Jim would like it stated— for the record— that Pam actually is the one who screwed it up initially. He’ll own up to pretty much every time after that— that’s on him— but the first time was all Pam.
Part of it, he’s sure, is just Michael’s stellar dialogue-writing skills. He’s been getting into the “Goldenface” character, mostly to try and get Pam to laugh— and, he will admit, it’s kind of fun to be some campy parody (although he knows Michael doesn’t mean for it to be a parody) of a Bond villain, even if some of his lines kill another small part of his soul every time he has to say them again. (“Hump her real good? ” Really?)
But hey. He gets to do his own makeup.
They’re in the warehouse, and while he’s pretty sure it’s not after five just yet, it has been a long day, at the end of another long week. Jim is pretty ready to go home, despite it being a diversion from work. They’ve just got one scene left for today (so says Michael), and Jim thinks it’s supposed to be a sort of touching moment of humanization for the villain, as he gives his tragic backstory— but this being a Michael Scott film, of course it doesn’t work that well. They've read through it in the (just a working draft for now, people!) script a couple times, and Jim can't help the swoop in his stomach at one particular stage direction:
[SANDRA gives GOLDENFACE a kiss.]
"GOLDENFACE" being him, of course, and "SANDRA" being Pam. Surprisingly, neither Pam nor Roy (he’s playing one of the other hostages, with a couple lines in the scene) has said anything about it, and Jim wonders briefly if he's finally lost it; if his vivid imagination is just conjuring words in front of his waking eyes. But if it's in the stage directions, it's out of his control. Who is he to refuse the whims of the writer-slash-director-slash-self-described-avant-garde-film-genius?
So they’re running the scene. He explains his tragic past working in the… gold factory (he can see the corners of Pam’s mouth twitching the way they always do when she’s trying not to laugh. Not that he’s always watching Pam’s mouth, or anything), and the reason he’s committing acts of mass terror on various sporting events.
“Goldenface, that is so sad,” says Pam, and she’s lucky she’s facing away from the camera because he can tell she’s this close to losing it. Normally Pam has a poker face to rival his own, but it’s been a long day, and the thing about Pam is that the more tired she is, the more giggly she gets (except when she’s really, really tired— that’s when she gets all quiet).
Normally he’d encourage her, because giggly Pam (at least when he’s the one making her giggly) is one of his favorite Pams, but he kind of just wants to go home at this point, so he’s willing her to keep it together so they can just make it through this scene and leave.
“Let us go, Goldenface!” Roy shouts, and Jim’s heart speeds up, because Pam’s next beat is—
“So sad,” she says, shaking her head, and then she goes up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek. He isn’t expecting it, and it lands perilously close to his mouth, and he must make some kind of involuntary face because Pam immediately breaks down in giggles.
“CUT!” Michael shouts, as Jim stands there, reeling a little bit. It’s not like the Dundies. It's more like a fantasy— not those ones, but the ones where neither of them work at Dunder Mifflin, and she's going to some job where she can be herself and not "Dunder-Mifflin-this-is-Pam," and he's not selling goddamn paper for a living, and she kisses him like this when they're both leaving for work, and again when they both get home, kisses him like it's nothing, like them kissing is an everyday occurrence—
Nope. He cannot go there right now.
“Goddammit, Pam,” Michael is saying as Jim wrenches himself with some effort into the real world. “Now we have to shoot the whole thing again! Keep it together this time. This is a really emotional scene!”
Jim exchanges a Look with Pam at that. She takes a few deep breaths and sobers up. “I’m sorry, Michael,” she says, and her voice is steady again. “I don’t know what happened there.”
“Okay, well, figure it out, Pa-mel-a,” Michael says, “cause we can stay here all night, if we have to!”
Dwight (manning the camera), Roy, Jim, and Pam all turn to look at him silently.
“Not. That I would do that,” Michael backtracks instantly. “Because that would make me… a bad boss. And a bad… director. So I will not do that. Of course! Why would you think I was serious about that? I was kidding. Juuuuuust kidding.”
“Okay, Michael,” says Pam, in that flat little way she has, and Michael cringes again.
“Ahah. Yeah. Anyway. We ready to rock and roll, people?”
Jim shrugs and nods.
“Okay. Annnnnnd ACTION!”
This time, the scene goes a little more smoothly, but Jim manages to accidentally-on-purpose flub his line post-kiss (this one lands more solidly on his cheek) by saying “Scart” instead of “Scarn,” which is, he knows, a sure-fire way to get Michael to insist they do the scene again. It's a little pathetic, doing this just for another kiss on the cheek from Pam, but to be fair, he's already spent the better part of a year pretending he doesn't know how to drive stick.
His ego can take the hit.
“Come on, Halpert,” Pam says, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. “I thought you rehearsed this. Get it together!”
“You first, Beesly,” he says, raising his eyebrows at her. The effect, he thinks, is somewhat ruined by the gold face paint, but Pam laughs at him anyway so it doesn’t really matter.
“You know what, Jim?” Michael calls, and Jim indulges in one despairing look towards Pam before turning toward Michael.
“Yes, Michael?”
“I think we should just cut the nemesis part,” he says. “That whole last line of yours. Instead, I want you to stare broodingly into the distance.”
"Like this?" says Jim, and looks blankly through the fence toward the camera.
"Yes! That's exactly it!" Michael says, excitedly, and Pam snorts softly from where she's standing near Jim.
"Great, I'll do that," Jim says, grinning.
"Okay, one more time, people! And a-three, and a-two, and a-one, and a-ACTION!"
Jim does his best to stay on-script this time— there's a line, and while he's been toeing it, he doesn't want to go too far over it.
"…and everyone would be gold… just like me," Jim says, with his best attempt at dramatic gravitas. The corners of Pam's mouth twitch, and he leans down quickly so she doesn't have to stretch up so awkwardly when she goes up on her toes to make it all the way to his cheek. He can feel her smile as her lips press against his skin.
Jim stays "brooding" until Michael calls cut and says that's a wrap for the day (thank God).
"C'mon, Pammy," Roy says, standing up from his spot against the wall and stretching.
"Bye, Jim," Pam calls over her shoulder with a little wave. "See you Monday!"
Her lips glitter gold in the fluorescent lighting.
He waves back.