Jenna Fischer returns to St. Louis this week for the screening of her movie, A Little Help, at the St. Louis International Film Festival and to receive the Cinema St. Louis award. Fischer, a St. Louis native, is most famous for her comedic role as the sweet and effervescent Pam on NBC’s The Office, but her leading role in A Little Help is a vast departure. Fischer plays Laura, a wife and mother lost in a loveless marriage with her husband Bob (Chris O’Donnell), who only begins to find her way after her husband’s unexpected death. Fischer portrays a woman challenged by financial strain, an unsupportive family, a surprising love interest, and a son that’s in need of, well, a little help. Fischer recently spoke with us to discuss her role, what it means to get an award from her hometown, and what’s next.
Your character in A Little Help is quite different than the other comedic roles you’ve played. She’s a little darker, more troubled. What made you decide to sign on and play her?
The writer/director, Michael Weithorn, directed "The King of Queens," and I really liked that show. What I really liked about [the movie] was that I thought the story was complex without being too heavy. I really liked the growth that the character I’m playing goes through, so I guess it felt like a departure from Pam, and it felt like something I wanted to do, so I decided to give it a shot. I wanted to try something a little different.
And since you were playing a more dramatic character, how was your experience making the film and preparing for the role different?
Well, my character in this movie smokes, which I don’t do in real life, and the director kind of teased me because I said I was going to have to learn how to smoke, and he said, “I thought every actress knew how to smoke.” And I said, “No, in college I was in a play where I had to smoke but that was only for a couple months.” So, it was really hard for me because I would have to smoke during rehearsals and even during the shooting I would wake up and I would feel so sick. It was like a cigarette hangover, and I had to smoke a lot in the movie. When you’re shooting a scene, it actually takes three to four hours to shoot that scene, so I’d be chain smoking for like three hours. I felt like it started this chain reaction of things like the more I smoked, I made worse food choices. I gained a little bit of weight to do the role, and then I gained even more weight while I was doing the role, and once I finished the movie, I was the heaviest I’d been in years. I thought, “I have to get to the gym now.” Even just having to smoke for four months, it was hard to quit. I would wake up in the morning and feel so sick, but by the evening I would crave a cigarette. My first time getting on a treadmill, I thought “You have to make a choice about this now. You’re either getting hooked on this or you’ll have to give it up.” I gave it up.
At the Film Festival you’ll be getting the Cinema St. Louis award, recognizing your contribution to film. What does it mean to you to get this award, especially from the place where you grew up?
Honestly, it’s a huge honor. I don’t have a bunch of awards or anything, so you know, it means a lot to me. I’ve been in those producers' office [where] they have an entire bookshelf full of award after award after award, but my bookshelf isn’t like that. It really means a lot, and I’m really proud of being from St. Louis, and so to be honored by the place where I grew up…it means a lot to me. It really does. I’m still a little overwhelmed I have to say. I feel a little shy about it.
Going back to the movie, you deal with a lot of issues from problems with your family, ethical dilemmas...so how do you see women relating to your character?
I think sometimes as a mother they feel like they’re in it all by themselves anyway. There’s a certain thing about being a woman and being a mom, and there’s just stuff that you do that falls on your shoulders. Even if you’re married and you have a great partner, the lion’s share of the work is for women to burden, so I think women can relate to that. And even to have like the worst partner in the world suddenly die on you like what happened in the movie, it’s still like, “Wow, I didn’t even realize that they were helping in some way.” So just as a woman in the world, there’s extra stuff that you have to deal with, and I think this movie plays that out really nicely. And my character, by the way, isn’t great at dealing with it. That was a little tough for me because I’m a very organized person, and I had to give all of that up to play Laura, who is really a complete flake. I would get frustrated with her too when I was playing her in the movie, and I’m more like the sister in the movie asking questions like, “How much money do you have?” I would be asking those questions.
Now that you’ve played a more dramatic, leading role, do you see yourself signing onto more projects like this in the future?
Well, I hope so. The next movie I’m going to do I get to play the lead again, and it’s a little more of a comedy. It’s a romantic comedy, The Giant Mechanical Man, and it’s being directed by my husband, Lee [Kirk]. I really liked making A Little Help, and I would like to have the opportunity to play more roles like that.
A Little Help screens Sunday, November 21 at 4 p.m. at the Hi-Pointe Theatre, 1005 McCausland. Tickets are $12, $10 for Cinema St. Louis members. Fischer will be in attendance, and will be presented with SLIFF’s Cinema St. Louis Award after the screening.
