It’s been one of those days when Angela Kinsey
could have used an extra pair of hands and another
head to balance all the balls she was juggling
on her day off. Angela, who plays Angela
Martin on NBC’s hit sitcom The Office, was at
home and in the midst of a chaotic afternoon in
sunny Southern California when her cell phone
and her doorbell went off simultaneously while
the FedEx guy and the contractor she had hired
to put up a fence needed her signature.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said when she was interrupted
during our interview. “It’s funny. You just
asked me how I balance it all and my friend just
passed me a note saying that I hadn’t bought
enough cookie mix. Suddenly there’s a lot of
traffic in my house!”
A scene such as this one might have left a lesser
woman totally frazzled but Angela, who was
born in Lafayette, Louisiana and grew up in
Jakarta, Indonesia comes from good, strong
stock. She’s a Chi Omega from Baylor University
and as such is very adept when it comes to
multi-tasking. She credits her sorority experience
for helping her keep a handle on things.
“I think any service organization or service network
of any kind teaches you how to deal with
people,” Angela said. “Chi Omega helped me
learn how to manage, how to manage being in
a group, how to delegate, give instructions, and
take instructions.”
Angela, who now lives in Los Angeles with her
2-year-old daughter, Isabel, has fond memories
of her days as a sorority girl at Baylor. Having
grown up overseas the whole Greek system was
rather foreign to her—especially since no one
in her family had ever pledged. She opted not
to pledge her freshman year but after seeing all the fun her girlfriends had being a part of
something, she knew she wanted to wear the
cardinal and straw, too.
“There were mixers and dances and softball
games and all kinds of different things,” Angela
said. “I just wanted to be a part of that. And
especially if you move out of the dorms (there
were no sorority houses at Baylor), it was a way
to stay connected to the school.”
Angela was also impressed with the plethora of
options at Baylor. Sure, there were the Greek organizations,
which were appealing on a social
level, but there were also other fraternal clubs
that were more service-oriented. Chi Omega
offered her the best of both worlds and she felt
that the Sisters at Baylor were well respected.
“I also like that everyone seemed to be their own
person and still function well within the group,”
she said. “Chi Os were kind of the trendsetters
at Baylor. They didn’t really follow any group. I
didn’t feel like I was joining some generic group
of women. I felt like I was joining a group of
women who were smart and who were going to
do things with their lives. That’s how I felt.”
Oftentimes the recruitment process for any
Greek organization is memorable but not always
for the right reasons. In keeping with the
Chi Omega mantra at Baylor, Angela quickly
found her niche and became the go-to girl
when it came to producing skits or simply
breaking up the monotony.
“I had a background in comedy and you know
meetings of any kind can get pretty mundane,”
she said with a laugh. “So, I’d be the comedic
relief.” That’s a role she also played during the
pledge ceremony, which is normally a rather
serious right-of-passage event where the new
Sisters are pinned and praised. It didn’t exactly
go down like that for Angela and her crew. The
Louisiana native came down with a terminal
case of the giggles and it infected the rest of her
Sisters.
“There were about 30 girls who also started giggling
and we could not get it together,” she said.
“It was just pure fun and silliness and that, I
think, is a necessary part of college life.”
But it wasn’t all about fun, games, and parties.
“There were a lot of other great things about
sorority life that I was exposed to as well,” she
said. “Volunteering for Habitat for Humanity
and whatever was going on in the community
as well—reaching out to senior citizens and
visiting them at retirement homes. We’d sometimes
bring puppies to them or read to them or
sing. I feel like sorority life—and particularly
my experience at Baylor—really did put a focus
on giving back as well as planning a good party.
There was some depth to it. It wasn’t just socials
and mixers.”
Those experiences at Baylor remain near and
dear to Angela who says she still keeps in close
touch with a couple of girls from her pledge
class. One of them visited Angela earlier this
year in Los Angeles and the other lives close to
Angela’s parents’ home in Texas so she sees her
whenever she goes home.
“They keep you grounded,” Angela said. “They’re
quick to remind you that, ‘you’re not Miss Hollywood.
We know things about you!’”
Additionally, she often hears from Chi Omegas
around the country who send her owl trinkets
and paraphernalia or pictures of themselves
making the “X and a horseshoe” sign in front
of famous landmarks. Those gifts are much appreciated.
“I have an owl magnet on my fridge and I have
an owl Christmas tree ornament,” she said
enthusiastically. “I have an owl pot holder and
when I was pregnant a Sister sent me a onesie
that says ‘My mom is a Chi O.’”
The one thing she has held on to from her college
days, however, is a treasured clothing item
that has perhaps seen better days.
“I have a sweatshirt that is so ratty and torn
now,” Angela said. “It has the Chi O letters on
it and it felt very collegiate. I felt like I was Miss
College now with my sorority sweatshirt! It was
also really warm and the buildings were always
really cold so I wore it all the time!”
These days Angela probably only wears that
shirt when she feels like channeling her inner
Jennifer Beals—the actress who made raggedy
sweatshirts an iconic fashion must-have when
she donned one in
Flashdance. That might be,
however, where the similarity between the two
TV stars ends. Unlike Beals, who today still
shies away from the spotlight after being discovered
in college, Angela knew she wanted to be in
show business before she lost her first tooth. At
4-years old she told her mother that she wanted
to be Carol Burnett when she grew up.
