Famous scene from ‘The Office’ was actually an accident
By Camden Mondeaux on February 8, 2020
By: Cami Mondeaux
Even if you haven’t seen “The Office,” there are things that everyone knows about the show: Michael Scott loves to make inappropriate jokes, Dwight Shrute is an overachiever and Jim Halpert loves to make fun of him for it — through pranks and practical jokes, mostly.
What non-watchers may not know, is that every episode begins with a cold open: jumping into the middle of a scene at the beginning of the show, that doesn’t always have something to do with the episode at large.
These scenes always get a huge laugh, and are often the favorite part of the episode. And of fans’ favorites is the cold open for the epsiode “Performance Review.”
It opens with Dwight bouncing around on a fitness orb at his desk. He keeps exhaling out his mouth while moving in semicircles, clearly bothering his deskmate Jim.
The scene quickly escalates, with Dwight being unrelenting in his efforts and Jim wanting to get back at him for Dwight… being himself. So, Jim grabs a pair of scissors, walks over to his neighbor desk and stabs the fitness orb.
As you can imagine: the ball explodes, Dwight falls to the ground, end of story. It was hilarious, and fans can’t imagine it any other way.
But, there was another way. In their podcast “Office Ladies,” actresses Jenna Fischer and Angela Kingsey revealed that this exchange wasn’t supposed to happen that way. In fact, it was a complete accident.
The way it was designed to happen was John Krasinski, the actor who portrays Jim Halpert, was supposed to stab the scissors into the orb as it slowly deflates while Rainn Wilson, the actor who plays Dwight Shrute, slowly descends from his desk.
They practiced this scene three times off-camera, then took the shot 13 times — all without incident. However, on the last take — the whole thing exploded.
Apparently, the prop director told Krasinski that unless he hit the ball on the seam — which would is a one in a million chance — the scene would go as planned. Well, that one in a million shot happened.
“You can see the shock on Rainn’s face, and he fell to the floor,” Fischer said in her podcast. “We were all completely shocked, like, ‘Oh my god.’ And you can totally see John break … and very quickly, [because] he’s such a pro, he turns his back and just like leaves.”
Watch the scene below:
