Angela Kinsey, known for her role as Angela Martin on NBC’s hit show, The Office, was recently at UConn and gave students an evening that was extremely memorable for Office fans and non-fans alike. For the first part of the evening, Kinsey took part in a Q&A with SUBOG’s head of comedy, Colin Kopcik, before finishing the night by answering questions from students.
Throughout the talk, fans got to hear about Kinsey’s life growing up, what led her to the role on The Office, and what she’s been up to since The Office ended. Kinsey kept the audience laughing and received much applause with stories from her life as well as behind-the-scenes stories from the set of The Office.
As both a die-hard The Office fan and an aspiring writer/director, I couldn’t have enjoyed the evening more. Kinsey’s bubbly personality and great storytelling skills made the evening extremely fun for everyone (even my friend that doesn’t watch The Office laughed the whole time).
Throughout the talk, I learned a lot from Kinsey and I figured I’d share some of the best facts from the night.
1. She grew up in Indonesia
She was born in Louisiana, but between the ages of 2 and 14, Kinsey lived with her family in Jakarta, Indonesia. When talking about her childhood, she also mentioned that she grew up without a TV.
2. She’s also a writer
Kinsey majored in Creative Writing at Baylor University in Texas and writes shows to this day.
3. She believes in figuring out what you love and making a career out of it
She remembers sitting on her porch with her family when she was young and told those gathered in Jorgensen how good it felt to hear everyone laugh when you told a good story. She said it was probably this that made her want to pursue a career in comedy.
4. She preaches to never stop creating
Kinsey talked about how she’s always creating and writing and how important it is to do that. She talked about the baking show that she and her husband, Josh, created together, which you can see on YouTube.
5. She’s wearing her real clothes in the pilot episode of The Office
She had originally auditioned and received a callback for the role of Pam Beesly, but ended up losing the role to now-BFF Jenna Fischer. Everything worked out though, because two months later she got called in to audition for the role of the uptight accountant and the rest is history. I can’t imagine the role of Angela Martin being played by anyone else – let’s face it – no one could ever play Angela better than Angela. A fun fact: the producers liked what she wore for her audition so much that they asked her to bring it in to film the pilot.
6. “Yankee Swap” is one of her favorite episodes
And “Diversity Day” is when she knew they “had something really special.”
7. Angela Martin is based off of one of her former managers… and her grandmother
Her grandmother refuses to watch The Office because Michael Scott is “too vulgar.”
8. The cast didn’t know Michael was coming back for the series finale until the day of.
They were just as surprised as we were to see him.
9. She wasn’t going to tell her mother about her nephew’s Tinder account, but she found out anyway… from the news
We’ve all seen the infamous picture of Angela Kinsey and her nephew since he posted the photo on his Tinder account. After the photo blew up, Kinsey responded with a hilarious Instagram Story selfie that said “Nephews… do not put me in your @tinder profiles photos. K. Thx. Byeeeee.” Her response also went viral and many news outlets covered it. She got a text from her mom asking what the story was about.
10. Rainn Wilson still texts her “Hey, Monkey” once in a while
I’ll just write what the crowd said when she told us this: “Awwwww!”
11. The hardest scene she ever had to film was…
The scene where Angela talks to Pam about how she thinks Dwight might have killed her cat, Sprinkles. The two had such a hard time staying in character that the directors told them to take a break.
12. The most awkward scene she ever had to film was…
The scene where she licks a cat. The directors weren’t going to have her really lick the cat, but after they started shooting they asked her if she could really do it.
13. She’s BFFs with Jenna Fischer in real life
This was something I already knew based on their social media but it was so cute to hear Kinsey talk about her BFF. She said they have the kind of friendship where “you don’t know where they end and you begin.”
14. They used to have accounting dinners once a month
Kinsey and office co-stars Brian Baumgartner and Oscar Nuñez, who play Kevin Malone and Oscar Martinez, respectively, used to go out for “accounting dinners” once a month while shooting the show. They also just had a recent reunion at Keystone Comic Con!
15. She kept some things from the set:
Including the senator’s painting of her, Angela’s engagement ring from Dwight and a cat paperclip holder
16. “Which office?”
When the show was still on, and still in its early stages, the cast wasn’t as famously recognizable as they are now. When arriving to an event with BFF Jenna Fischer, the bouncer stopped them. “We’re from The Office,” they said, to which the bouncer replied “Which office?”
17. She’d be cool with Toby being the Scranton Strangler
I second this.
18. “Every week was like winning the lottery.”
That’s how she described working on The Office. That’s also how I felt watching it.
19. Rainn Wilson’s sound effects in Little Drummer Boy weren’t scripted
He knew she was very nervous to sing in front of everyone and jumped in to help her feel more comfortable.
20. Bandit is a real cat… they accidentally dropped through the ceiling
Fun fact about the infamous fire drill scene where Angela yells “SAVE BANDIT!” before throwing him into the ceiling after Oscar: Angela had to have a stunt double to do the actual throwing of the cat into the ceiling after she yelled her line. The people waiting in the ceiling were supposed to catch the cat and drop a fake one, however when they ran the scene, both cats fell out of the ceiling. Unfortunately, Bandit was “blown out,” which is a fancier way of saying his career was over.
I hope you enjoyed learning these fun facts as much as I did. If you want to see more of Kinsey, you can check out her role on Haters Back Off! as well as numerous other movie roles and guest-starring roles on several projects. You can also see her baking show on YouTube.
Or of course, you could always just re-watch The Office again on Netflix.