Jenna Fischer became one of television’s most popular stars after securing her iconic role in The Office. But she was initially terrified that creating the American version of the beloved original wasn’t the best idea.

Jenna Fischer said she ‘peed my pants’ when she had to audition for an American version of ‘The Office’

Fischer wasn’t unfamiliar with The Office franchise before she auditioned for the role of Pam Beesly. She not only knew about Ricky Gervais’ original UK version, but she considered herself a fan. At a time when she didn’t know an American version was being developed, Fischer fantasized about doing a similar show one day.

“When they called to tell me, I watched the British version and I actually stood up in my living room and said, ‘Why don’t we make stuff like this in America? This is brilliant TV. This is why I became an actor. This is exactly what I want to do. I’m never, ever going to get to be able to do anything this awesome,’” she once told Collider.

Fischer had the opportunity to fulfill her dream when she was called to audition for Steve Carrell’s version of The Office. But she hesitated at first, fearing that an American version would’ve just been watered down compared to its predecessor.

“Then 2 weeks later they called me and said we’d like you to audition for the American version of a show called The Office,” she said. “I almost peed my pants. I was terrified because I thought I didn’t want to be in the scholcky sitcom version of The Office and actually my first audition for the show in some ways they were auditioning for me because I would not have participated in that sitcom version of the show.”

But her fears were put to rest after she auditioned for the series. It also might’ve helped that Ricky Gervais provided advice on how the show should be written. Particularly, when it came to The Office’s boss Michael Scott.

“He said, ‘In England, you can be really, really bad at your job for a long time, and you never get fired,’” Fischer recalled on her podcast Office Ladies.“‘In America, that’s gonna frustrate people. So my one piece of advice is that Michael can be a buffoon, he can be silly, he can be irritating, but you should show glimpses of him actually being a good salesperson.’”

What Jenna Fischer learned about herself as an actor for being on ‘The Office’

Fischer’s Office not only proved to be a worthy successor to the original, but in many ways, surpassed Gervais’ Office in popularity. It became a cultural phenomenon and was successful enough to last nine seasons. The series not only raised Fischer’s profile, but taught her many things she didn’t know about herself as an actor. In many ways, she related to her character so much that she understood Pam’s personal struggles. In a separate interview with Collider, Fischer shared that the series showed her how good her memory was, and the importance of chemistry.

“I can memorize lines really fast,” she said. “I never thought that. I always thought, as an acting student, that that would be really daunting to me. That’s something I learned, just on a very technical level of acting. Another thing that it taught me was how important the chemistry of the other actors is. When the chemistry is not there – and I’ve done projects where it’s not – your job is so much harder. You have this desire to push because you’re not feeling it, but you don’t want to push it too much.”

Because of this, doing The Office was actually easier than other projects Fischer had done.

“My job on The Office is very easy because it’s very effortless. We all have this great give-and-take. I was very spoiled by that when I started doing movies and getting paired up with other people, where maybe chemistry wasn’t there. That was a shock to the system. I definitely learned that that elusive thing called chemistry is real and it does play a role,” she added.