Rashida Jones joining “The Office” in Season 3 must have been quite a surreal experience for her, especially since she was already a fan of the show. It’s always fascinating when actors get to step into a world they’ve admired from the outside.
“I think my first scene was [with] everybody. It was one of those, like, conference room scenes with Steve [Carell] in front, just being absolutely absurd,” she said on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham.
“And I felt like I had won like a radio contest or something, cause I had watched and loved that show for two seasons, and all of a sudden I’m like in the room with the people.”
Rashida Jones praising Steve Carell’s humor on set isn’t surprising—he brought such a unique and hilarious energy to the role of Michael Scott on “The Office.”
His portrayal of the inept but lovable branch manager was central to the show’s comedic charm.
“Steve is virtuosic. Like, the thing he did on The Office was like 10 percent of what he was doing on set,” she said.
“Every single take was like just the most outlandish, like brave, weird, interesting, hilarious thing you’ve ever seen every single time. So it was just like a full mind-blower.”
It’s not uncommon for actors on “The Office” to struggle to stay in character due to Steve Carell’s comedic genius.
Phyllis Smith, who played Phyllis Vance, recently shared that there was a scene in Season 3 where both she and Carell found it difficult to keep straight faces. Carell’s ability to improvise and deliver humor so effectively often led to these memorable moments behind the scenes.
“The one scene I had a really hard time not laughing through was … when [Carell] came into the bride’s room to give me advice, and we could not get through the word ‘pungent,'” Smith said on the Office Ladies podcast last month, describing a moment when Michael accuses Phyllis of farting.
“Every time he would say ‘pungent,’ he would break out in his cackle. He couldn’t get through it and I couldn’t get through it,” she recalled. “And then we hear the sound people sitting outside the door laughing, so they had to move them down the stairway, down into the bottom because every time we said ‘pungent,’ we lost it.”
Rashida Jones has indeed had a diverse career post-“The Office.” After her role as Karen Filippelli, she starred as Ann Perkins in “Parks and Recreation” alongside a talented ensemble cast for seven seasons.
Currently, she’s starring in “Sunny,” a new Apple TV+ series that premiered on July 10. The dark comedy explores the story of Suzie (played by Jones), an American woman in Japan, and Sunny (played by Joanna Sotomura), a domestic robot from her late husband’s company.
Together, they uncover unsettling truths about Suzie’s family history, delving into a mysterious and complex world.
