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Jake Lacy Shares the Sweetest BTS Moment from The Office — and It Has to Do with Jenna Fischer
Before you bite into Jake Lacy’s new delicious Peacock series Apples Never Fall, find out more about his time on The Office.
Jake Lacy first plopped into our lives with a breakout role on The Office. The Emmy-nominated actor played the new nice guy Pete (ahem, Plop to some), who had a thing for office assistant Erin Hannon (Ellie Kemper). The romance to root for was sweetly reminiscent of Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly’s (Jenna Fischer) dynamic in earlier seasons.
However, Lacy has portrayed much darker roles as of late. He appeared on Season 1 of The White Lotus as the affluent and pompous Shane Patton, an entitled hotel guest in a war of sorts with the manager. He also starred as Robert "B" Berchtold in Peacock’s chilling take the childhood abduction of Jan Broberg in A Friend of the Family.
Lacy now has moments when he misses playing one of the good guys like his character on The Office.
“There are times where it’s like, well, that is nice to play a person who is there to love,” Lacy told NBC Insider with a laugh. “A throughline for a lot of early opportunities I had was like someone who’s there to like go, I see you and I love what I see, you know?”
Jake Lacy Shares Sweet Behind-the-Scenes Memory from The Office
Lacy has a lot of “great memories from the show,” but there is one that stands out.
“I was sitting in this green room off on the side when Pam, Jenna [Fischer], was doing the last direct address of the show,” Lacy said, describing it a special and emotional moment.
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The hit comedy series, which originally starred Steve Carell, ended with Season 9 in 2013. The confessional-style interview and the satirical humor are distinct markers of the beloved show.
For Lacy, the chance to join the cast and experience things like listening in on Fischer’s last direct-to-cam was like being “a kid who won a thing off a radio call.”
“I was a huge fan of the show,” Lacy said.
Being with the all-star ensemble cast, especially during that final direct address, felt “surreal” for Lacy.
“These people have been doing it for a decade,” Lacy said. “I just [had] this weird mix of being a fan and knowing what this moment means to me as a viewer and also being at work with people, who, this has been their life for the last like 10 years and knowing what it means to them, and that was surreal. It’s still surreal I got to be there, you know? Like, I got to see it. I got to be in the thing."
Would Jake Lacy return as Pete on The Office?
The actor said he would return to the role with just one requirement.
“If they would just call him Pete, I would. I would totally get on board,” Lacy said, laughing.
When Pete and fellow newbie Clark were introduced in Season 9, Andy Bernard nicknamed them Plop and Fart, respectively. Unfortunately for their characters, the nicknames stuck.
Even the scripts favored Plop as his character’s identifier, according to Lacy.
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“It’s like Plop enters left,” Lacy said chuckling. “I’m like, I don’t — I don’t know that he does.”
You can catch Lacy in his latest role in Apples Never Fall alongside Annette Bening, Sam Neill, and Alison Brie. The limited drama series arrives March 14 only on Peacock.
