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A brief-but-iconic scene in “The Office” is beloved by fans, but they probably don’t realize how much it cost.
In the latest edition of “The Office Ladies” podcast, former co-stars Jenna Fischer (Pam) and Angela Kinsey (Angela) shared some fascinating details about the 50-second scene in the fifth season premiere in which Jim (John Krasinski) dropped to one knee and popped the question to Pam outside a gas station in the pouring rain.
As the pair revealed, the short scene cost a whopping $250,000 to film.
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“So first of all, I just want you guys to know that [showrunner] Greg [Daniels] spoke with us about this. He said that he really wanted Jim’s proposal to Pam to be in the season premiere,” Fischer explained. “He thought, No. 1, that would be unexpected. You usually end seasons with proposals. So he thought this would be a real shock.”
Kinsey admitted she, like the show’s viewers, “didn’t see it coming.”
Part of Daniels’ plan to surprise viewers was to “to throw people off by having it in a very ordinary location. He wanted it to feel special, but he also wanted it to feel like Jim made the decision without a whole lot of planning.”
According to Fischer, the scene wasn’t filmed at an actual gas station, but one that was specially constructed over the course of nine days.
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“They built this in the parking lot of a Best Buy that I have been to many times, actually. What they did was they used Google Street View to capture images of a real gas station along the Merritt Parkway, and then using those images, they built it to match this parking lot,” Fischer said.
“To create the illusion of highway traffic, they built a four-lane circular racetrack around the gas station set. They set up cameras on the other side of this raceway and they had cars drive around it at 55 miles an hour. Then they added rain pouring down on us [with] these giant rain machines,” she added. “Our production manager, Randy Cordray, said they had about 35 precision drivers. They were driving not just cars, but like, semi-trucks. When we were standing there on that set, you could feel the wind like, of these cars speeding past you. It was so, so bonkers.”
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In addition, a special effects team needed to “paint out the background.”
All in all, Fischer revealed, the whole thing became “the single-most expensive scene shot in the entire run of the show. It last 52 seconds and it cost $250,000.”