The Office we know and love could have looked very different. In the November 6 episode of the Office Ladies podcast, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey—who played Pam and Angela on the show—spoke with casting director Allison Jones about the original casting ideas for Michael Scott. Jones, 69, revealed that NBC initially wanted big-name actors for the role.


“I remember vividly the first meeting with the network when [creator Greg Daniels] had a list of names, and they were like, ‘Let’s try Philip Seymour Hoffman. Or, you know, maybe Paul Giamatti,’” Jones shared. She admitted she was skeptical at the time, thinking, “Nobody did TV. Comedy was the bottom of the barrel.”


However, Daniels, 61, wanted the American version to stay true to the original British series, which cast actors who looked like real office workers. Jones explained, “This was the first time, other than Freaks and Geeks, that I had the chance to cast real people who didn’t need to be vaudeville funny or sitcom funny, which is a very difficult thing to be.”