John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer broke down everything about Jim and Pam’s OMG first kiss

John Krasinski joined his former costars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey on the May 13th episode of their podcast, Office Ladies, during which Fischer and Kinsey rewatched and provided commentary for “Casino Night.” You remember: It’s the fateful Season 2 episode in which Jim tells Pam he’s in love with her and kisses her for the first time. The trio broke down the scene that made everyone’s hearts split, crack, and burst at the seams.

According to the cast members, the director and writers were deciding whether or not to make Jim and Pam aware that the “documentary” cameras were around or if the conversation between them should be just audio until the very last frame.

“I remember that the cells of my body were really buzzing because I saw the crew running around and deciding where to hide the cameras,” Krasinski, who played Jim, recalled.

The way they ultimately set up the shot made Fischer and Krasinski “feel very alone” in the parking lot in which they filmed, and both Fischer and Krasinski agreed that shooting the actual kiss (Krasinski’s “first acting kiss ever,” mind you) was a lot easier than filming the “I love you” scene.

And people…the “Don’t” was pure improv. You can’t make this stuff up.

Krasinski said that the level of intensity of the scene was “super terrifying” to him at the time, but he admits that the end result was “all very awkward and perfect and so good.” We absolutely agree—as Kinsey said, “You wrecked us, John.”

Krasinski confessed that he used real-life experience to pack emotion into this scene. He said that he was the guy always in the friend zone back in high school. Having his true love in a relationship with another guy is Krasinski’s “default setting,” he joked.

When the “perfect kiss” happened, as Fischer put it, she was “one kiss more experienced than John,” but that didn’t make her any less jumpy about doing the scene. Director Ken Kwapis reminded Fischer via text, “the day we did the kissing scene, you and John were off-the-charts nervous.” That may have been because on the shooting schedule the scene description was simply “JIM KISSES PAM!!!” Iconic.

But, like, it was a big deal. The Office Jim-Pam kiss is still one of our favorite moments in television history, and if any kiss deserves an all-caps, three exclamation-point, italics description, it’s that one.