John Krasinski reveals ‘The Office’ scene he refused to shoot
Creator Greg Daniels wanted Jim to cheat on Pam during the show's eighth season
By Joe Goggins
John Krasinski has revealed he once refused to film a scene for ‘The Office’ in which his character, Jim, cheated on his wife Pam.
As reported by Uproxx, actor-turned-director Krasinski recalled that the prospective scene was “the only time I remember putting my foot down,” in a new book about the series, ‘Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office’.
“I remember saying things that I never thought I’d say before, like, ‘I’m not going to shoot it,” he added. The idea arose during the show’s eighth season, and would have seen Jim kissing an office temp whilst Pam, played by Jenna Fischer, was on maternity leave.
“My feeling is there is a threshold with which you can push our audience,” explained Krasinski of his opposition to the plot turn. “They are so dedicated. We have shown such great respect to them.”
“But there’s a moment where if you push them too far, they’ll never come back. And I think that if you show Jim cheating, they’ll never come back.” The relationship between Jim and Pam was one of the show’s longest-running and best-loved plot lines.
‘The Office’s creator, Greg Daniels, backed down and ditched the idea, although he defended it in his own contribution to the oral history.
“I feel like that kind of worry was good in terms of the fans’ engagement,” said Daniels. “I needed to worry them that maybe I was going to give them a bad ending so they were happy when they got a good ending.”
Back in April, Angela Kinsey, who played Angela Martin on The Office, detailed another abandoned Jim and Pam scene on her Office Ladies podcast, which she co-hosts with Fischer. It would’ve seen the pair engage in an uncharacteristically racy exchange.
“I don’t remember if we filmed that,” said Fischer. “If it’s in the shooting draft, we must have. People would have lost their minds if we’d left that in the show.”
“Just hearing that makes me feel like I’ve just walked in on my parents having an intimate moment. I just, like, thought “no, no, no, I don’t want to see it!”
Meanwhile, Paul Rudd revealed in the oral history that he tried to discourage Steve Carell from playing the lead role of Michael Scott in the series, thinking it would never match up to the UK original.