Angela Kinsey first became known to millions when she was cast as uptight accountant Angela Martin on the hit NBC sitcom, “The Office.” (2005- ). Armed with formidable acting chops as well as writing talents, the petite comedienne spent nearly a decade on comedy stages prior to her big break, performing with some of Hollywood’s most renowned improv and sketch comedy troupes.Angela Kinsey was born on June 25, 1971, in Lafayette, LA. Her father, an engineer, relocated his family to Indonesia when Kinsey was only two years old. She spent the next 12 years living in Jakarta, speaking Indonesian and English, complete with a Texas accent, thanks to her parents. There was no TV in the Kinsey house, so Angela grew up with a love for reading and especially writing, scripting out plays and comedy skits for the neighborhood kids to perform. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, Angela replied “Carol Burnett,” as the much-retold family story went.
When she was 14 years old, the Kinseys moved back to the States, to a North Texas dot on the map called Archer. Angela acted in school plays and after graduation, went on to Baylor University outside Waco. She took as many theater and writing classes there as she could, and spent a semester abroad in England where she cultivated a love for Shakespeare, Wadsworth and the British tradition of theater. After graduating with a degree in English, she joined a post-graduate program in New York, where she worked as an intern on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (NBC, 1993- ).
In 1995, Kinsey moved to Los Angeles, where she quickly began landing roles in commercials. Meanwhile, she took courses at renowned comedy training spots The Groundlings and the Improv Olympic, where she tirelessly performed with troupes and wrote and performed in sketch shows. She began to land spots on sitcoms like “Step By Step” (ABC, 1991-97) and “All of Us” (UPN/CW 2003-07), putting her Texas accent to work voicing a few episodes of “King of the Hill” (Fox, 1997- ). Between acting gigs, she worked as an operator for 1-800-DENTIST.
Ten years after landing in Hollywood, Kinsey was called in to audition for the NBC version of the award-winning BBC comedy “The Office.” She originally auditioned for the role of receptionist Pam, but execs instead offered her the role of the busybody, uber-Puritan accountant Angela. She, along with the rest of the cast members from “The Office,” was recognized with an award from the Screen Actors Guild in early 2007. Hot off her success as the love interest of Dwight Schrute, Kinsey was scheduled to be a guest on an experimental improv show called “Thank God You’re Here” on NBC later in the spring of 2007. On film, Kinsey appeared in the 2004 short “Career Suicide,” and in 2006 she made her full-length feature debut with the independent film “Tripping Forward.”
