Angela Martin

Office character box
name = Angela Noelle Martin


caption =
portrayer = Angela Kinsey
debut = "Pilot"
departure =
alias = Monkey
gender = Female
age = 33
born =
occupation = Accounting Supervisor
spouse = Andy Bernard (fiance)
Dwight Schrute (ex-boyfriend, secret lover)
parent(s) =
child(ren) =
sibling(s) =
based on =

Angela Noelle Martin is a fictional character from the US television series "The Office". She is played by Angela Kinsey.

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Overview

Angela Martin is the head of the accounting department at the fictitious paper distributor Dunder Mifflin, Scranton Branch. Cold, judgmental and uptight, Angela frowns upon all frivolous activity in the office and openly showed her disapproval of office receptionist Pam Beesly’s flirtation with coworker Jim Halpert. Despite all that, Angela had a secret intimate relationship with Dwight Schrute that the pair go out of their way to mask. She then started to date Andy Bernard who proposed to her. She agreed but was later seen back with Dwight. In Season 5, she is still engaged to Andy, but continues to have secret hookupts with Dwight in the warehouse.

Character history

In addition to heading the accounting department, Angela is also the office safety officer and (former) head of the Party Planning Committee. She is a constant source of complaints to Human Resources, although she "redacts" those lodged against Dwight Schrute at the onset of their secret romance. Angela lives with several cats, adores posters of infants posed as adults, and is a vegetarian and a singer. When she makes a mistake, Angela's first response is usually to shift the blame to someone else, along with an insult. Angela's religious homophobia makes her dislike "Will and Grace, "(although officially, she says it's because it's 'terribly loud') except for the scenes with Harry Connick, Jr. ("He's so talented.") She is a former child beauty pageant contestant, and says that she enjoys being judged. She tends to list colors that she finds "whorish", including orange and green, that always seem to correspond to the color of clothes being worn by either Phyllis or Meredith. Angela bottles up her emotions to the point that, on occasion, she has private, emotional outbursts over relatively trivial matters. She also seems to be something of a conservative Christian. She states that the two books she would bring with her to read if stranded on a deserted island are the Bible and "A Purpose Driven Life". Further, she would bring "The Da Vinci Code", but only so she could burn it and she despises the mystery novel genre because, in her words, "I hate being titillated". In a deleted scene from Season 3, Angela glowingly compares Dwight to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity. She was mainly seen as a very minor character in the first two seasons but since starting her relationship with Dwight her character has been explored numerous times and has been so further since their break-up in "Fun Run". Angela, throughout season 3 and carrying on into season 4, has essentially become the second lead female of the show, after Pam Beesly.

Angela has a sister to whom she was very close but has not spoken in sixteen years over a disagreement she does not even remember, a situation that she regards with a great deal of pride. This and a subplot from "Product Recall" show that she is incapable of apologizing to people.

Angela's middle name has not been revealed outright, but there are indications that it may be "Noelle". ("Traveling Salesmen")

Angela drives a Ford Focus.

Angela claims to weigh ninety pounds and wears a children's size ten ("Women's Appreciation"). In addition, because she finds the clothes at Gap Kids to sometimes be too "flashy," she occasionally shops at the American Girl store, buying items meant for "large colonial dolls." Michael has twice made fun of her 5'1" stature, nicknaming her "Booster Seat" in reference to small children having to sit on one during a car journey. Steve Carell reportedly ad libbed that.

