You know how it goes, getting super into something that can lead to watching it, listening to it, reading about it, maybe even picking up something to go with it.
That's where Prime comes in. Amazon Prime isn't just fast, free delivery, though to be honest, that's a lifesaver.
It's also Prime Video, Amazon Music, and so much more.
Whatever the interest, it's on Prime lately.
There's been a dive into new recipes, catching up on lifestyle documentaries, and building the perfect playlist to match.
And Prime has been part of it all. It's like a one-stop shop for any passion, whether it's fashion, food, family or discovering the next favorite show.
So for anyone always exploring something new or rediscovering something meaningful, Prime is right there.
Whatever you're into. It's on Prime. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime.
Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to get more out of whatever you're into.
Amazon.com slash Prime. Summer break is always a really fun time.
You get that break from school. But during that time off school, a lot of kids can lose reading proficiency and they can struggle with their mental well-being too.
And that is why Macy's is partnering with Reading is Fundamental and NAMI in their mission to keep kids reading over the summer and to help young adults find the mental health resources they need.
Macy's believes it's crucial to support nonprofits dedicated to helping kids prepare for their best school year ever.
And that is something I really like. When you shop at Macy's, you can donate at checkout, in-store or online.
It's super easy. Right now, your donations will go to Reading is Fundamental and NAMI through September 14th.
Head to macys.com slash purpose from July 1st through September 14th to shop and donate to RIF and NAMI. through in-store, roundup, or online donation to support reading proficiency and the mental health of kids and youth.
I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together and we're best friends.
And now we're doing the Ultimate Office Lovers podcast just for you.
Each week, we will dive deeper into the world of the office with exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes details, and lots of BFF stories.
We're the Office Lady 6.0. Hello, everybody.
Hey there. Okay, so by the time you are listening to this, I will be in Chicago.
Chicago. I will be in rehearsals for my play Ashland Avenue.
Now, something we want you all to know is that we really did our best to record a bunch of Office Lady 6.0 episodes and second drinks ahead of time so there wouldn't be any kind of like big break in our schedule while I went to do this play.
We truly did, you guys. We worked our butts off to make as many new episodes as we could.
And here's the thing, Jenna, I feel like you need to explain your rehearsal schedule for this play because it's so intense.
And you were explaining it to me. And my first thought was, there's no way that you can be recording a podcast while you're in these rehearsals.
Where are you going to do it? From the bathroom?
Yeah, I mean, okay, so we rehearse six days a week.
It's Tuesdays through Sundays. from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Are you loopy by the end? You are. Yes, you are.
You only get one day off, which is Mondays.
And that's true when you're in performances as well.
You do eight shows a week. Mondays are off.
And of course, when we're not in the room rehearsing together, you're expected to be memorizing your lines, going over your work from that day. coming up with new questions for the next day.
There's also like press obligations to get the word out about the play.
And of course, being a mom, all those things.
And you know, at first I thought, well, I'll just, I can do it all.
I'll just do it all. Because that's what we do.
We all are like that, y'all. We're all like, we got this.
Yeah. But when I physically was handed my schedule and I read it, I was like, oh, basically.
Not to mince words. Well, you know, I remember what it was like when I was doing my Hallmark Christmas movie It was all consuming.
I mean, I had an hour drive. I got up real early, had an hour drive, got to the set.
I was in every single scene. That's how you are in this play.
You're in the whole thing. And then by the time I would get home, I would literally just roll right into bed.
Yeah. I mean, the etiquette of doing a play is like if you aren't actively rehearsing, if you're not up there blocking, you sit and watch your other actors because.
You're all living and breathing the story of the play.
So yeah, I think there's like one scene that I'm not in.
I have to sit there. You have to learn the whole world.
That's part of the process. So yes, lady, when I showed you my schedule, you were wonderful.
You were like, lady. This is what we do for each other.
We have to have a talk. You guys move things around so I could go off to Vancouver and do that movie. is what we do.
And just another reason why I'm so thankful for this podcast and this office ladies family we've built.
Well, you said, and I'm so grateful to you.
You said, lady, you need to take this space.
You need to press pause on some things and take this space.
And I want to say a big thank you to you and to you, Cassie, for working so hard to plan ahead.
And Sam, thank you for all of our double recording weeks.
Cassie and Sam, you've been doing all this extra editing.
Oh my goodness. Okay, here's the thing. And I'm gonna just get a little emotional, but you guys know that getting back on stage has been a bucket list item for me.
Mm-hmm. And I kind of figured I would just wait until my kids were up and out of high school before I took that next big acting project.
But after everything I went through, you just kind of realize that life is short and that things can change at any moment.
And while I am not worried about kicking the bucket, I saw the bucket and it really put my life in focus.
And when this opportunity came along, I thought I want to do it now.
So I'm very grateful to you guys, to our office ladies community for helping me take the space. to do this thing that I really needed to do for my soul.
Yeah, thank you. Of course. I mean, I think there's going to be moments in our lives, especially in our work life together where there are going to be those moments. means to you.
I know what it means to you. It gave me nothing but joy to make this space for you.
I gave it so wholeheartedly. You did that for me.
Hallmark Christmas movie. I know some people will be like, oh, it's a Hallmark movie.
But I never got to be number one on a call sheet.
I never got to have that... I don't know, sense of worth in that way to a huge project.
Yeah. And you saw that I needed that and you made that space for me.
But I would happily do it again. I would happily do it for Sam, for Cassie.
Cassie, when you make the WNBA, I will come to all your games.
I will be the mascot. And Sam, Sam, I was just talking to Josh about you and he was saying how much he enjoys.
Whenever you pop on the podcast and what a great voice you have, what a great presence you have.
When Jen and I went and did the SHRM conference.
We mentioned you, the audience applauded at the mention of your name.
And anyway, we're a team effort. I just shared all of that today is that in order to help with this goal of giving me the space, Today, we are going to run an interview that I did with David Spade and Dana Carvey for their podcast, Fly on the Wall.
And lady, I love these guys. I love them too.
I follow their podcast Instagram. I love it.
I love their podcast. And I was so giddy that I got to do this interview.
Angela, you were supposed to do it with me, but you booked the AT&T commercial.
I know. And I was so bombed. They asked me my availability and I only had one day where I said I had a conflict and that was the day we filmed.
I know. And so I missed Fly on the Wall, but I'm so excited for people to hear it.
This is such a great interview and it just sounded like you had such a great time.
Oh, my gosh. Well, I've known David Spade casually for years.
There was even this rumor for a little while that we had dated.
But in fact, we had never met. And we finally did meet.
And I was like, oh, hey, how are you, my boyfriend?
And we laughed about this. And it was very, very funny.
I was. So wanting to ask him, there's a lore in my neighborhood and I don't know if it's true.
Okay. That David Spade once purchased my house that I live in.
What? Yes, for his mother. And I don't know if it's true or not.
That's not who I bought my house from. But one of my neighbors told me, oh, yeah, you know, David Spade bought your house one time years ago.
For his mom. I was so excited to ask him that, but you know.
Next time. Well, you got to go on. They're great.
