Entertainment

'The Office' Stars Angela Kinsey & Brian Baumgartner Break Down 6 Iconic Scenes From The Show

by Margaux MacColl
NBC

Five minutes into speaking with The Office's Angela Kinsey and Brian Baumgartner, it’s obvious they’re much more than co-workers — they're practically family. They’ve been friends for 14 years now — or, as Kinsey puts it, “since day one of The Office" — so it's not unusual for these two to finish each other’s sentences or frequently pause to crack up over shared memories. After so many years in the accountant's corner at Dunder Mifflin, they created a bond that rival's that between Angela and her cats.

“We were fast friends over in our corner,” Kinsey, who played Angela, tells Bustle.

Baumgartner, who played fellow accountant Kevin, nods. “We spent a lot of time together. And thankfully got along," he says.

Despite the show ending in 2013, their friendship transcended beyond their corner of the TV world into each other's real lives. While the two are obviously busy being IRL friends cooking chili dinners and sipping Prosecco in Kinsey’s backyard together (they're even working together again on Heineken 0.0's Bring Your Beer To Work Day), they took the time to break down some of their favorite moments from their Office days, including Baumgartner knocking over a cameraman, Oscar Nunez drawing Kinsey as a dominatrix, and all of the tears that came during the emotional finale.

The Office's First Christmas Party

Netflix

Season 2, Episode 10

In Season 2 of the series, Dunder Mifflin has its first of many Christmas parties, featuring everything from a truly cringeworthy Secret Santa, Kevin gifting himself a foot bath, and Angela's unique love for baby's dressed as adults.

“That episode, personally, was satisfying for everybody because it was definitely the biggest, most ensemble show that had happened to date,” Baumgartner says.

It was also marked a huge turning point for the cast: both Kinsey and Baumgartner say this was the episode when the show went from being an underdog to a phenomenon.

“When it aired, it was like 'Oh, this is now a hit TV show,'" Baumgartner says. With 9.7 million viewers, it was an all time high for the show at the time and it hinted at the success to come.

The Web Series "The Accountants"

Youtube

During the second season of The Office, Baumgartner and Kinsey got to starred in "The Accountants," which was a ten-part “webisode” series starring the accounting team as they investigated $3,000 missing from the office budget.

“It has some personal satisfaction for us, because that's how we won an Emmy,” Baumgartner says, of the 2007 win for Outstanding Broadband Program.

Kinsey says she loves how ahead of its time the concept of the web show was. “When the writers approached us about having digital content for NBC.com, we were all like, 'What's that?'” she says. “And now digital content is such a thing … That really was sort of a pioneering moment, I think, in television.”

Oscar's Huge Season 9 Secret

Season 9, Episode 8

In Season 9, the accountant squad is rocked with scandal when Angela finds out that Oscar is having an affair with her senator husband, Robert Lipton. Baumgartner says this was his favorite scene to film with Kinsey, mostly because Kevin knew about the affair the whole time, and somehow managed to keep it a secret.

“The whole [episode] is about Angela and how horrible the situation is [for her], that this person she works with and her husband were having an affair. And Kevin is just super happy that he kept the secret,” Baumgartner says. “That's it. It was just all about that for him.”

Michael & Oscar's Kiss

Netflix

Season 3, Episode 1

In Season 3, The Office’s cringe-humor reached a new level when Michael kisses Oscar to prove he isn't homophobic. Kinsey says this scene was the one time actor Oscar Nunez ever broke character. Even though she says he was usually "like a statue," he couldn't help but laugh as Steve Carell leaned in for a kiss.

"Oscar rarely ever breaks," Kinsey says. "It was pretty easy to trip me up, though."

In fact, Nunez was always the one getting Baumgartner and Kinsey to crack up. According to Kinsey, Nunez would draw cartoons on Post-It notes while they were sitting in the accounting corner and pass them to her while filming. “He [once] drew me dressed as a miniature dominatrix riding Brian and dragging Oscar behind me.”

Baumgartner says this was normal for their trio. "If we were just the deep background, we would have our own bits that we were doing," he says. "We would get so tickled."

The Iconic Fire Drill

Netflix

Season 5, Episode 13

In one of the most iconic sequences of events the show has ever had, Dwight decides to "teach" the office about fire safety, leading to absolute chaos. During the hectic scene, Angela yanks a hidden cat from her desk drawer and flings it into the ceiling, while Kevin shatters the vending machine to save the snacks.

“We had to learn that opening sequence of us freaking out really like a choreographed dance with the cameraman,” Kinsey says. “We did all the sequences like bang, bang, bang, on cue, all in one giant shot.”

“Tons of things went wrong,” Kinsey says, describing how the plan was to throw a real cat into the air and then have a stuffed animal dropped from the ceiling across the room. However, when she threw it, the real cat "freaked out" and fell from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, things didn't going so smoothly for Baumgartner, either. In the midst of Kevin’s frantic running, Baumgartner says he slammed directly into a cameraman, knocking him right onto his back. "This huge, buff guy picks him up by the shoulders and he just keeps filming," Baumgartner says about a quick-to-action assistant cameraman.

Thankfully, the shot didn’t go to waste; in the finished episode you see Kevin hurtling towards the screen, and the camera fall backward as the cameraman tumbles to the floor.

The Finale

Netflix

Season 9, Episode 25

The finale of The Office, which jumps a year into the future, updates fans of the pseudo-documentary on what the Dunder Mifflin employees have been up to since the show aired, including Kevin's new bartender gig and Angela's wedding to Dwight.

“We all started crying,” Kinsey says about the final scene with the entire cast together in the old office. “That was really special to me that we all wrapped together. Our crew and producers, everyone — we were all there together.”

While The Office may have officially ended years ago, Baumgartner and Kinsey’s friendship is still going strong and is likely to keep delighting fans for years to come.