Angela ruled (in seasons 1-4) the Party Planning Committee (PPC) with an iron fist. Usually when a committee member suggests an idea, Angela immediately shoots it down with a mean comment or sharp rebuke. The PPC normally consists of Angela, Pam, Phyllis, and Meredith, although Meredith was naturally not present when the committee planned her surprise birthday party. Karen became a regular member of the PPC when she was transferred to Scranton, but was expelled by Angela for her "unsuitable" ideas during "A Benihana Christmas". Ryan joined the committee to help plan the Christmas Party, and Oscar joined it to help plan his own "Welcome Back" party ("The Return"). Angela was particularly hard on Phyllis during "Launch Party" and was left with a huge burden when Phyllis got fed up and quit the PPC.

eason 1

Angela is established as a strict and stubborn office worker, and she is something of a perfectionist. She appears to be a prime example of an authoritarian personality. She is also in charge of the Party Planning Committee and is often at odds with Phyllis Lapin. When it is noted that red streamers are bad during Meredith Palmer's party, she blames it on Phyllis, though it seems to be her fault. There are many deleted scenes in which Angela is interviewed, as well as other members of accounting, suggesting that the series was originally intended to take a two perspective look at the office: one from accounting's point of view, and one from sales.

eason 2

Angela refuses to accept the "Tight Ass" award at the 8th Annual Dundie Awards. When she sees Kelly give Dwight (her secret love interest) a small kiss in the episode "Christmas Party", she gets angry and throws Christmas ornaments outside the building. Though she is a constant source of complaints to Human Resources (she and Oscar Martinez fight over her poster of babies playing instruments, which she got from Toby Flenderson for Christmas), she redacts those lodged against Dwight—who calls her "monkey"—at the onset of their secret romance. She has a bobblehead doll made in Dwight's likeness as a Valentine's Day gift, and receives a key to his house in return. Angela hints that she has a crush on Pam's fiancé Roy (, "Someone in the Warehouse") and admits that she would choose Roy over Jim if pressed on the matter ("The Secret").

eason 3

Angela is disgusted at the revelation that Oscar is gay ("Gay Witch Hunt"), and does not bother to hide it. Her attitude toward him becomes much more sympathetic after he returns to work following an extended absence ("The Return"), and the two appear to have reconciled. She believes Oscar has the capability to cross over to dating women if he so chooses. Evidently, Angela continues to nurture a crush on Roy; complimenting him on his physique and greeting him, in the third season episode, Branch Closing.

In "The Convention", she secretly follows Dwight to the office supply convention in Philadelphia under the name "Jane Doe" and gets a room which Jim accidentally enters, though it does not appear he saw that it was her (exclaiming "Dwight got a hooker!"). Angela would seem to call Dwight "D" outside the office, as she (mistakingly) does when Jim enters Dwight's hotel room. She also persuades Dwight to supplant Michael as Regional Manager (a la Lady Macbeth), but it does not succeed. She has a good first impression of Andy Bernard when he shows up on his first day with a cat screensaver. When Angela rudely shoots down an idea proposed by Karen Filippelli, the PPC defiantly splits into two groups and two parties. Angela holds the less popular one, to which only Kevin, Phyllis, and Hannah come, while Pam and Karen lead the more popular one. Eventually the two parties merge back into one and Angela returns a "missing" power chord for the karaoke machine. In "Traveling Salesmen", it is suggested that Angela's middle name might be Noelle.

It is illustrated that Angela has a love of learning, as seen in "Ben Franklin" where she is the only female intently listening to the Ben Franklin impersonator, "Diwali" where she takes a cautious interest in learning more about Hindu religion and culture (although she also makes ignorant comments about the religion and Indian food, specifically whining that the naan at the Diwali party is dry), and "The Job" in which she enthusiastically participates in Dwight's lecture on soil.

Her refusal to allow Dwight to publicize their relationship prevented him from exonerating himself against suspicion of disloyalty and forced his resignation. Dwight returns to Dunder Mifflin after she clears his name while preserving the secrecy of their relationship (she tells Michael that Dwight bailed her out, but does not correct Michael's clueless assertion that Dwight helped her "as a random co-worker").

