Jenna Fischer is opening up about why she stepped away from television acting after her run on The Office and later Splitting Up Together. In an Aug. 18 appearance on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner’s On Me podcast, Fischer said the long hours on the ABC sitcom played a major role in her decision.
Fischer said she loved the cast of Splitting Up Together, but the schedule was exhausting, with workdays that stretched to 65 to 70 hours a week. At the time, her children were still very young, and she said the demands of the job made her rethink whether leading a TV series still fit her life.
After the show ended in 2019, Fischer decided that being the lead or even a regular on a television series was no longer the right choice for her. She said starting The Office Ladies podcast that same year gave her steady income while also allowing her to be present for school drop-offs, pickups, teacher conferences and concerts.
Fischer also joked that her children, Weston and Harper, were so young when that shift happened that they thought of her as a podcaster rather than an actress from one of TV’s most popular sitcoms. According to E! News, Fischer said that taking control of her time turned out to be a “great” move for her.
