Jenna Fischer

Regina Marie Kirk ( Fischer; born March 7, 1974), known professionally as Jenna Fischer, is an American actress.

Upon her move to Los Angeles in 1998, she began performing Commedia dell'arte with the Zoo District Theatre Company, and was noticed by a talent agent during her appearance in their musical adaptation of the 1922 film Nosferatu.

This led to her signing a contract with the agent.

Fischer struggled to break into film and television.

Her first paying film role was in a sex education video for psychiatric patients upon their release from Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

Three years elapsed from the time she arrived in California until she landed her first televised speaking role, playing a waitress on the TV sitcom Spin City in 2001.

She subsequently had bit parts in small independent films, including Employee of the Month, Lucky 13 and The Specials, then progressed to guest roles on television shows including Cold Case, Miss Match, Off Centre, Six Feet Under, Strong Medicine, That '70s Show, Undeclared, and What I Like About You.

Unsatisfied with her career's progress, Fischer took matters into her own hands, writing, directing and starring in her own mockumentary, LolliLove (her only directing credit), co-starring her then-husband James Gunn, and friends Linda Cardellini, Judy Greer, Lloyd Kaufman and Jason Segel.

She began participating in The Artist's Way, a self-led creativity seminar in book form.

"From doing that book I got this idea ... When we started it, it wasn't even supposed to be a real movie. It was just going to be an improv project for James and I to amuse ourselves with."

Using a camera she'd given Gunn as a wedding present, she filmed preliminary improvisational interviews with her friends in the faux documentary format that would later bring her fame on The Office.

"I really feel it was divine intervention that I chose to work in this medium for a year," she said in an interview.

"It was the super best practice I could have ever gotten for the possibility of being on the show."

LolliLove premiered in November 2004 at the St. Louis International Film Festival (Fischer's and Gunn's hometown), and was also shown at the TromaDance Film Festival.

For her role, Fischer received the Screen Actors Guild Emerging Actor Award.

Despite the film's contribution to her career, she admitted to a St. Louis arts and entertainment magazine that the experience dissuaded her from future directing: "The directing was exhausting and the writing was painful. It was very difficult to direct and star in a movie. We also had a very small crew so I did a lot of things a normal director doesn't have to do, like make the props and serve lunch. I was simultaneously getting into character, going over my lines, set dressing the next shot, coaching an actor, and brainstorming with my D.P. I'm good at multitasking, but that was too much for me. I couldn't enjoy any one part the way I would have liked. I think I'll stick to acting. That part was fantastic."

She is best known for her role as Pam Beesly on the NBC sitcom The Office (2005–2013), for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007; she was also a producer for the show's ninth and final season.

In 2005, after a succession of mostly improvised auditions similar to her LolliLove experience, Fischer landed the role of Pam Beesly on what became the NBC hit The Office, based on the original BBC series.

Before her first audition, casting director Allison Jones told her: "Dare to bore me."

While looking for acting work, Fischer herself spent several years as a receptionist and administrative assistant in Los Angeles offices, much like her television counterpart, and thus felt she was well suited to the role.

In an April 2005 interview with her alma mater's student newspaper, she said: "Honestly, it would be great to get to play Pam for a long, long time ... I don't have real big aspirations to be a movie star. I would love to be on a long-running hit TV show. You end up playing a defining role."

Fischer appeared on Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2006, participating in the show's eighth tournament, shot in New Orleans, Louisiana, and playing for Catholic Charities USA's Tsunami Relief.

Fischer has appeared in such films as Blades of Glory (2007), Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), The Promotion (2008), Hall Pass (2011), and The Giant Mechanical Man (2012), a film directed by her husband, Lee Kirk.

For the third season of The Office, Fischer was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2007.

In January 2008, the cast of The Office won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series at the 14th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Fischer, who was voted to deliver the acceptance speech on their behalf, said: "We really love working together. We love each other, we love working together, and being together. And as an ensemble, a lot of people in this group struggled for a long time as non-working actors—like 8, 12, 15, 20 years. So, we're always grateful, we don't take it for granted. Thank you so much."

"I'm so attached to Pam's journey," she told NPR in 2009.

"I just love playing this character so, so much."

Soon after The Office premiered, Fischer was focused on the show's success.

She also appeared as Rhonda McNeil in the NBC comedy drama series You, Me and the Apocalypse (2015).

Fischer's first book, The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide, was published in November 2017.

Fischer was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri.

Her mother, Anne (née Miller), is a history teacher; her father, James E. Fischer, is an engineer.

She has one younger sister, Emily, a third grade teacher.

She first performed at the age of six, when she participated in an acting workshop taught by her mother at Henry School in St. Louis, a workshop also attended by actor Sean Gunn, with whom she grew up.

She later attended Pierremont Elementary School in Manchester, Missouri, and Nerinx Hall High School, a private all-girls Catholic school in Webster Groves, Missouri.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in theater, as well as a minor in journalism, from Truman State University, where she originally enrolled as a pre-law history major.

While attending college at Truman State University, Fischer performed with a touring Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre group.

Fischer also starred in the ABC sitcom Splitting Up Together (2018–2019).

She is currently the co-host of the podcast Office Ladies.