Jenna Fischer Reveals She Almost Quit Acting Before ‘The Office’ — Plus Her Celebrity Crushes & ‘Cheers’ Dream

THE OFFICE, Jenna Fischer, (2009), 2005-2013. — Mitchell Haaseth/NBC/Courtesy: Everett Collection

For millions of fans, she’s the mild-mannered girl next door (or, in her case, desk) that we fell in love with alongside Jim Halpert on The Office, but in reality, Jenna Fischer has lived quite the life on and off-camera. From her struggles to make it in Hollywood (as documented in her book, The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide) to conquering the podcast world with her former costar (and real-life BFF) Angela Kinsley with Office Ladies, the former Pam Beasley has come a long way from her humble roots in St. Louis.

With her new big-screen movie Nimrods (a collaboration with writer/director/husband Lee Kirk, Green Day, and an all-star cast) soon to hit streaming and VOD, we chatted with Jenna about the good old days.

Inaugural Entertainment /Courtesy Everett Collection

Favorite TV show growing up:

Jenna Fischer: Cheers, without a doubt. That was a show that my whole family would gather around and watch together. That was back when you had an appointment with television. You didn’t record anything. You watched it when it was on, and we always watched it together.

When I drove out to Los Angeles with dreams of being an actor, I was driving toward the dream of being on something like Cheers one day. I wanted to be Diane Chambers. I wanted to be in an ensemble television comedy that families gathered around and watched together, and my dream came true, which is wild.

First movie you remember seeing in a theater:

I think it was Bambi, and it leveled me. I was like, “That was so traumatic when Bambi’s mom dies.” I never recovered for the rest of the movie. I don’t even know what the rest of the movie is about to this day because I was just like, “What? What?” (laughs)

Similarly, I don’t know if you’ve revisited Dumbo, but it’s equally as horrible. This poor elephant with his giant ears. I don’t know why they were really putting children through the wringer with these stories back then. My gosh.

First job:

My first job was working at a kennel. I was 15 years old. My parents had to drive me, and I would go and clean out all of the stalls and all of the cat litter, and I would play with the dogs and walk the dogs.

Then, once I could drive myself, I worked at Long John Silver’s. I trained to be a cook, and I also ran the register.

First celebrity crush:

American actors Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez and Patrick Swayze on the set of The Outsiders, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

Nancy Moran/Sygma via Getty Images

I loved basically everyone from the movie The Outsiders. I had a crush on C. Thomas Howell and Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze and Ralph Macchio. Matt Dillon. And also, by the way, Tom Cruise and Emilio Estevez are in that movie too, and Leif Garrett.

I mean, they put all of our crushes in one movie. It was nuts!

Favorite subject in school:

English and history. I really liked reading, and I liked learning history, so those were my two favorites.

Fashion trend you went all-in on:

I went all-in on neon. Neon earrings, neon bracelets, neon eyeshadow, neon windbreaker. Yeah. I hope that doesn’t come back.

First album you bought with your own money:

It was Whitesnake‘s album for “Here I Go Again.” I had this thing that was a record player, a dual cassette player, and a CD player. I got it for my birthday, and it was very exciting. I quickly bought Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin, and Poison.

Then my mom gave me all of her old records. She loved show tunes, so I would go from listening to Led Zeppelin to listening to Oklahoma! And that was my childhood.

Favorite toy growing up:

I wasn’t a big toy kid. My mom would comment on how difficult it was to shop for me for Christmas and birthdays. But one year, our family got a camcorder, and I loved that camcorder. That is probably the thing that I played with the most in my childhood.

I would make stop-motion movies with my Barbies. I would make movies with my sister, me and my sister starring in a movie playing multiple roles. I would have to plot it out because I was editing within the camera: doing one angle, she’d say her line, cut; we’d do my angle, cut; do her angle.

So the family camcorder was my favorite toy growing up.

Favorite musical artist growing up:

American singer Madonna in New York, 1984.

Michael Putland/Getty Images

I loved Madonna. I loved Prince. Yeah, probably them, because I liked to dance.

First Concert:

I went to a Billy Joel concert with my best friend Ellen. And my second concert was New Kids on the Block. I took my sister.

Favorite Family Vacation Memory:

My parents, when I was eight years old, bought a little cabin on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. That was where we went in the summertime on vacation.

All of my favorite family memories from my childhood are either just driving there the three hours from St. Louis in the car with the dog on our laps and his hot breath, and us arguing over who had to have the dog on their lap, or me and my sister fighting in the backseat and my dad saying he’s going to pull this car over if we don’t cut it out—and then us making fun of him for saying he’s going to pull the car over.

Just that family togetherness where you’re crammed together. Then we would be in this cabin together, swimming and boating and swinging off the rope swing that was tied to a tree into the lake.

What you wanted to be when you grew up:

An actress, always. It’s the only thing I remember. I toyed for a minute with being a veterinarian. I love animals, and I actually, to this day, work in animal rescue. I foster and socialize kittens and get them adopted, or work with other foster cats and kittens. I’ve been doing that for over 20 years.

That’s the only thing I ever loved as much as acting—working with animals.

After I’d moved to Los Angeles and I’d been here like seven years and couldn’t get a steady job, I was having to do that thing where it was such a hustle. You had to constantly be trying to get enough money to get by with these acting jobs. I was ready to give up, and I looked into vet tech school. I thought, “Maybe I’ll take two years and go become a vet tech.”

And then, of course, as it always happens, once you release the dream, then it comes to you. No sooner did I do that than I got the phone call to audition for The Office.

What would surprise your 12-year-old self about you today:

It’s funny, we were just talking about this. I think my 12-year-old self would not believe that I have a swimming pool.

Back in St. Louis, Missouri, if you had a swimming pool—wow. Because there weren’t a lot of them. Of course, out here in California, it’s not an anomaly to have a swimming pool. It’s kind of part of L.A. living. People have pools.

But as we were swimming in the swimming pool the other night as a family, I literally said out loud, “If someone told me when I was a kid, one day you’re going to live in Los Angeles and have a house with a swimming pool,” I’d be like, “Whoa, no way.”

“You must have really made it because you got a swimming pool.”