And, you know, I had never met Dana Carvey, but I just know how much Steve Carell loved him. because Steve worked on the Dana Carvey show.
And Steve would tell us stories about how amazing Dana was.
And so- One of the coolest things was after this interview, Dana stayed on the Zoom with me for like 30 minutes.
Get out. And we chatted. And I did not want it to end.
It's like a highlight of my life. that I got to have this conversation with him.
Yes. I mean, I'm a big Saturday Night Live nerd.
I love all those guys. Me too. But listen.
I really hope you enjoy the interview. We talk about all kinds of stuff.
We talk about the office and Saturday Night Live.
And thank you all again. But wait, you have to tell everyone how to get tickets to your show.
Oh, yes. Okay. You can go to goodmantheater.org and the play is called Ashland Avenue and previews start.
September 6th. I'm going. You sure are. Yay.
Thank you. All right. Here is Jenna on Fly on the Wall.
This show is sponsored by Squarespace. And as you guys know, we use Squarespace to do our Office Ladies website.
Yes, and you know, we've been making some little up to the officeladies.com website.
We've had to add new links to our TikTok pages and our YouTube pages.
That's right. We now have a dropdown just for our books. for the book Jenna and I wrote together, for Jenna's book that she wrote about acting, and for my cookbook.
It's very exciting. And thanks to Squarespace, making all of these changes and updates has been super easy.
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They have cutting edge design tools, I mean, honestly, if I can use it, you can use it.
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And when you're ready to launch, Go to squarespace.com slash office ladies to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Risk is the podcast where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. our episode After All where Ken Cole and Tom Belay share about the night their son had a psychotic break.
And at that point, I didn't actually know I had been stabbed all over my arm.
I was in shock. Find the Risk episode after all on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
I don't know if it is normal to have an attachment to a lunch meet, but I really love Forcehead brand lunch meets.
You're not weird lady. You're just someone who likes a good sandwich and some good lunch meat.
It's our go-to for our kids' lunches. And it's, our go-to for our lunches.
Same. Josh often makes me a lunch that I bring into the podcast.
And many times it is A sandwich with boar's head oven gold turkey.
Well, I want to throw everyone a little curveball.
I just want to throw this out there. Okay.
Boar's head. does an ever roast chicken, you're going to like it.
When you think of sandwiches, I think you think of turkey ham.
I'm not sure you think of chicken and I just wanted to throw it out there.
That's it. Well, you know what? You know you're sending your kids to school with a good lunch when they've got boar's head in their lunchbox.
So head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to discover the craftsmanship behind every bite.
You won't be sorry. Try the chicken. David, Jenna Fisher.
Jenna Fisher, the lovely Jenna Fisher, who's pretty universally liked out there.
I mean, very sweet, very talented, very fun and charming. famous for The Office.
She's done a lot of movies and a lot of other things, but she was Pam on The Office, the smash for all 98 seasons.
Yeah. Uh, that show just kept grinding it out.
Yeah. There's a spinoff. Now we talk about, um, We don't only talk about The Office, of course.
She does plays. She's doing a new one we're talking about.
She talks about, I asked her about Nick Swartz and about Will Ferrell.
She loves SNL. And I hit her up after the interview and, you know, I think she had what we had.
She's always like, She's like exactly what we say.
Did we ask the right questions? Was I interesting?
Was I fun? And we always finish and going, I think we did that wrong, whatever.
But she's very sweet about it. She wanted to do a good job.
She listens to the show. She has her own show.
The Office Ladies. And she tells some really funny stories, interesting stories about her struggles before she got on The Office.
And there's a whole arc of story involving Molly Shannon.
And that's a very like that story. Yeah.
And sometimes when we finish the podcast, we keep our laptop open.
So I ended up talking with her for a half hour afterwards.
She's very easy. Well, she's easy to chat with.
So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one. Jenna Fisher.
I was just asked by our producer, and it's a profound question.
When you're driving around, A long drive, two-hour drive, whatever.
What's your entertainment? XM News Music Podcasting.
Or just wrap phone calls to pay back. You have 10 seconds.
It's not music. I do not listen to music.
My first car did not have a working radio and I just got used to driving in silence and it's my preference.
But now I would say news podcasts or phone calls.
So. I love the idea that you literally could go like just the silence, two hours, three hours, just Jesus silence.
Jesus, it's chasing more healthy, by the way.
I don't know. I drove from St. Louis, Missouri, all the way to California with no radio. just open windows in the trunk.
My first car was really, It just moved you from one place to another.
There was no luxury at all. But you're not old.
What year of car? I don't remember. I think it was like an 86.
I mean, it had originally when it was built, had these features.
They just didn't work anymore. So you do the office all those years and then you buy a used Buick from 1988.
I mean, I'll talk to Corral if I have to or.
No, in fact, my, no, no, no. I, so I had a Mazda 323 hatchback.
And that was the car I drove across the country.
Okay. And then I upgraded to a Volkswagen Jetta, which was my favorite car maybe I've ever had.
It was awesome. Pimp slide. But then when I got my big office paycheck, I got a stupid car.
Yeah, Rolls Royce. It was, I walked into a Mercedes dealership and they had a little sedan.
They only made like seven of these. and it had like the engine of a race car, but in like the body of like a C class Mercedes.
So it was like, Cute and compact, but it I was in a hundred percent an asshole driver.
Like, because I could cut around anyone.
I could, it was, oh, it was great. Did you keep it?
I leased it and I gave it up after the lease.
Please. And I went more practical. We all have that story.
You want me to go first, David? Because it's similar to yours.
OK, got a little money, some movie, whatever, got extra money. went to a Mercedes dealership, bought a convertible little Mercedes coupe.
Like, oh, wow, this is awesome. Drove it for three or four days and realized when I had the canopy up, I was looking through a plastic windshield in the back.
So took it back. traded in for a SLE or a big, a 420 SLE, And then I started getting people paying attention to me.
I lived in the Valley when I would go to like 7-Eleven or a gas station.
So then I went to Honda. I just wanted a lo-fi car.
That's my story. Well, the problem with LA is that you get this awesome car and then you can only go like 32 miles an hour in it because you're always stuck in traffic.
So it's kind of like after a few years, I was like, oh, the best I can do is like. whip down the on-ramp yeah 300 horsepower and you're just and then that's exactly yeah Yeah.
When I moved out, I got something when I first paycheck and I went And I had no car, so I got a car.
Dana knows the story. $6,000 Honda. I didn't go flashy.
I only had six. And then I drove it to the improv and then I brought it out.
I brought my buddy out to show him and it was stolen.
What? How long? You had it for like a night?
One day? You went one place? I had it for an hour.
And Kevin Nealon drove a car eerily similar to that.
I'm not saying he had anything to do with the robbery, but it was kind of weird.
But my first car was a Volkswagen bug. Are you going to go to first car or first car when you got an extra paycheck?
Me? No, you are. We know your story. We know my story.
Yeah. David, you got it. Oh, I had my fair share because I do like cars, but I
My neck gives me trouble. So every time I get a car I love, it's just too painful.
And like Jenna said, when you're starting and stopping all day, it's not like you live in the Midwest and you can floor it and There's big parking lots.
