'The Office': Ed Helms Reveals Andy Bernard's Most 'Daunting' Scene
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Among all the high-pressure on and off-screen moments since The Office's 2005 American premiere, Jim Halpert nearly cheating on his wife, Kevin's chili fiasco, and a streaming service move so dramatically it singlehandedly sparked a resurgence of people buying The Office's DVD boxed sets to avoid dropping $50 on a yearly Peacock subscription, it seems one of the series most quintessentially chaotic moments has broadly fallen by the wayside -- Andy Bernard's prank-war wall punch.
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With Dwight briefly out of the Dunder Mifflin office in season three's “The Return,” Jim decides to take out all his pent-up pranking energy on Andy, hiding his phone in the ceiling and calling him repeatedly, his “Rockin' Robin” ringtone slowly driving him – and well, basically anyone who was in that day – to the brink of madness. After a few calls and several moments of frantically searching for his phone to no avail, Andy finally has enough, punching through a wall in anger.
But it seems the scene in question was more than just an iconic battle in Dunder Mifflin's ongoing prank war. In a recent appearance on the Office Ladies podcast, a series hosted by Jenna Fischer, who played the formerly Chili's-banned Pam Beesly, and Angela Kinsey, who portrayed the partially eponymous part of Angela Martin, actor Ed Helms revealed that scene was the most “daunting” to shoot through his six seasons on the beloved show.
As Helms says the prank-gone-wrong scene constituted his “first time doing anything that qualified as a stunt,” the entire affair was a lot more complicated than just socking the wall like a teenager with anger issues.
“There was a whole little meeting about how they were going to score the back of the sheetrock so that my hand went through easier,” Helms recalled, noting that “they fixed a pad onto the inner wall so that when my hand went through, I wouldn’t hit wood or aluminum or anything.” "Also, they had multiple planks that they could stick up just so we could do multiple takes,” he continued.
But even with all this preparation, Helms says he found the process of actually filming the scene both “exciting” and “kind of daunting.”
“That was one of those scenes for me, in a very early one, and something that I think was very exciting but also kind of daunting," the actor explained. “And I really didn’t want to screw up the punch," he said, adding that he “didn’t want to get it wrong” and as such “there were a lot of kind of wind-ups to practice.” Yet when the cameras finally started rolling, it seems things quickly took a turn for the painful.
“I think we did two, two takes or so and I skinned up my knuckles,” Helms said. "There was a pad in there, but I think breaking through the sheetrock skinned up my knuckles. So, yeah, that was pretty intense.”
So folks, take it from Helms – even if your “Rockin' Robin” ringtone is driving you absolutely bats--t, punching walls is never a great idea.
Top Image: NBC
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