John Krasinski and Jenna Fishcher played one of the more iconic couples in TV history in Jim Halpert and Pam Beesley, a.k.a. Jam, but apparently unbeknownst to a lot of The Office viewers, they’re not together in real life. He’s married to actress Emily Blunt, and she’s been hitched to writer Lee Kirk since 2010. On an episode of An Oral History of The Office podcast, Fischer compared the experience of letting fans know that Krasinki isn’t actually the J to her PB to telling a kid that Santa isn’t real (but Belsnickel is).
“People don’t know how John and I are not a couple in real life,” she told host (and target of the longest joke set-up in TV history) Brian Baumgartner. “They don’t understand it. I don’t know how to explain it, because it’s a little bit like telling kids there’s no Santa… The bottom line is that we were playing characters, but I know that if people think of us as John and Jenna, then it’s destroying some of the magic of Jim and Pam.” To be fair, I think season nine of The Office destroyed a lot of the magic of Jim and Pam:
Fischer, 46, explained that she feels like she has to “justify” why she and Krasinski, 40, aren’t “actually in love.”
The actress added that Jim and Pam relationship’s even doubled as inspiration for many real-life couples. “A lot of people say things to me like, ‘I think I found my Pam, I think I found my Jim,’ you know, using us as like… a noun for love,” she said.
Tired: “I think I found my Jim / my Pam.”
Wired: “I think I found my Phyllis / my Bob Vance.”
You can listen to the entire An Oral History of The Office episode here.
(Via People)