Jenna Fischer

Regina Marie Kirk, known professionally as Jenna Fischer, is an American actress and podcast host born on March 7, 1974. She is best known for portraying Pam Beesly on the NBC sitcom The Office from 2005 to 2013, a role that earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007. Fischer also served as a producer for the show's ninth and final season.

Fischer was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She was introduced to performing at age six in an acting workshop taught by her mother, a history teacher. She attended Pierremont Elementary School and Nerinx Hall High School before enrolling at Truman State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in theater with a minor in journalism.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1998, Fischer performed with the Zoo District Theatre Company and secured a talent agent. She gained her first televised speaking role on the sitcom Spin City in 2001 and appeared in various guest television roles and small film parts. Seeking to advance her career, she wrote, directed, and starred in the 2004 mockumentary film LolliLove, which earned her the Screen Actors Guild Emerging Actor Award.

Fischer achieved widespread recognition after landing the role of Pam Beesly on The Office in 2005. Along with the cast, she won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2008. During and after her tenure on the sitcom, she starred in feature films such as Slither, Blades of Glory, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, The Promotion, Solitary Man, Hall Pass, and The Giant Mechanical Man, the latter directed by her husband, Lee Kirk.

Following The Office, Fischer pursued various television and theater projects. She starred in the comedy-drama series You, Me and the Apocalypse in 2015 and the sitcom Splitting Up Together from 2018 to 2019. Her theatrical work includes performances in off-Broadway productions such as Reasons to Be Happy in 2013 and Steve Martin's Meteor Shower in 2016. She also appeared in films including Brad's Status, The 15:17 to Paris, and the 2024 film adaptation of Mean Girls.

In November 2017, Fischer published her first book, The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide. In October 2019, she launched the weekly rewatch podcast Office Ladies alongside her former co-star Angela Kinsey, which won the iHeartRadio Podcast of the Year Award in 2021. The pair co-authored the book The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There, published in 2022.

Fischer was married to filmmaker James Gunn from 2000 to 2008, and married filmmaker Lee Kirk in July 2010, with whom she has two children. Outside of acting, she is involved in animal welfare organizations, including Kitten Rescue and Rescue Rover. In October 2024, Fischer revealed that she had successfully completed treatment for breast cancer after being diagnosed a year earlier.