For nearly ten years, actor John Krasinski was known almost exclusively as “Jim from The Office.” And, to be fair, he was. Krasinski’s key role over this time period was The US Office’s Jim Halpert, the sarcastic, smart-alec Dunder Mifflin employee with a heart of gold.
Now, Jim from the Office has become People’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2024. But how did John Krasinski make the leap from “work hot” to “Sexiest Man Alive”? To figure that out, we have to go back to 2005, when The Office US first hit television screens.
The US Office was a shock success, with an average viewership of up to 8.3 million during its airtime. Airing from 2005 up to 2013, Jim was perhaps the show’s most beloved and longest-running character, considering Steve Carrell, who played Michael Scott, left in the seventh season.
Before The Office, Krasinski was an unknown. Born to a Catholic family in Boston and the youngest of three boys, Krasinski’s “in” to The Office was via his connection with B.J Novak. The pair were classmates in high school and Krasinski starred in a school play written by the comedian in sixth grade.
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While studying at Brown University in 2000, Krasinski interned as a scriptwriter on the show Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Before The Office his acting work was minimal. His immediately preceding credits include “Process Server” for a TV series called Ed and “Messenger #3” in the Jimmy Fallon film Taxi, as well as the mandatory one episode stint on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
The Office changed everything, then and now. It continues to endear audiences to Krasinski even today, given how the show’s popularity well outlasted its run. In 2020, The Office was the most streamed acquired series on Netflix, with over 57 billion minutes watched.
Part of its lasting appeal lies with Jim’s relationship with Pam, played by Jenna Fischer, a coworkers-to-lovers tale that remains one of the TV’s star relationships. The key clip from the pair’s wedding episode in season five has over 12 million views on YouTube, despite having originally aired 15 years ago.
Jim and Pam’s on-screen connection made Krasinski the off-beat romantic lead of the 2010s. This was only intensified by his real life romantic relationships, first with co-star Rashida Jones and then with actress Emily Blunt, who had recently exited her relationship with Michael Bublé.
Krasinski and Emily Blunt met in 2008 at a restaurant. “It's kind of a sad, lame story,” Blunt once recalled on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “I was in a restaurant, he was in the restaurant. I was sitting with a mutual friend, and my friend Gray goes ‘Oh my god, that's my friend John.’ And that was it. He was sitting with our friend Justin Theroux, and he abandoned Justin and came over to us. He just stood there and made me laugh.”
While The Office was airing, Krasinski’s roles ran parallel with Jim Halpert’s personality. A discerning colleague of Cameron Diaz’s in The Holiday, a supportive son-in-law in It’s Complicated alongside Meryl Streep, as well as various animated voiceover roles.
After The Office ended in 2013, Krasinski focused on branching out his roles, including taking on the role of Amazon Prime action hero Jack Ryan. Then Emily Blunt gave birth to their second daughter in 2016, and the actor was struck by divine inspiration.
While speaking with a group of producers, he was pitched a script. “They said, ‘It’s about a family that has to stay quiet and you have to figure out why,’” Krasinski told the OnWriting podcast in 2018.
“I realized as I was reading it that this could be the best metaphor for parenthood that I’ve ever experienced [...] my wife just had our second daughter and she was about three weeks old.
“I just envisioned that it could be this complete family metaphor and really a love letter to my kids. [...] As anybody who has new babies knows, it’s genuine terror as far as not just keeping them happy but keeping them healthy and alive.”
A Quiet Place was a global hit, with Krasinski and Blunt taking on the lead roles as canny parents devoted to protecting their kids from an invasion of monsters with excellent hearing. It has since added a sequel and a prequel, and grossed over 400 million at the box office as a franchise.
In 2023, Krasinski ended his run as Jack Ryan after four seasons of the series, though he’s set to return to the role via an as-of-yet “Untitled Jack Ryan Project” some time in the future. Meanwhile, he’s probably soaking up the limelight of being People’s Sexiest Man Alive.
He told the magazine that Blunt said she was planning to wallpaper his house in the cover. “Do we have that on camera? Because that’s like a binding contract, I think," he joked. "My children will love that, it won’t be weird at all."