Like when you go to Wendy's in Arizona, there's like 300 parking spots. when you go here, there's one at Kmart and you go, are we all sharing this?
You can't believe when you get to la how little there's some businesses have absolutely no parking so i don't know what we're supposed to do so that that kind of threw me And I realized I didn't need big fancy cars.
I could just tell people I had them. I didn't really need them.
My first car was also manual transmission.
Oh, boy. And my left foot would like truly ache. at the end of like driving all day in LA because you were constantly just going like in and out of third and fourth gear.
There was like, you never made it to fifth gear in this car.
God, no one has a stick anymore. No. You know, this was the cheapest car.
Like the manual transmission was the cheapest car.
My dad's very practical. He was like, you'll get this car.
I'll teach you how to drive it. This is all you need.
You don't need any frills. Yeah. In St. Louis.
Yeah. You've been to St. Louis, I bet. I'm going to St.
Louis to do a show. Have you had Emo's Pizza in St.
Louis? Emo's Pizza in St. Louis? No. But I like it as a town.
I like walking around. I like that stadiums are really close in, you know.
Jenna, do you know what Chesterfield is?
Chesterfield is where I grew up. Oh, is it really?
Chesterfield is where my family lives now.
Yeah, I actually grew up in like Manchester slash Chesterfield in an unincorporated area.
But yeah, Chesterfield for sure. Why? Because that's where I'm going for my tour.
And they said Ice was with Nikki – Glazer this weekend, and she's from St.
Louis, and she goes, why don't they put on your tour St.
Louis? No one... It says Chesterfield. I go, oh, I don't know.
I don't even know where I'm going. I mean, if you're from St.
Louis, you know what Chesterfield is. You'll know?
Okay, good. Yeah, it's not like Yeah, it's not downtown.
I mean, St. Louis is downtown. You're going to be in the burbs.
You're in the suburbs. That's fine with me.
And I think it's a great place. I've been there before.
I think it's new. Anyway, we'll set up comps for everyone you know from high school.
Other than that. Great. Great. Be careful what you say.
My high school ladies are going to come out for your show.
It's super fun. Dana and I had a question.
First of all, I'll tell Dana a little pre-question that you don't know.
All right. Let's try to keep our guests off balance, like with questions she's not asked all the time.
Oh, yeah. We're here to watch. We want to surprise you.
She's going to come out here dizzy. I love it.
Great. Everyone loves that in an interview.
I thought of doing this with Dana and then I called Jenna, right?
Jenna, do you remember this? Yes, of course.
Yes. And you were very sweet. You took the call and you kind of walked me through how it works and what you did.
And it really gave me a little boost to say, this might be fun.
And if it has to be a day and it has to be, that's fine, whatever.
And so, and then Dana had a question of, do you really need a partner?
Has it ever gone through your mind? I could have done this by myself.
And then the money doubles. Has that ever gone through your mind?
Or maybe Angela. Dana and I think about that all day, every day.
People always ask us forever, why? You know, why us?
Why now? Are you really friends? Do you get that?
I mean, you guys are... Famously really close friends.
But with Spade and I, I was like, what? The Tommy Boy guy and the Waynesboro guy?
I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, also because Angela and I were frenemies on The Office, our characters were not. friends and people are always very surprised to learn that we are best friends in real life.
I could not have done the podcast without her.
I am all like structure and order and spreadsheets.
My version of Office Ladies podcast would be very informative. but also way less entertaining.
So Angela brings all of the like, funny and all of the quirky and all of like the weird observations.
So we're actually we're a pretty good pair.
Yeah, I think that's smart that you did that because there is kind of safety in numbers.
Dana is way better at this. And I don't think I could do it myself.
I think Dana really, really... drives it and makes it easier to do it for me.
But jokingly, it's fun to joke around with him too, because He's a funny guy, obviously, and we have a good time with that, and I think you guys have a real friendship, so...
People like to hear that you're friends, even though it doesn't seem like it on the show.
You guys, I love your podcast. You have no idea how excited I am to be on your podcast right now.
I listen to you guys. I think you are so good together.
Um... Dana, I can't believe you're talking to me right now.
That's kind of blowing my mind. I'm a huge Saturday Night Live nerd.
The greatest part about being on The Office and being on NBC was that I got to breathe the same air as Saturday Night Live people.
This is like... that we would have to be at the same corporate parties together.
And I was a total groupie. That is who I gravitated toward.
It was... Just the coolest. But that's going way back.
I actually have a crazy story from my very early days in L.A.
Let's hear it. And Saturday Night Live.
Okay, so I made my living when I landed in LA as a typist and a transcriber.
And you know how you'd have to go to those events.
They're called like the Television Critics Association, and you would sit on a panel as a cast and you would introduce new cast members.
This would be for any show. Well, my job was to go and sit in that room and take notes and then go back to a hotel room, a hot hotel room filled with like 12 people and 12 people. computers and then listen to audio and transcribe these like press events.
Wow. These conversations. Yeah. Yes. And if we got our work done on time by that evening, we were allowed to go to the quote unquote parties. which, as you know, are really just cast members of TV shows mingling with reporters who are trying to get soundbites.
But we would get to go. We'd get to eat the food, drink the drinks and just watch all the famous people.
Well, all I wanted more than anything was to go to the Saturday Night Live party.
I wanted it. more than my little new heart in LA could stand it.
And so, I knew what night it was coming up and I started planting the seed the day before I started pretending like I didn't feel good. because I was gonna make an excuse that I was sick so that I could get off work on time and then sneak into this party.
But I I needed the hours, you know, so I planted that seed the next day.
I was like, man, I'm still not feeling good at three o'clock.
I'm like, I'm so sorry. I got to go. I got to go home.
The guy was like, fine. I had planted a change of clothes in my car.
I went, I changed into a cocktail dress.
I sneak into the party. And I can't even tell you it was amazing.
Norm Macdonald. I'm looking at him in the flesh.
I can't. My mind is blown. Then I see Molly Shannon and I think I'm going to do it.
I'm going to go say hi to Molly Shannon.
And I walk up to her, she's giving soundbites to the press.
And I say, Molly Shannon, I am a new actress in LA and I just admire you so much.
And I just wanted to tell you just what you mean to me.
You know the stuff you say. Yeah, sure. She looked at me. took me by the shoulders, looked me deep in the eyes and said, Don't give up.
Whatever you do, don't give up. It took me 10 years to get on Saturday Night Live.
And my best advice to you is just know it'll happen eventually if you just stick with it, okay?
Wow. Sounds like the Molly we know. Yeah, I was about to say she'll say something nice.
Amazing. And I went and I like I had this encounter with her and then I turn around and And my boss from the transcription room is standing there along with everybody else who got off work on time and they came to this party.
And I was like, am I fired? And he goes, you are fired.
No, what? He fired me, but it was fine, guys, because I met Molly Shannon and she gave me that advice.
And I went home and I told my mom And every time I had a hard day for the next 10 years, my mom would say to me, Jenna, don't you forget what Molly Shannon told you?
She said, don't give up. She said it took you...
