TVSquad

If you've never listened to The Sound of Young America podcast, you're missing one of the best talk/entertainment shows on any format. This week, host Jesse Thorn (who is known as America's Radio Sweetheart) meets Jenna Fischer (who is also America's Sweetheart as Pam Beesly on The Office). Thorn is a first-rate interviewer and he gets a lot of great detail from Fischer.

There is some great behind-the-scenes stuff. In the beginning, shoots for The Office would started with a half an hour of fake work time with everyone at their desks, and in the second year, everyone got phones that worked and Internet so they could look busy in the background. Fischer says Stanley (Leslie David Baker) furnished his entire home through Internet shopping on set.

Fischer also talked about how she grew up in St. Louis dreaming of the glamor of Hollywood, watching the Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly movies her mother brought home for her to watch. She was fascinated by the clothes and jewelry, and knew there were limited options to get it. "Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry collection," she told Thorn, "I was like, what do I have to do to get a necklace like that? You either had to marry a prince or become an actress."

Fischer also auditioned with the same casting director for five years before the producers for The Office came around, nabbing just one or two roles per year. But she had a feeling The Office might be her big break, and the casting director dared her to be boring. Fischer had already worked in an office at that point, to save money to move to Hollywood, where she quickly fell out of love with glamor.

By the time she got to the audition, Fischer knew Pam well. "I imagined that she was a polite person who wouldn't want to say bad things about her boss or her office, and yet I wanted you to be able to read all of it on her face as she considered her answer."

There's a lot more great stuff in the interview, so head over to www.maximumfun.org and take a listen.