Actor Awards 2026 Sees the Ladies of the Office Come Together for a Memorable Reunion
The Actor Awards served as the ultimate water cooler moment for fans of The Office as the ladies of Dunder Mifflin staged a high-profile reunion. Mindy Kaling, Jenna Fischer, Ellie Kemper, and Angela Kinsey took the stage at the Shrine Auditorium on March 1 to present the award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
The four actresses, who portrayed some of the sitcom’s most iconic characters, used their time at the podium to playfully reflect on the grueling production schedules of the early 2000s. During the presentation, Mindy Kaling, now 46, drew laughs from the crowd by describing the quartet as survivors of the 22-episode television season.
We are women who survived 22-episode seasons, she joked, highlighting the stark difference between modern streaming orders and the relentless pace of network TV. Angela Kinsey added that there were no short orders back then, while Ellie Kemper pointed out that the long filming cycles meant major life events often had to be written into the scripts.
The ladies of ‘The Office’ reunite at the Actor Awards:
— Pop Base (@PopBase) March 2, 2026
“We are women who have survived 22-episode seasons”
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The group joked about the absurdity of working through pregnancies and personal milestones while keeping up with the show’s demands. You just gave birth on camera and named the baby after a grip, Kaling laughed, to which Jenna Fischer added, Then you came back the next week with another episode.
Despite the exhaustion, Kinsey noted that the stability was a blessing for many actors, as those 22 episodes guaranteed a steady job from September through May. The reunion also touched on the varying quality that comes with producing such a high volume of content.
Kaling, who pulled double duty as a writer and performer on the show, admitted that there were sometimes kinda bad filler episodes. However, Kemper offered a more optimistic perspective on the fast-paced nature of the production. It didn’t matter, because there was always another one right around the corner, she noted.
While the original series ended in 2013, the cast remains deeply connected, with Fischer and Kinsey continuing to host their award-winning Office Ladies podcast. During their stage banter, Kaling teased the idea of starting her own podcast about the writing process, though Kemper jokingly shut her down.
Oh, Mindy, no one cares about writers, she quipped, a line that landed particularly well with the audience of fellow industry professionals. Currently, all four women are thriving in new chapters of their careers. Mindy Kaling is executive producing the second season of the Netflix sports comedy Running Point, which is set to premiere on April 23.
She also recently wrapped her new Hulu series, Not Suitable for Work, which follows work-obsessed twenty-somethings in Manhattan. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey are expanding their creative partnership beyond the podcast with a road-trip comedy film titled New Year’s Rev, written and directed by Fischer’s husband, Lee Kirk.
The legacy of Dunder Mifflin is also living on through the new spin-off series, The Paper, which premiered on Peacock in late 2025. The show, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, follows the same documentary crew from the original series as they chronicle a dying Midwestern newspaper.
While it features a new cast led by Domhnall Gleeson, original star Oscar Nuñez has already made appearances, reprising his role as Oscar Martinez. As the ladies handed over the ensemble trophy to the cast of The Studio, it was a reminder of the enduring bond formed during their nine years in Scranton.
Steve Carell once perfectly summed up the experience, noting that at least once a day on that set, he would laugh until tears came out of his eyes. Who has a job like that? he once asked. Decades later, it’s clear the cast still treasures those memories just as much as the fans do.
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