This time last year, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey were finishing up a rewatch of the penultimate Season 8 of “The Office” on their podcast “Office Ladies.” The two actors, who have played Pam Beesly (Fisher) and Angela Martin (Kinsey) since the Emmy Award-winning NBC comedy premiered in 2005, have played the role of Pam Beesley (Fisher) and Angela Martin (Kinsey) in the ritualized “Office Lady” format. Each episode is lovingly explained minute by minute. When we started the podcast in October 2019, recapping all 201 episodes of the show seemed like an insurmountable mountain. “I knew we were going to start it and see it through to the end,” Kinsey said in an interview at a Hollywood recording studio. Fisher countered, “I didn’t think it would end.”
“Office Ladies” (one of the first rewatch podcasts, in its now ubiquitous format) was popular from the start. Edison Research’s latest report on the top 50 podcasts in the U.S. ranks “Office Lady” at number 34. Kinsey and Fisher, who have considered themselves best friends since the beginning of the series, knew they wanted to continue to push themselves beyond their boundaries. At first I rewatched it, but then I had to figure out what the next iteration of the show would be. With their contract with SiriusXM ending next year, they decided to consider their options.
But it was also about a year ago that Fisher was diagnosed with breast cancer in December after an inconclusive mammogram, ultrasound and biopsy. Fisher revealed the news on Instagram last month to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month and tell the world what only a few people knew.
When faced with Fisher’s diagnosis and treatment plan (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation), the office lady had a choice. Should the show be paused until her treatment is complete? Kinsey wanted to follow Fisher and trusted him implicitly. “From the beginning of our friendship, she was the type of person who made you want to be the best version of yourself,” Kinsey says. Fisher had already made up his mind. With support from her husband Lee Kirk, their two children, and friends, she wanted to continue working as an “office lady.” After all, it’s a podcast made with love.
“Everything I needed to get through this period was already waiting to meet me,” Fisher said, his voice breaking only once during the conversation. “One of them was Angela and the other was a podcast. I already had a job that was going to get me through some of the most difficult times in my life.”
Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey from “Office Ladies” and Greg Daniels, creator of “The Office.”
Provided by: “Office Lady”
Throughout the production of The Office Lady, Kinsey and Fisher interviewed most of the cast of The Office, as well as many of the writers, directors, and crew members. Their summaries are very specific and cover all frames, but they meander through subjects as diverse as the history of blood transfusions and deer penis wine. (The latter was prompted by something Rainn Wilson’s Dwight says in a Season 6 episode: “Fish sticks are not an aphrodisiac. You’re thinking deer penis.”) Their optimism In a cheerful tone, they navigated an episode that had grown too old. , published a feminist paper about how unfair it was that Fisher had to return to work just five weeks after her C-section, as actors are not given paid maternity leave. “The Office” itself was seeing a huge rise in popularity as people turned to the show for comfort, and it kept listeners interested during the pandemic-induced stay-at-home period. According to Nielsen, viewers streamed 57 billion minutes. “The Office” debuted on Netflix in 2020, becoming the service’s most popular series during a terrible year.
They created “Office Lady” as parents who wanted to be close to their school-age children. Kinsey, who was away from her family and only had work outside the city — “If it was Los Angeles, I wouldn’t have gotten a job,” she says — got the idea for a podcast from Ms. Fisher. Kinsey was in Orlando when he got the call about the incident. Fisher had an unusual job in Los Angeles, where she worked “70 hours a week” and “FaceTimed the kids to bed.” What started as an experiment to see if they could become, in Fischer’s words, “the architects of their time” has now become a hugely successful podcast. “Office Lady” has been downloaded more than 400 million times and more than 1 million listeners follow the show on Spotify. In 2022, Fisher and Kinsey published a book called “Office Best Friends: “Office” Stories from Two Best Friends.” I was there. ”
Of course they keep an eye on the numbers – Fisher says it was “10 times more popular than expected” at the time of its release – but above all else they feel an obligation to please their fans. “I want to keep the traditions of the show right,” Kinsey says. “This means so much to so many people.” She realized the podcast had taken off when people started shouting “Lady!” Instead of “Save the thieves!”, she used her and Fisher’s favorite words to say to her on the street. (From the season 5 episode in which Dwight starts a fire in his office and Angela throws a cat into a hole in the ceiling in an attempt to save Dwight.)
