Jenna Fischer

Pam Beesly barely raises her voice for nine years, and that turned out to be a career. Before The Office, Fischer was doing what most working actors do in Los Angeles: a sorority girl on Undeclared, a college girl in The Specials, small parts on Off Centre and in a 2004 comedy called Employee of the Month.

The part she got in 2005 was a receptionist, which on paper is furniture. What she found in it was a person permanently suppressing a reaction, and a format that rewarded exactly that. The mockumentary camera made her its confidante, so her comedy runs through the eyes and the half-second pause rather than the line. Almost none of her biggest laughs are things she says. She was nominated for the Primetime Emmy for supporting actress in 2007 and produced the ninth and final season.

The film work has been steadier than it is given credit for, and it is mostly the reasonable woman in an unreasonable comedy: Blades of Glory, Hall Pass, The Brothers Solomon. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story gave her the most to play, singing as Darlene Madison in a parody that asks its cast to perform the thing and the joke about the thing at once. Slither used her in horror, The Promotion and The Giant Mechanical Man used her in small independent comedy, and Brad's Status and Solitary Man showed she is perfectly good in a straight dramatic register when someone asks. She also wrote a practical book about the working actor's life, which is a fair summary of her own.