“My mom said try as she might, she couldn’t
shake it out of me,” Angela said. “I wanted to
be in theater classes and plays from elementary
school on up. It’s something I’ve always wanted
to do. There’s something very nice about knowing
early in life what you want.”
After leaving Baylor, Angela headed to Los Angeles
and began honing her skills in commercials
and improv comedy clubs. Additionally,
she booked some guest spots on network and
cable television shows such as
Step by Step, All
of Us and
Monk. Success didn’t come quickly so
in between gigs she made ends meet by working
in retail, waitressing, temping, and being a
lifeguard. The weirdest job she had, however,
was answering phones at 1-800-DENTIST.
“I thought that job was pretty odd,” Angela said.
“Talking to people about the level of tooth decay
they had Monday through Friday, nine to
five, it was just odd to know that much about
someone!”
But knowing she should be “discouraged never,”
Angela realized she had to stay the course and if
that meant finding a periodontist to treat some
stranger’s gingivitis, so be it.
One of the things that helped her survive the
early years was knowledge. Angela knew she
was never going to be Angelina Jolie with a
gun strapped to her thigh and swinging from a
cable. “I’m always going to be the quirky neighbor
next door or the snooty lady in accounting,”
she said. “I’m more of a character actress. I
knew early on that I wasn’t going to be the big
leading lady and I was okay with that because
every story has many parts and I’m just happy
to be in this story.”
When she got her big break on
The Office, she
was more than happy. Angela had impressed
producers during her initial auditions for the
role of Pam (which eventually went to her costar
Jenna Fischer), but even though they didn’t
want a “big” name Angela was deemed “too
feisty” for that role.
“I thought okay, you win some you lose some
and I put it behind me,” Angela said.
About two months later, however, when the
producers were preparing to shoot the show’s
pilot episode, Angela got a phone call about a
new character—an accountant. She was told
they didn’t know much about the character but
that she “quietly judged everyone.” She auditioned
again and got the role.
“I’ll never forget,” she said. “I was at lunch with a
friend when they called me. I was so excited that
I think I yelled and then I ordered a mimosa!”
Being a part of an Emmy-winning show that is
consistently ranked among the best sitcoms on
television has been very rewarding for Angela,
a woman who definitely paid her dues.
“I really feel like I graduated to some elite comedy
group,” she said. “How to be funny 101. I’m
with the masters of it. Between Steve Carell,
Rainn Wilson, and Jenna Fischer and all these
people who are so funny. They are smart-funny.
Just watching Steve in a scene is like watching
an awesome comedy class. Just to be part of
that, and to react to him and every once in a
while hit the ball back to him. If I can make
Steve crack up or smile, or any of my castmates,
that’s the best feeling ever because I really respect
them as performers.”
And they probably respect her for her skills on-and
off-camera.
“Today is one of those days where I didn’t plan
very well,” Angela said toward the end of our
conversation. “I’ve got to make six dozen cookies
tonight and I didn’t buy enough ingredients
and now I have to figure out what to get my parents
for Christmas because they’ll be here soon.
My car needs to be serviced and I don’t even
think I brushed my daughter’s hair before she
went to preschool! It’s always a balancing act.
Some days I feel like I’m in Cirque du Soleil!”
1. She is fluent in Indonesian.
2. She majored in English at Baylor
University, where a semester in England
ignited her love of Shakespeare, Wordsworth,
and British theater.
3. She was an intern for
Late Night with
Conan O’Brien. 4. She is the voice of Angela on
King of
the Hill and has appeared on episodes of
Monk, Step by Step, All of Us, and
Run of
the House.5. In 2007 she won an Emmy and a
Screen Actors Guild Award.
On whether her daughter will follow in her
footsteps:
“I think about my daughter, Isabel,
and wonder if she’ll be a Chi Omega. Whatever
path she takes, I hope she will have the
same wonderful experiences I had.”
On the relationship between her current
career and sorority life: “I look at reality shows
now—like The Apprentice—and it reminds me
a little bit of sorority life,” Angela said. “You’re
in a group of really random people who have
really interesting personalities who have to
learn to work together as a team.”
On the advice she would give to Sisters
wanting to be actors: “I just think you have
to be very comfortable with the word ‘no.’ If
you’re someone who can take rejection and
being told that, ‘No, you’re not right for this’
or, ‘No, not at this time.’ If you can hear those
and go, ‘OK,’ you’ll have the patience it takes
to stay in it.”
On what she misses about the South: “I miss
the food. I miss okra. I miss gravy but good
gravy, not the store-bought stuff but really
good gravy that someone’s mom made and it’s
really good because they first cooked the bacon
in the skillet and then took the bacon out. I
miss having family around. I have no family in
L.A. It’s just me and my daughter.”
Miki Turner is a Los Angeles-based senior writer
for
JET magazine who is currently working on
a photo coffee table book called “journey to the
woman i’ve come to love.” An award-winning
photojournalist and producer, Turner is a graduate
of Hampton University and a proud member
of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.