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On this episode of The Office Deep Dive, Brian Baumgartner talks with Melora Hardin, who played the no-nonsense Dunder Mifflin corporate manager Jan Levinson. She talks about what made The Office so special for her, her audition experience, why she loved working with Steve Carell so much, and dives into Jan’s character (especially the “Dinner Party” episode, one of the cringiest in the series), talking about her sexuality, her femininity, and what in the world she saw in Michael Scott. “Michael’s puppy-like adoration of her made her feel more feminine and womanly….I think she was really focused on climbing that corporate ladder and forgot about her need for companionship,” she says. “He just wouldn’t stop coming after her, even when she was a total b**tch to him! I think that just made her feel loved.”
Melora was one of the most experienced actors in the cast at the time, having worked professionally since she was 10 years old, and she says the show felt special to her right away. The cast was so great, and she loved that Steve could roll with anything she threw at him, but the way the writers would collaborate with the actors was “a revelation for me.” “I’d never had writers interacting in such an intimate way….being so involved, so hands-on, really wanting to hear from all of us,” she says. She remembers that Mindy Kaling wrote the episode of Jan singing to her baby because Melora had just performed in Les Miserables. “It was just kind of neat that they were wanting to use what we had to give,” she says. For example, she had a painting of herself in a pin-up style above her own couch that Greg Daniels saw one night when he came over for dinner. For her, it’s a huge joke, but they talked about how funny it would be if someone did that in earnest. Next thing she knew, Jan had a giant portrait too. “Greg is so good at spotting an opportunity to make a great joke out of something.”
Jan’s journey from successful businesswoman to unemployed, to building her own candle company, to having a baby, to becoming a successful executive again, is interesting to Brian, and Melora agrees. “It’s the wonderful element of ‘not enough,’” she says. “To me Jan is a great example of what women go through….which is this idea of, ‘What are we supposed to be?’ We’re supposed to be able to be moms, and successful businesswomen, and great sexy partners, and money earners, and soft and beautiful. It’s a real thing, and I think Jan encapsulated that in a way that no other character on The Office did.” Plus, how she, Steve, and Jenna Fischer could not stop laughing during “Dinner Party,” how they filmed the telephone conversations, the legacy of the show, and much more on this episode of The Office Deep Dive.
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