The relationship between Angela and Dwight is almost of MacBeth proportions as when Dwight was fooled by Michael into believing he was going to be the new regional manager at the branch (which Angela pushed by Dwight going behind Michael's back), Dwight leaves her in charge of the women. In "The Job", when Dwight is temporarily given Michael's job as acting regional manager, Dwight immediately informs her and she seems to rekindle the idea of mastering the puppet strings over Dwight, as well as speculating happily that co-worker Kelly Kapoor will be fired.

eason 4

In the episode "Fun Run," Dwight and Angela's relationship hits a snag when Dwight euthanizes Sprinkles, one of Angela's greatly illness-afflicted cats. Dwight thought Sprinkles had died after being given Benadryl by him, and he put the cat into the freezer to cover the smell; however, Angela was horrified to find out that Sprinkles was only sleeping and died while trying to get out of the freezer. Angela is especially bothered by this because, "although cat heaven is a beautiful place, you cannot go there if you've been euthanized." In the next episode, "Dunder Mifflin Infinity," Angela breaks up with Dwight because she cannot overcome the loss of her cat and sees Dwight's involvement in that when she looks into his eyes. In "Launch Party," Angela prepares in three weeks a party for the launch of the company website. On the day of the launch, Dwight attempts to woo her back by competing (and winning) against the website to sell more reams of paper than the other, but Angela refuses to consider it. Michael, in a bid for vengeance against a perceived slight by Ryan, orders Angela, with one hour left before the party begins, to implement his over-the-top ideas for decorations and catering. She is unable to do so partly due to not having enough time and partly due to Phyllis taking a stand against her harsher than usual criticism and refusing to help. In the meantime Andy tries to win Angela's affection; although initially unsuccessful (to Dwight's relief), a last-minute performance of "Take a Chance on Me" produces a partly suppressed smile from her. In the episode "Money," Angela decides to go out with Andy after he gives her a cat as a present (actually a stray that Dwight had tried unsuccessfully to give her as a reconciliation gift), giving him instructions on taking her to dinner that included "no seafood places". In the following episodes, they have apparently been seeing each other, but it is implied that Angela still harbors feelings for Dwight, as Andy reports in Local Ad that she cried out "Oh, D!" when he kissed her, and Dwight recognizes this as her nickname for him (though Andy thinks it means "Dee" as in "An-Dee").

Due to Angela Kinsey's real life pregnancy, there have been numerous internet rumors that the pregnancy was going to be written into the show with Angela falling pregnant with Dwight's baby, but with the writer's strike, it would be too late to introduce the storyline to reflect the actress' own pregnancy. After the long strike layoff Kinsey's pregnancy was ignored.

In "Job Fair", Angela and Dwight were the only two left in the office after the remaining members of the team took off early as a result of Michael not being in the office. For the rest of the day, the two share an awkward atmosphere which eventually thaws towards the end of the day.

In "Goodbye, Toby", at Toby's outdoor leaving party, Angela reluctantly accepts Andy's proposal of marriage, after he asks her in front of everyone, including his own parents. At the very end of the episode, however, Phyllis is taking some of the party supplies back to the office and walks in on Angela mid-intercourse with Dwight. The episode ended on Angela and Dwight's reaction to Phyllis's walking in.

eason 5

In "Weight Loss", Andy continually pesters Angela with ideas for their wedding. Most of his proposals are outlandish and expensive, and Angela continues to treat him and his ideas with contempt. She pages Dwight, and they meet in a warehouse to have sex. This seems to be a habit, but later in the episode Andy tells Angela he doesn't care where they marry so long as they're together. This moves Angela enough not to cheat on him with Dwight who is left waiting alone on this one occasion but it doesn't last, as Andy continues to irritate Angela about his college friends coming to stay with them for three weeks to perform at the wedding. Angela tells Andy they'll talk about it later and rushes to page and subsequently meet Dwight downstairs.

Meanwhile, Phyllis has dethroned Angela as head of the Party Planning Committee and does not hesitate to give Angela harsh orders. Angela puts up with Phyllis' sternness because she doesn't want Phyllis to tell Andy she is cheating on him.

Behind the scenes

*When Angela Kinsey auditioned for the role, the only note they gave her was that "This woman is the type of gal who would say, 'Well, I don't like to say anything mean about anyone... "but"...'" [http://tv.ign.com/articles/785/785199p1.html IGN Interview: The Office's Angela Kinsey] ]

References