After years of watching Steve Carell brilliantly bring the character of Michael Scott to life it's nearly impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. But another beloved Hollywood actor was almost hired to lead Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch.
The awkward episodes after Michael Scott left the show where potential replacement boss-like figures — played by everyone from Will Ferrell to James Spader — shuffle in and out of the office prove that Carell is one of a kind, but Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk was almost cast as Michael at the start of the series.
On the latest episode of Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s podcast, Office Ladies, the two talked about "The Fight" episode of the show and how Odenkirk and Lance Krall (who played Dwight's sensei, Ira) originally auditioned for the roles of Michael Scott and Jim Halpert respectively.
The sixth episode of Season 2 shows several characters leave the office to watch a fight between Dwight and Michael at Dwight's dojo. There, they also have the pleasure of meeting his sensei, Ira.
"Sensei Ira was played by Lance Krall who's a friend of mine," Kinsey explained before noting that Krall first tested for the role of Jim. Kinsey called Krall to chat before the podcast taping, which is when he told her that Odenkirk was actually in his audition group for Michael Scott.
"Lance told me this great story that the day he was screen testing he was in the lobby, waiting. They were all kind of giddy that Bob Odenkirk was in their group. They were all really big fans of Bob’s, and Bob walked over to Lance and was like 'hey, you want to run lines with me?' And Lance was like, 'uh, sure,'" Kinsey said.
"[Krall] said it was really cool and they sort of went out in this lobby and ran lines like three or four times," she went on before Fischer shared her own Odenkirk memories.
"I was in the Steve Carell test group," Fischer said. "I knew Bob Odenkirk when I was auditioning for The Office, and we were both called. I was called to do Pam and he was called to do Michael, so we got together and practiced together."
Ultimately, Fischer and Odenkirk weren't placed in the same test group, which they were extremely bummed about because they had "worked on a bunch of bits together" that they wanted to show off.
"He did this very funny audition where he brought in his guitar and sang along to Pam," Fischer shared. "We had worked it all out. We were going to ask if we could do it if we were paired together, but we never were."
In 2013, the New York Times reported that Odenkirk was actually selected for the role of Michael Scott and presented as part of the pilot cast to network executives, but Carell was chosen after the project he was working on, Come to Papa, was cancelled and his schedule freed up.
While we may never get to see the Michael/Pam bits that Odenkirk and Fischer never got to bust out at auditions, we luckily got a glimpse at Odenkirk as a quirky boss when he starred alongside Fischer in Season 9, Episode 16 of the show, titled "Moving On."
As for Krall's first audition, he obviously wasn't cast as Halpert, but turned out to be an absolutely ideal choice for the role as Sensei Ira.
"When he got called back once the show was up and going for 'The Fight' he read that it was like a martial arts guy and he goes, 'oh my gosh,'" Kinsey said. "Lance’s background is actually martial arts. He was in the martial arts community for 15 years, he has a third degree black belt in Taekwondo, he was sixth in the nation in his like weight category in 1992, and he trained junior olympic gold medalists."
"He said when he saw who the character was he said, 'I’m not going to try to go for the joke at all, I’m just going to go in as if I’m like working with one of my students and teaching a class,'" Kinsey said. And the casting directors loved him, which is how he wound up coming back to star alongside real-life yellow belt, Rainn Wilson, at the dojo.
In the end, everything worked out great.
You can stream episodes of The Office on Netflix and follow along with the podcast every week on Earwolf, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.
Topics The Office