It took her 10 years. You guys wait for it.
10 years later, I'm at the premiere of of Walk Hard, the movie Walk Hard that I did with John C. Reilly.
Yeah, right. I shit you not, guess who's at that party?
Molly Shannon. Molly Shannon. Your boss.
And I got to go up to her and I got to say, Molly Shannon, here's this story.
You told me 10 years and she was like, oh, look, it's 10 years later and here you are.
And I got a picture with her. I made the photographer come over and like take a picture of us.
Is that the greatest thing ever? Does Molly know anything?
Has she heard this story or did you? Yes, I told her that night at the Walk Hard premiere.
Wow. Unbelievable. Yes, and I wrote a book, and I wrote that story in the book, and I have the picture in the book, too.
Mm-hmm. Well, when I met David, he was 19.
I said, you hang with this. And in six months...
Don't give up because in six months, no, David was out of the blocks fast.
If it was a sprinter, he was like, boom.
Dana said, you're going to move to LA and in six months you'll get crabs.
And I go, okay. Police Academy, hello. He got a movie.
He's had a, I got a movie early on. That's the police guy movie that I made.
I had $6,000 to buy the car that got stolen.
So I was back to zero. Hmm. Wow. Yeah. Great story.
You still type 85 words per minute. That's nothing to sneeze at.
I do. I do. 90% accuracy. It's all in the accuracy.
Anyone can type garbage. You're 90%, right?
Yeah, I mean, right. You want to type words.
Anyone can just type nothing. My father was a high school teacher.
A typing teacher, my father, for decades.
Can you type? Can you guys type with all your fingers or are you like two finger typers?
I can't do anything. If you see a non... taught young person like in their 20s they're really fast and I don't know if it's technically all using all their fingers but you know We picked it up later, but I'm fast enough.
Jenna, I have a good question that ties into Saturday Night Live.
When you did Blades of Glory, you wound up getting to have sex with Will Ferrell, right?
Yes, that's right. I had a sex scene with Will.
That's a big deal. That's one of the best all-time goats of SNL.
Oh, yeah, that was nuts. But also, by the way, Amy Poehler was in that movie.
Oh, that's right. So just playing my sister.
Wowee. And Will Arnett was in that movie.
Yeah, I mean, that was... That was terrifying.
That was terrifying. And Will was so polite when we shot that scene, because he had to like grab my boobs like several times.
But what was crazy about it was I probably had on more clothes in that scene where I look like I'm just in like a, 90 then I normally wear like they because they put you in like Spanx and then a corset and then a thing and they painted my body with makeup.
I mean, I felt like so covered. It was crazy.
He has to go and grab your boobs through your stuff, but it's like that kind of thing.
You can't even feel it because you've got 18 layers of...
Yeah, it's like I was wearing body armor.
So I was kind of like maybe like wink when you grab them because I can feel nothing.
And this was pre-date intimacy coordinators.
There was no one there. There was no, there was just, it was just like, here's what we're doing.
You're going, let's do this. Yes, exactly.
Was Swartzen in that? Do you know Nick Swartzen, that little fool?
Yes. Yes, he was. Oh, my God. We are friends with Nick and, you know.
It's a real roller coaster, Jenna, I'll tell you that.
It is. I found him lovely on the film, but...
What do I know? No, he's great. He's so funny.
Hall pass. We haven't even gotten to the God dang office office.
What is it? The question is, is for you and your partner rewatching all these episodes and talking about them.
What how is your perception if it at all changed about the show?
What did you learn about the show or in or if anything?
I Because it is now officially a phenomenon in the way it travels around and then explodes again.
It's evergreen. And it's a unique show.
And yesterday I was watching... the office with Ricky Gervais, very different.
I mean, you know, you say it came from that office, but it went, it, it has its own complete original thing.
Greg Daniels, one of the great writers. So what did you guys, what, what do you feel about that thing after doing hundreds of podcasts?
Did you hit, Did you go through every episode at some point?
Yeah, every single episode, all 201 episodes.
And then a lot of interviews with cast and crew.
Writers. Writers, exactly. My biggest takeaway from having rewatched it was that it's really good the whole time.
Because I think there was this lore, especially among the cast and the creatives, that maybe we hit our peak in season three or season four.
Also this belief that like the two seasons after Steve left, we were just treading water and maybe they weren't as good.
But when I watched everything, like some of my favorite episodes were in seasons eight and nine. after Steve had left, like there were still these amazing storylines And also, I have to say now, when I look back, some of my favorite Episodes were also in seasons four through six, like Dinner Party was season four,
Michael Scott paper company, that whole arc was in season five.
And that's just great TV. And, um, But yeah, I think some of the award nominations stopped after season three.
So I think maybe we got in our heads and thought, oh, I guess we're not creating as I think that just happens no matter what.
Yeah, you're not the new shiny object anymore.
That's a nice thing. I mean, when you're watching yourself and you're watching the thing and then you come on and stuff. and it's something you did years ago.
Do you ever sometimes, because you sound like you're a normal actor, comedian that's sort of like, a little self-critical.
How was I? Do you ever kind of look at yourself in the scene and go, damn, I nailed that.
Why did I feel insecure? Or, or, What's that like?
I mean, I have both reactions. Sometimes I watch it and I'm like, I'll never do work that good again.
Shit, that was great. But then there's other scenes where I just cringe, where I'm like, oh, God, I remember this. how I struggled with that and I couldn't do it.
And now here it is for everyone to see. And I guess I just have to move on.
So I've had both reactions. And I don't know the complete specifics of this, but it's First of all, it was always an ensemble.
How great Carell is in that part is, you know, everybody knows that. but it always was an ensemble and so many people came out of it and now have these long careers, but it's, I forgot my train of thought, sorry.
I was seeing Steve Carell in my head. Jenna, when you can watch it and say I was in the pocket because sometimes you watch it and you go.
You're just in the pocket of going, this is a great scene.
This whole idea of this episode is working.
And when they whip the camera back, get a great look, whip back to you, perfect timing, get a great look.
And when you see it, you go. Because you can only feel the camera when you're shooting and you don't really know.
And then you go, God, they nailed that. Boom, boom.
Edited well. Everything about this is just That's why people really get, uh, enchanted by, I mean, and also just your face is so part of the office and it's so cute and they always cut to you.
And you have these little storylines. It's really, I see why people get hooked on it.
No matter when you turn it on, you can just grab any episode.
I remember what I forgot, which is, was how much, if any, improvisation was there?
Because it comes off very improvisational in totem, but I know there are wasn't completely improvised.
I know that's a pretty cool word, right?
So were you allowed to kind of go, you guys, could I try this?
You know, do you mind if I do, you know, that kind of stuff?
Yeah, it was really collaborative. And so many of the writers were also actors on the show.
So they were with us and they would be sometimes pitching alternate jokes right there. on the set.
So that was neat. And we did a lot of improvising, but I don't know how much of it actually made the cut.
We got to play and have fun, But I would say like 90 percent of what you see on the screen was written on the page down to like they would write in ellipses. for our speech.
Like, so you knew to kind of pause because they knew they were gonna whip the camera during that pause.
