From her temp job as a telephone operator at 1-800-Dentist to interning at “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” to portraying uptight, no-nonsense Angela Martin on “The Office” TV show, award-winning actress Angela Kinsey shared work-life memories with attendees at the closing session of 2023 SHRM Annual Conference & Expo in Las Vegas.
The copy machine with its many buttons was “the scariest thing” about her temp job, she told moderator Nick Schacht, SHRM-SCP, SHRM chief commercial officer.
“I started my day talking to America about their teeth,” then went to auditions when her 6 a.m.-2 p.m. shift ended. Turning to the audience she admonished them, “You guys need cleanings.”
But it was the relationships from her jobs she repeatedly recalled.
“It’s always the people. I made lifelong friendships. Two of my dearest friends, we sat next to each other [at 1-800 Dentist] … and they are still among my closest friends.”
She and actress Jenna Fischer, who played front-desk receptionist Pam Beesley on “The Office” have been best friends since working on the iconic show and they co-authored the New York Times bestseller Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There (HarperCollins Publishers, 2022).
“We really motivate each other,” Kinsey said. While she proposed the book idea to Fischer, she acknowledged without her she likely would not have written the book, which took more than three years to complete. “She always makes me my better self, definitely in the work arena…and we bring that to each other.”
They also started Rambles production company and write, produce and co-host “Office Ladies” podcast, which unpacks behind-the-scenes details from “The Office.”
Fun and warmth were a “huge part” of its workplace culture, Kinsey said, as well as the collaborative environment. In one scene, she was directed to move about in the background distributing paper, so she created a bit that had her character distributing Post-It note invitations to a birthday party for fictional Sprinkles the cat. It sparked humorous improvisation between characters Jim and Pam and was kept in the scene.
“The people were just phenomenal people. We laughed every day,” Kinsey said of her co-workers. She couldn’t look Steve Carrell in the eye during her scenes with him, she said, because she would dissolve into laughter. She had to look at his throat to keep from breaking character.
“Late Night” Internship
Kinsey was born in Louisiana but when she was 2 years old her father’s job as a drilling engineer took them to Indonesia, where they lived until she was 14. There, she grew up without television and became fixated with it when her family returned to the U.S., relocating to her parents’ home state of Texas.
“How do I do that?” she said she wondered as she watched the actors perform. Kinsey later interned at “Late Night” in 1994. Only two interns were permitted in the studio—a writer intern, a spot someone else had landed—and a music intern.
“I desperately wanted to be in the studio because that’s where they practiced the opening monologue and skits. I told everyone I knew music and I knew nothing,” she recalled. “I figured it out along the way. I learned a lot.” Years later, while starring in “The Office,” she returned to “Late Night” as a guest, reading from the journal she kept about her New York experiences.
“I mostly wrote about the free food I would get if I stayed late” on the job, she said to laughter. Her internship was the best experience, she said, “being there when the show would start, feeling the energy of the people.”
It can be hard “when you know what you want to do something so badly and it feels so far away from you. I was a nobody in the corner watching this thing. [But] being in the room where it happened was so thrilling for me.”
For those looking for the job they aspire to, “It’s not just being in the right place and the right time,” she advised. “It’s being ready and prepared” when the opportunity is presented.
TV and movie sets have been Kinsey’s workplace for most of her career. Among her acting credits are the Netflix original movies “Tall Girl” and “Tall Girl 2,” the Netflix series “Haters Back Off!,” and the Hulu Originals “The Hotwives of Orlando” and “The Hotwives of Vegas,” which parody “The Hotwives” franchise.
Kinsey is married and has three children; the oldest is 14. Being a mother has influenced the jobs she accepts.
“Sometimes work just becomes work, even when it’s your passion. There are times—no matter what you do—it’s just mundane. … I felt it the most when my daughter was newborn and my heart was just with her and it was hard not to be with her,” Kinsey said in her soft Texas drawl. “But it’s work that I was thankful for,” she added.
“I love acting and would love to do it again” but she said the work has to be in Los Angeles where she lives. “I want to be at school pick-up,” she said simply.
As the session ended, she shared a text her daughter sent her before Kinsey walked on stage: “Mom, you got this. Break a leg.”
The audience’s applause seemed to underscore that sentiment.