“Office Ladies” moved from SiriusXM to Audacy in August. They don’t like to criticize former company directors, but they made clear their displeasure with SiriusXM’s firing of longtime sound engineer Sam Kiefer in February without consulting them. Regarding this career move, Kinsey said of his early days at podcasting company Earwolf, “It felt like a tiny little group within a big entertainment industry. And we were looking for something that felt like that again.” I think it was,” he said. During their search, Fisher and Kinsey met Jenna Weiss Berman, Audacy’s podcast chief, and fell in love with her and believed in their courage. (Once he joined Audacy, he immediately rehired Kiefer.)
Weiss Berman was able to offer the “OLs” a healthy minimum guarantee of ad sales (she declined to say how much) and gave Fisher and Kinsey the “white gloves” they were looking for. “I gave guidance like “. Weisberman looked at the numbers and was impressed. Even though many podcasts have lost half their audience over the past year due to Apple’s iOS changes, “Office Ladies” has only grown, with its audience “really listening to every episode.” ‘And we’re hearing that pretty quickly,’ says Weisberman. She noted that the podcast has 1.1 million followers on Instagram. “This engagement is crazy,” she says. “And they receive beautiful love letters like this every day.” (The podcast’s Facebook group has over 72,000 members and is the only genuine, kind corner on the internet. Surprise for Fisher and Kinsey The finale episode featured a group of 300 members (arranged by Toronto musician Suresh Singaratnam). – You put together your own version of “All the Faces,” the song sung by “The Office” co-star Creed Bratton in the final moments of the series. )
NBCUniversal (via Getty Images)
“They can talk about anything and continue to maintain their existing audience,” Weisberman continues. “People are just there to listen to them because they’re funny and great. They’re true best friends who have a really fun rapport and dynamic.”
However, the future of OL, announced in an early October episode, will be much more than that. In what they’re calling “Office Lady 6.0,” Fisher and Kinsey continue to dig deeper into “The Office.” The first “6.0” episode, which aired last week, interviewed Alison Jones, the casting director who put together the show’s ensemble. They are planning a set visit to the new series from “The Office” creator Greg Daniels. Unofficially titled “The Paper,” it is scheduled to premiere on Peacock next year. They will have themed episodes and character studies, starting with a comprehensive investigation of Michael, played by Steve Carell. “I’ve been trying to uncover the origin story of Michael Scott,” Fisher says. “And I’m sure the writers of The Office are tired of hearing me talk. But I’m not giving up.”
We also plan to rebroadcast “Office Lady” from the beginning and add new material to each episode. This encore performance is called “Second Drink” after the Season 2 premiere. An exhausted Pam sucks the melted ice from her frozen drink through a straw and enthusiastically pronounces “Second drink!” They considered rewatching it, Fisher said, but “I started relistening to the podcast and thought, ‘Girl, I didn’t miss that much.'”
Fisher appeared in the musical film Mean Girls earlier this year, but considers herself on hiatus from acting. “I think taking a break will help me become a better actress in the future,” she says. Now cancer-free, she says, once her children are out of the house, she and her husband want to move to New York to do theater. As for Kinsey, she was open to the opportunity to be away from her husband and their children for an extended period of time, and in the summer she filmed a Christmas movie called “Mommy’s So Happy!”
They’ve come a long way as podcasters since Oliver Hudson, Fisher’s co-star on the short-lived ABC sitcom Splitting Up Together, suggested she give it a try in 2019. I have walked through And you love being at home. ”
They are happy with what they have built. “We’re taking things slow because we’re also parents and have other things to do,” Fisher says. “But I’m really, really incredibly proud of what we’ve built together.”
And their bond is even stronger than it was when they were working on Season 1 of The Office 20 years ago. On their way back to the trailer after filming late into the night, Kinsey and Fisher silently linked arms and played the opening credits for Laverne & Shirley. They sense someone behind them and turn around to see Carell, the star of the show. “He just looked at us, smiled and said, ‘No matter what happens on the show. this That’s what you guys get out of it. ”