And so they could get back to you. So there was a very elaborate choreography of whipping the camera a little too late so that it And you'd have to get handled.
So it seemed like they didn't quite do it right.
Yeah. Yes, exactly. And so a lot of times when we would do a rehearsal, they would say, Jenna, will you give a handle before your next line So we have time for that camera whip.
So that would be we would add things like, um... well they'd find you so that they could find you yeah like in the right timing But so great.
It also seems very real. A lot of the nonverbal acting and those cutaways to a character that isn't saying a line. but just sort of non-verbally doing some kind of attitude and stuff.
It was immediately just felt so new. I'm not going to say fresh.
David would use that word a lot, but immediately I think for comedians as well, uh, watching it going, this looks cool.
This looks fun. This looks different and really funny.
It doesn't push at all. We had two camera operators with cameras on their shoulders, and both of these guys were from Survivor.
So these guys had like walked through... the whatever, the wilderness with the survivor people capturing survivors.
So this is where they came from in the documentary world.
And camera a Randall Einhorn, who was also our cinematographer, who went on to be a director and is now the executive producer of Abbott Elementary and all those things. uh, Randall was our a camera and his job was to get all of the dialogue.
Um, and then Matt sewn, uh, He was our B camera.
And then his job was to get all of those things you're talking about, Dana, all of the acting that was happening in the background.
So whenever a scene was happening, We were all in the background of each other's scenes all day long on set, the full 12 hours.
Steve Carell included. I can't tell you how many times Steve Carell had to sit in Michael Scott's office just to be in the background of Jim and Pam looking at each other.
Yeah, because we're going to see a piece of you is like something we could put on a mug.
Yeah. That would actually be a great cast gift.
Yeah, and so he would grab and push in on all of the, anyone who was in the background of a scene and get their reactions in real time.
It was such a cool way to work. Yeah, and you have to stay alive, though.
You do. Every scene. But it keeps your energy up, you know, because that's the hardest thing for me about acting in movies is like long amounts of downtime between when you're actually acting.
It's just like, oh, God, I got to ramp up again.
Yeah. And it's just, you know, I don't know if this is the correct word. way to say it, but if you feel like if you're discovering something new in the moment, It's really nice.
It does keep your brain alive. And in traditional movies, what I was doing, you know, you do the three masters at 7 or 8 a.m. or whatever and then by 5 or 6 o'clock you start and well don't you in the master eight hours ago your left elbow was up and you You open the car door at this point.
It's the antithesis of what you guys had, at least the way it felt.
It popped. It felt real. For sure. And we did not have marks.
You know, those that for people out there, like you put tape on the ground and then you have to stand on it because that's how you're going to be in focus.
But we had no marks. And if the boom dipped in shot, we just kept it in because it worked in the world.
And when I finished, going back to Blades of Glory, Blades of Glory was the first big movie I did after being cast on The Office.
And I repeatedly kept looking down the barrel of the camera.
Like I would do a scene- with Will and Amy and then I would like give a look to camera I'd be like fuck I can't do that and also I suddenly had to hit a mark and I was I was so stiff.
It was really stressful because I'd been in this other world.
You can watch... When people in movies sometimes, have you ever watched someone looks down when they walk in, look for their mark, and then they look up?
I love it. So horrifying. I want to say also, I was going to say this show is fresh, but it's funny that the term fresh is stale. but also I'm going to bring it back.
The office was fresh and the new one called the paper was, Yeah.
Peacock. Have you seen that? Do you know much about it?
OK, I haven't seen it, but I got to go to the set.
Angela and I. Got special access to the set and got to talk to all the actors.
We got to see it. It's really cool, but we're not allowed to say anything.
Oh, yeah. I think it's in the can. They finished it.
It comes out in September. Oh, interesting.
September on where? Peacock. Peacock, right?
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So with John Krasinski, like the Jim and Pam narrative became such a big thing.
I talked to some people in their early 20s today, told them I was going to review you. on the office.
They go, I go, she was Pam. Oh, Pam. You know, this is like a famous character and Jim and Pam.
I'm just kind of curious. Cause John Krasinski is, I find it really, really interesting how he – came up with that horror film, The Quiet, what was it, The Quiet?
A Quiet Place. A Quiet Place. And it's interesting when actors just all of a sudden you see them and they're like, wow, this guy can really direct.
And did you see any seeds of that in him intellectually or just the way he was around?
Was that a surprise to you when he came out?
Directing it. It was a surprise to none of us.
Oh, I didn't think so. John, I would always say to John, I think you're going to be like our Tom Hanks.
Like, remember how Tom Hanks did Bosom Buddies?
And he was like a very famous, successful TV show.
But like when you think of Tom Hanks, you don't think of bosom buddies, you think of everything else Tom Hanks has done.
And I was like, I think the office is going to be your bosom buddies, like you're going places.
It's very clear. And did he look down at the ground and go, oh, shh.
Shucks, Jenna. Or how did he? He did. He's very.
Yes, he's very humble in that way. You know, like that would be if I say that to him, that's very embarrassing. to him you know like he doesn't want to be like fussed over like that but i was like no it's true mr Well, it's a Herculean task to direct a movie.
I mean, just physically and mentally. Dana fusses over me all the time.
Fusses? Yeah. You fuss over me. I want to hear more about you being a telephone psychic when you got...
Yeah, that was... She worked as a car wash.
I did work at a car for three summers and that was my best...
I worked at Long John Silver's. That was my first job.
I worked at an ice creamery serving ice cream.
And then I got the job at the car wash. All of those were on this road called Manchester road on, um, in St.
Louis, out in the suburbs, and I got fired from Long John Silver's, I got fired from the ice creamery, and my dad would say, looking to get fired from every business on Manchester Road, I guess.
But the car wash stuck and that was great.
There was great money. I was outside. just drying off the cars, you know?
How big are tips in that world? Because I try to tip well, but...
Okay, this is like back then. Well, and by the way, they would always make me give the gentlemen back their cars.
Cause you have to like, yeah, you got to stand at the car and wave, you know, in your little shorts and your little cutoff shirt and like your car's ready.
I'm not, you know, not to brag, but I would get a five sometimes.
Fiverr. But then I had to put it in like the group bucket.
Oh, no. Pooling tips. Pooling tips. Yeah.
I mean, a few of them made it into my pocket.
I'm not going to lie. Now, what percentage of you is really a psychic?
Do you think some of you? I would say zero percent.
But do you believe in the potentiality of psychics at all, or do you think it's all –
They creep me out. I don't want a psychic to tell me what's going to happen to me.
I like to believe I have free will. I don't want to have...
That just will give me nightmares. I saw one psychic one time and it still haunts me.
Yeah. It will change what you'll do. The second they tell you something, you'll make a different decision.
That's what I feel. Like, You will do this and this.
They go, okay. As they'll say, oh, random example, you'll get married within the next 10 years.
So you meet someone and maybe you give them a different chance than you would before.
You're like, I think this is the guy I'm going to marry.
That's exactly right. It's weird. Every little thing changes a little bit.
So you can't really get the same outcome it feels.
