Actress Angela Kinsey, who starred in “The Office,” opened up in a recent podcast about times in which she felt compelled to defend her Christian faith while on the hit show. Kinsey played “Angela Martin” on the sitcom from 2005-2013.
According to Kinsey, there were several instances in which jokes were written in the script for her character that she felt were overly derogatory toward the Christian community and an inaccurate representation of their beliefs. The actress made the comments during an appearance on her co-star Rainn Wilson’s podcast “Soul Boom.”
The actress cited an episode in the show’s third season that had a line for her character that Kinsey felt was unnecessarily judgmental toward a gay character, Oscar. Feeling as if the line wasn’t an accurate depiction of what a true follower of Christ would say, she raised her concerns to the show’s producer, Greg Daniels.
She said, “Yeah, actually, there were one or two times in which there would be a joke written for her that I thought was just really stereotypical, maybe one note. I like to think of her as a full, well-rounded person. I do remember I remember there was a particular storyline between Angela and Oscar, where Angela was being super judge-y. I never went up to Greg about any joke, but there was a joke at Oscar’s expense, and I went up to Greg [Daniels] and I was like, ‘I can’t.'”
“I just was like, ‘I don’t feel good about it. I don’t feel good about that. I don’t feel like that’s what Jesus represented to me,'” she told the producer, describing convictions brought out by her faith. Subsequently, Daniels removed the joke from the script following Kinsey expressing her opinion.
“And he was like, ‘OK.’ And he heard me, and he took the joke out. And the episode, it was ‘Gay Witch Hunt,’ had so many already. But that’s the one pivotal moment I remember being like, OK, this is feeling like a stereotype and very one note. I feel like she has more depth than that,” she added.
During the podcast, Kinsey and Wilson discussed religion and its role in their daily lives. Wilson practices Baha’i, a 19th Century Iraqi religion. Despite not affiliating with Christianity, the actor has criticized Hollywood for harboring anti-Christian bias.
“I do think there is an anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. As soon as the David character in ‘The Last of Us’ started reading from the Bible I knew that he was going to be a horrific villain,” he tweeted. “Could there be a Bible-reading preacher on a show who is actually loving and kind?”
In recent years, Wilson has begun to explore more spiritual topics. The description of his “Soul Boom” podcast states: “Soul Boom is a series of intimate conversations hosted by Rainn Wilson exploring meaningful and inspiring topics that tickle the mind, heart and soul. Never too precious, yet unafraid to touch on the profound, Soul Boom digs into the core of the human experience: creativity, spirituality and psychology. Bringing to the conversation some of the most brilliant and heart-felt artists, thinkers and doers, Soul Boom guides the listener toward transformation on both a personal and societal level. Also, laughs.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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