You know, there's a lot of things they said we couldn't do with The Office,” replied Fischer. “Early on people said things like, ‘Another British import? They all failed. Your show's not going to make it.’ We've had all these hurdles and I feel like we're going to break the mold on the relationship curse. I really do.
I feel like the most important thing is that we just stay true to the characters. I don't think they're going to force us to be apart any longer than is natural and they're not going to force us to be together any longer than is natural. I think that if you really love these people and being that it's a character-driven comedy not a gag-driven comedy, as long as you're really invested in the people, we will overcome all of those sort of pitfalls and burdens of other shows. I have complete faith in our writers and in the show.
I don't know if Jim and Pam are ultimately meant to be together. I say this to producers all the time: ‘Sometimes that person helps you become the person that you're supposed to be to meet the person you're supposed to marry.’ Maybe that's our story. And if that's our story, that's still a beautiful story to tell. So if we're still on the air in 10 years and you're just not feeling Jim and Pam anymore, that's all right. I think we're open to letting it be that way. We're not committed to end this series as a wedding between Jim and Pam and a baby, you know? It's more of like a real life story.”
This Season’s Finale: At the time of the Blades of Glory press junket Fischer was getting ready to film the season’s finale. Fischer says fans won’t be disappointed. “You know, we just filmed our 50th episode directed by Harold Ramis and that's the episode before the finale. There's a lot that happens in that episode that leads into a big finale. There’s a huge Michael/Jan storyline that is just really awesome in the finale, but there's a lot of Jim/Pam stuff as well. But I can say that one thing is that their arc for Pam this season is that she's trying to find her own voice and trying to get what she wants, and that is going to continue. Pam really is going to come out of her shell in the last few remaining episodes of the season and that was really exciting.”
The Original British Show: Fischer was a huge fan of the British series. Asked if she watched it prior to taking the role of Pam, Fischer replied, “Obsessively - and not even know they were making an American version. I watched the British version and I actually stood up in my living room and said, ‘Why don't we make stuff like this in America?. This is brilliant TV. This is why I became an actor. This is exactly what I want to do. I'm never, ever going to get to be able to do anything this awesome.’ Then two weeks later they called me and said, ‘We'd like you to audition for the American version of a show called The Office.’ I almost peed my pants. I was terrified because I thought I didn’t want to be in the schlocky sitcom version of The Office.
Actually, my first audition for the show, in some ways they were auditioning for me because I would not have participated in that sitcom version of the show. I immediately knew that Greg Daniels was right on because my audition was... I just went in in character and they interviewed me for 10 minutes, completely improv. I decided that Pam Beesly is not a good interview. She's not going to help a documentarian make a great documentary and that was my take on the character. When they liked that idea, I was like, ‘Oh this is a fun show to work on.’ They liked my twist and I liked that they liked my twist.”
Working with Harold Ramis: “Harold Ramis… Oh man, this year we worked with JJ Abrams, Harold Ramis directed three episodes, and Joss Whedon. Great, so great. Harold Ramis is hilarious. We just pick his brain constantly. We ask him all about starting out in comedy and what was that like and all the people he's worked with. That guy is amazing. I can't believe that I just spent all last week hanging out with Harold Ramis. It's so weird.”
Page 3: Horrible Office Jobs and Her Next Movie with John C Reilly