I went to a psychic in college. And my big question for her was, am I going to marry this guy I have a crush on?
I was obsessed with him. Am I going to marry him?
I can marry him. She said, no, you're not.
You're not going to marry him. I said, I am, I wanna be an actress.
I'm gonna be famous. She said, you're not gonna be famous for acting.
You're gonna be famous in the world of religion.
Hmm. Yeah. She said I was going to be a famous religious leader.
Well, she had it with acting. She should have.
Here's a review. Here's a review that I brought.
Office ladies. is a religious experience.
This was from the St. Louis Dispatcher. No, I made that up.
Dispatch. If you want to have fun. You have a play, by the way, you've done plays.
It looks like from your prep here, you've done plays, but you have another one coming up Ashland Avenue.
Ashland Avenue, world premiere at the Goodman Theater in Chicago.
Yeah, I'm heading out there in August for rehearsals and then the play opens in September.
Tickets go on sale in June on 27th. Now, doing a play, Dana and I were just talking about this before you came on.
Doing a play. Uh, is it more exciting or is it just something that I couldn't even imagine getting you wrapping my head around the full script that you have to memorize?
Does that take days, weeks? Are you good at that?
It takes weeks. Um, I think I'm okay at it.
Plays are my favorite thing. I was a theater major.
Uh, there's no money in doing theater. but it's where my heart is.
And what I love is that you get to tell the whole story and go on the character's complete journey every night.
You don't have to like prepare it and then you shoot it out of order.
And I also just love that it like... it lives and breathes with the audience and each play can only be seen one time.
Like each performance is slightly different And you have it.
And then just like only the people who were there got to see it.
It just is like really magical to me. And I love it.
It's all I want to do moving forward. I want to just be a theater actress it's interesting um i've gotten more into plays the last 10 years just in London.
I'm not an intellectual in New York and stuff.
And it's interesting that the curtain call And then they stand and there's a standing ovation.
And then you can tell by their body language how they felt, especially when they're walking off.
They're slumping. And sometimes you see someone literally twirl around almost like we or high five.
We know that you saw one that had that. Chemistry, like you said, they're not always at that level.
That's why you're right. They're like fingerprints.
Dana, I think you'll agree. Stand up is, you know, I go on the road. going mostly to places Jenna lived.
But when I go on the road, you do a show and everyone goes, oh, I saw your show, I saw your show.
But you remember that city and you go, Oh, that one went pretty well.
Even though it's just microscopically different.
Yeah. But you know, sometimes you get off and you go, I could not get it going perfectly.
And sometimes you're like, From the second I went out, it was perfect.
I said everything right. I had the right attitude.
And so plays are like that where Whoever comes is going to see that night's experience and it will be a hair.
The audience is the partner. Yeah. ways is it is it yeah a drama they steer or is it a pure drama or It is a comedy, but it will also break your heart into a million pieces.
So what it's about is... It's about a guy who owns an old TV shop in Chicago on Ashland Avenue.
And he's a guy who used to have a dozen TV shops in Chicago, but you know, mom and pop shops have gone away for the big box, you know, places.
And so, um, And so he's being honored by the city of Chicago for being a small business owner.
I play his daughter. And basically, it's a play about this man dealing with... being in his seventies and basically life is kind of telling him, we don't, we don't really need what you have to offer anymore.
He's like dealing with his own relevancy.
Like the thing that he's good at is owning this TV shop and selling people TVs and But it's like, well, you know what?
We don't need that anymore. And so what do you do with that when the world is kind of kind of done with your skill?
So it's kind of heartbreaking, but it's also a comedy.
And then as his daughter, who has grown up just...
And being in this TV shop as well, and it looks like it's going away, like I have to decide, well, I'm kind of getting a chance here to do something else with my life and strike out on my own and what does that mean to me?
Do you feel like the audience is obviously they're familiar who you are from the office and they want to come see you.
And so how different is this character? compared to Pam.
This character is different from Pam, for sure.
And that's something like, you know, That's my whole career since Pam is that most people just want to see more Pam.
It doesn't totally bother me. But I think I'm going to be I think I think you'll be able to go on this journey even, you know, I think it'll be OK.
I would say, you know, because I An audience, I'm doing stand-up.
They do want to see characters that I did on SNL, and I just totally – of course I'll do them.
They're my hits. The only thing worse than not than having hits or a hit show is not having a hit show.
So there it is. That's right. Yeah. So it's a good problem to have.
And I, think that from reading your prep guest prep you know you've just done a lot of stuff since the office so it certainly was a starting point for you.
Do you still just love it? Do you just love performing?
I do. I do. I do. You know, I think I'm a mom now.
I have two kids. And one of the things that was really hard though was just the amount of focus and frankly, like, self-involvement that is necessary to be an actor or a performance artist or you know But it's true.
You don't want to go all the way into narcissism because that's a real bummer.
But there is a type of selfishness and self-involvement that is necessary for being an artist because that's how you create.
That's how you get in the space to create.
But that lane is not compatible with the kind of parent I want to be.
I wanna be a kid-focused, kid-centered type of parent.
And so I have changed the things I've said yes to or the things I do acting wise since I had kids.
Mostly so that they were kind of like more softballs, you know, like things I could do without getting too dark or self-involved or... selfish, things that I could completely leave at work.
I wasn't bringing anything home with me that was going to like bleed into their lives.
Oldest time, oldest show business, all those kind of conflicts.
One thing that occurred to me recently why it's sort of emotional or personal, like I have a lot of good friends who, maybe real estate agents or different type of jobs, but we are our product. our physicality, our voice, who we are.
And so it's a personal thing. You're out there doing the play.
And if it's not going well, you didn't feel you had enough time to prep.
It's just personal. I think it is really common and difficult to balance the emotion with the family. versus just how personal it is as a performer and artist.
It's like, and when kids come along, you're just now suddenly it's their world and you're, You can't even help it.
It just goes away. You're like, now I'm lasered on this and I can't be like I was, you know.
That's exactly right. That's like in part of your life where it changes.
There are some people in show business. I think Beyonce has her daughter touring with her who's like 12.
There are some people who just do that kind of lifestyle.
Who's richer than me. That's different than giving – your kid's kind of a stable, old-fashioned lifestyle, you know?
Well, I remember I talked to a family therapist, like, early on, because I... like therapy and I was talking about wanting to have kids and trying to figure out how am I going to balance that with you know being an actor and And she said something that really stuck with me.
She said, well, there's kind of two types of families.
You can have parent-centered homes or child-centered homes.
And she's like, and there's no judgment which one you wanna pick, but in a parent-centered home, If you have a career, your children will orbit around you and your career.
And if you go to a movie, you bring them with you and you have tutors and and they sort of like just go into your life.
She's like, but in a child centered home, you know, you center it around the children.
And if you need to go do a project. She was like, imagine like your family is flowing like a river and rather than diverting the whole river to the movie, you just...
You take a little stream by yourself. You do the movie and then you rejoin the river later.
But the goal is to keep the river doing its thing.
And I really liked that. And I thought, yeah, I want to do that one.
Could you, I don't know if you want to do it publicly, but could I get the number of that therapist or?
I think you gave us solid bullet points.
That's a pretty good little help us. What do you call that?
An analogy, a metaphor? I know it's one of those things.
It was great. It was great. She also said like, you know, something that's hard, though, is she said when you She said, when you pick the person you want to have kids with, she's like, you're going to want a person who agrees with you because there's nothing worse than one parent who wants a a parent-centered home and another parent who wants a child-centered home.
And then she also said people who have grown up in parent-centered homes have a very hard time creating kid-centered homes because they're like, hey, wait a second.
I'm the adult now. It's my turn. Yeah. So it's right.
Right. Like you grew up like revolving around your parent and then if you revolve around your kid, you're like, when was my shot?
Yeah. I thought that was—it was just so much to chew on, right?
Yeah, well, the 60s was so different, you know.
I guess it was a parent-centric—it was— you just were so much more independent.
Like I was walking to school at age five, you know, and there were no helmets, you know, the whole thing.
And so- It's become very child-centric.
It used to be children should be seen but not heard, and now it's adults should keep their mouths shut. when we're watching, you know, and Dana, you wear a helmet now though, when you go to the mailbox.
But that's his own choice. That's my own choice.
It's a fashion choice. Jenna, two more things before we let you go.
One, I thought, when you do a play, I think of this when I do stand-up on the road.
When you do a play, I think what would scare me is you have to feel good every day.
Like you have to go there and prep yourself.
It sounds stupid, but. To stand, to sit, to go through, to be fully alert for those two hours, whatever.
That's kind of a hard thing. Does it ever even cross your mind or you're always just kind of popped to it?
No, I mean, I have a bunch of like rituals and superstitions that I do.
Okay. you do yeah do you guys I have like I have like a vocal warm-up I have like a body warm-up I have a meal that I like to eat because I know that it's not going to make me feel too full or too hungry or sick or anything.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm definitely not experimenting with any kind of new food.
Yep. Yep. Do you have that? Yeah. I mean, Dana and I were just talking last week, like before we went on stage.
I get an eyelash in my eye once in a while.
It happened last week again, Dana. And anything can happen right before you walk out and you're like, I can't pee.
I can't eat. I can't do anything. I have to feel good for the next hour straight.
There can be no distractions. And it's very weird because your life, you can always poke at your phone.
You can look at this. You can Go restroom.
And you go this. And it plays even longer.
And just to feel like you had a grumbly stomach or your back hurts or something like, oh, shit, can I do this?
Do I call in somebody? You know, so weird.
I had a shooting pain in my left. Leg kind of inside my left leg.
Like, and so all of a sudden my left leg was inoperable.
I was playing in front of 2000 people and I was in a, and I'm like, okay.
Can't got to go with this, you know, incorporated into the act, you know, and then it worked itself out.
What I was interested in also, besides we all do that.
I think it's great. You have that certain show day prep.
But the gentleman who is playing your father, what is his name?
Fran Guinan. So Larry David was just talking about when he does usually. whatever he's doing.
I don't know if he does stand up or whatever.
It's just the fatigue goes away once there's the audience, you know?
And then I think in a play, you're holding onto him, he's holding onto you, and that connection can hopefully make the part of your brain going, how am I doing?
How's it going? All that go away at times, right?
That's the electricity of it. If you get so involved in the scene with your partner that it feels exhilarating, right?
When you know you're connecting and the audience is with you.
That's what you live for, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the dope of the whole thing of live performance.
I mean, that's the thing we're chasing. That's the high you're chasing every time.
And even if your prep doesn't go as well as you want or you ate too much, You still always have that possibility of that happening.
Yes. And also if they get something wrong, the audience doesn't know this.
They could miss a line. You cover form. There's little things that are like teamwork, things that are fun to do that. you get to the end and someone's like, hey, you saved me.
I spaced out. And the audience doesn't really know what's going on, but you guys, you forgot a prop.
There's little things that keep it alive, but That's kind of the fun teamwork of it all, like in a show also.
That happened to me during a show. The I did a show off Broadway and me and this other actress were on stage and we're only on stage for like four lines because we don't like each other.
And we're waiting for the same guy. We like the same guy and we're waiting for him to walk in and break the tension.
And he didn't come on stage. He didn't come.
He just missed his entrance. And so I started improvising.
Which then the playwright was like, oh, my God, I can't believe people thought I wrote those lines.
That was just terrible. I'm like, what were we supposed to do?
We're just sitting there. No one was coming on.
It's an art piece of you sit in silence for 12 minutes waiting while they find the guy at the deli next door.
I like it when someone didn't silence their phone or is talking on the phone and then the actor on the Broadway show breaks character he's in some kind of clown suit or dresses a bear i will kill you motherfucker you know i don't know it's just that clown suit it's live Yeah.
Now, Jenna, my last thing for you is I like that when you audition for The Office.
Alison Jones is a casting director. We probably all three have run into along the way.
The best. Said, dare to bore me. I think that's interesting.
I read that. I like that because most people are trying to give you the biggest pizzazz of a lifetime in an audition.
Well, I had been auditioning for Alison for about five years before The Office.
I got my first speaking role on a television show.
It was Spin City. The Charlie Sheen years.
And I had three lines as a waitress. And then she would bring me in for other little things.
Sure. And finally, when it was time for her to cast The Office, I had a good enough relationship with her that I could say, hey, Alison, do you have any advice?
I really want this one. And she said, yeah, my advice is don't come in looking hot.
Like don't come in all done up. And by the way, usually the note was, OK, you're playing a pediatric nurse, but like hot or like you're playing a school teacher, but like really hot.
So like usually the note was look hot. Mortician, but hot.
But super hot. Like she's really, really hot.
And I'm like, okay. So she was like, don't come in. like looking hot, don't come in with a bunch of makeup.
Overdone, yeah. We want real people. And then she said, we're going to have you improvise during the audition.
And my advice is dare to bore me. And I was like, okay, great.
So I went in and I read the scene and then Greg Daniels said, okay, we're going to improvise.
I'm going to just ask you some questions as if I'm a documentary filmmaker.
And I had that note in my head and he said, do you like being a receptionist here?
And I just paused and I said nothing. And then I said, no.
And that's all I said. That's funny. Because I thought it would be funnier to watch me think of all the things I wasn't gonna say. than to say any of them.
And then also though, she's like a deeply honest person.
So she can't lie and say she does like it, but she's also not going to say anymore.
And I think that's what got me the job. Greg told me that's what got me the job.
That is so cool. Dare to bore me. Dare to bore me.
It was so scary. It's so scary. Oh, because you want to just go for the fences.
I know. It's so hard to just have restraint.
That's like the hardest thing about acting is just holding in silence.
You really are working with people that are all doing it.
And it's so fucking funny. It's amazing.
It's just amazing, amazing thing to have been a part of.
It just. I still can't believe it and just what it means to people, too.
Like, that's so cool. I know that the office has gotten people through this. hard times in their lives.
And, um, you know, once in a long ago, uh, I fell down a set of stairs in New York at BuddhaCon.
It was during like an NBC event. I was there with Fred Armisen actually.
I fell down this set of stairs and I broke my back in four places.
And while I was recovering... I watched the Larry Sanders show and it was like better than any pain medicine.
So like the fact that I can like, I can be part of something that is that for other people, like I know what it means to have a thing that like gets you through something.
It's really cool. Wow, that's full circle because I believe that Ricky Gervais felt like he was influenced by the Larry Sanders show.
And then he does the British office and then you go to the American office and then You break your back and then you're watching Larry Sanders.
I don't know where this keeps going, but there's something kind of cool about that.
Um, that was a show. Magic. We were both on it.
Were you on it, David? We were on Larry.
Also, uh, we all worked with Greg Daniels, um, who is a shout out to him, who's a great writer that obviously SNL.
I remember when Greg Daniels and Conan O'Brien walked into the offices and At SNL.
Fresh out of Harvard. Looked like they were sophomores in high school.
Little haircuts, kind of nervous, looking around.
Yeah. great. Yeah. And they were roommates.
Yeah, I know. It's amazing, really. And, uh, Those SNL years, it's like we were propped up by guys like that.
Yeah. and Bob Odenkirk and Smigel and Downey and Franklin.
There's so many good writers there. It's kind of nice when, and I'm sure you just do this, you're not trying to get kudos about it, but if someone says to you later, because not everyone is really friendly when you walk into an environment like that.
And they'd say, oh, you were so nice to us.
I go, really? I was? I think I was just like, how are you guys doing or something.
But some people are like, ah, more competition.
We don't need you. You know, it's a little.
It can be a little cold at SNL. No one's really telling you where you should stand or what you should even do.
That's what we learned. A lot of people were like, they didn't even know, no one told them anything. you know, about the show and they just had to figure it out for themselves.
But anyway. Well, it's an interesting environment.
I got to be on the show as as part of Steve Carell's monologue once.
I remember that. And I was, I mean, again, like I told you, I'm a Saturday Night Live groupie nerd.
And so this was I don't even remember what I had going on.
I got like 24 hours notice. Do you want to come fly in?
And I was like, yes. I came in on a red eye.
I was like anything. And to be in the bowels, to like get to be there for the rehearsal and then how like oh my God, it really does change from the rehearsal.
That was nuts and just... It was so scary.
And my line changed and then the cue card changed and then How we all went into Lauren's office and you're sitting on the floor waiting to hear what things made it and what didn't.
I couldn't believe I was invited. I was like, I'm just the I just have one sentence in the opening monologue, but I was like privy to all of the inner workings.
It was so awesome. It is. And then that night at the after party, I, I held Lauren Michaels focus. for 30 solid minutes.
Whoa. And I still to this day, it is one of my best like small talk moments ever.
Because I'd met him many times. I had come and I saw when Christina Applegate hosted and when Jon Hamm hosted, I came as our guest and I would sit and I would run into him and shake his hand and all this sort of stuff.
But for whatever reason, at this particular after party, I
Got in a whole chat with him about how I like to prep for the apocalypse.
And he was very interested in this topic.
And we spoke for like a solid 25 minutes.
And I wanted to keep talking to him. I wanted to keep going, but I knew that I had to say goodbye.
And I did it. I left at the right time. And I'm so proud of myself.
That's it. And now I never want to speak to him again.
I will never speak to him again. I will not ruin it.
Six years there. I didn't get 30 total. It was, I'm telling you, I'll never, I never ever want to run into him again.
That was a good subject matter for him. Something that he would be like.
Just doesn't talk about every day. You first have to make sure that you procure a fair amount of water in the event of an apocalypse.
He put Triscuits down there. I mean, did he respond at all?
I mean, you really talked about your preparation for the apocalypse for 30 minutes straight.
For a good amount of time. But then we also talked about the movie The Edge, which is my favorite movie.
And it's a survivalist movie. I love movies where people have to survive. things.
I've seen it at least five times. And that's a movie.
And we told Alec Baldwin that that Friends come over or relatives, oh, let's watch a movie.
And once in a while I'll go, have you seen The Edge?
They go, no. I go, it's just kind of a surefire thing. great entertaining film no one could not like you know what one man can do another can do That's from the movie.
What one man can do, another can do. I'm telling you, that's gotten me through like big life moments.
I love this movie. And so we talked about the edge. which ended up leading into survivalist stuff, into prepping.
And he was really interested in my currency plans.
Like what were my plans for currency during the apocalypse?
Did I have gold bars? And you know what?
To be honest, I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't gotten as far as currency.
I was there in the fall doing Biden just behind his desk.
I saw this whole duffel bag, you know, it's, Really big, you know?
And then when he left to go use the bathroom, it was just all this survival stuff in there.
He goes by and he pushes a wall and it spins around and disappears down a slide.
He was influenced by my prep. Tony Hopkins had that line, right?
One man can do, another man can do. Is that Tony Hopkins?
Yes, correct. And Al Baldwin. That's Al Baldwin.
Al Baldwin was great in that. So was Tony.
I love when people change names. Jen Jen was great on our podcast.
Jen Fisher. Does anyone call you Jen? No, no one's ever called me Jen.
Well, get ready for it because we have a lot of followers.
By the way, people may not know, but we're on the same network.
It's almost like television now. So that's kind of cool.
This is jury duty for Jen. And just for people who are watching this or might want to see it.
So are you in a studio somewhere? Yeah, I'm at your New York studios.
Yeah, I'm here in New York. this week. And so I came into the New York studio.
And are you and Angela usually in different places when you do the podcast and sometimes together?
No, we're usually together. Odyssey, our company that we both work for, has a studio in Hollywood and we usually record there in person together.
And you guys are all set up at home. Like you guys have cool setups, but we still go in person.
We've been going in person. I kind of feel I like in person. or something.
It changes a lot. When I was doing SNL, I was just in a hotel room doing it.
That's one of the advantages of this is that you can do it remotely.
But David has a little studio. I just have this stupid mansion, yeah.
But Jenna, thank you for joining us. Tell Angela hello.
And we appreciate your time. Oh, guys, I don't want it to end.
I love you. I love you both. I love your podcast. this is so cool.
This was a highlight for me. Um, well, everybody, I just enjoy talking to you.
I, I just find, I, I, You're always sweet and fun.
And just like you would think. Podcasters, actresses and all kinds of things you do.
But if you do this, well, I think you do get a little more inept. or adept at doing it, you know, conversing and letting it go where it needs to go and asking questions.
Usually when we have a podcaster on, it's an easy show.
Yeah, right? Because you know what you're hoping to get when you're doing it yourself.
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be electric every moment.
You don't have to push it. It just... It just is what it is.
If we seem rusty, it's because we've only done 2,000 of these.
Ashland Avenue is the play and she's doing it in Chicago.
And it will be tickets on sale June 27th.
And it starts, what, in August, you said?
I think September 15th. Okay. Yeah. September 15th.
All right. Thank you very much. Bye, sweetheart.
Very good. Thank you, guys. Don't hang up.
This has been a presentation of Odyssey.
Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro.
The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.
Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.
Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.
Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.
Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubbico.
Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.
Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.
Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.
