“Nobody did TV”: Did Philip Seymour Hoffman really almost star in ‘The Office’?
There are plenty of movies that feature multiverses, such as Everything Everywhere All at Once, one about the hot dog fingers, or the frenetic Spider-Man animated worlds that give you a headache, loads of them, but they’re just films.
They don’t really exist, as otherwise, we could just nip into a different universe where Donald Trump didn’t happen, trees are made of Curly Wurlys, and Philip Seymour Hoffman famously played Michael Scott in the US version of The Office.
Now let’s be honest, other than getting it out of the way as soon as we can that the UK original with Ricky Gervais is vastly superior, you have to give the American Office its dues, for it stands up as a very funny, superbly made and acted series that lasted some eight years stateside, launching the careers of John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson and Ed Helms and showcasing just what a uniquely talented lead man Steve Carell could be.
Carell was nominated for six Golden Globe awards for his work as Michael Scott, winning once, and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else doing the job, although of course they are no strangers to jumping the shark over there and drafted in a variety of people to try as the series wound down, including Will Ferrell and James Spader.
But Seymour Hoffman would have been a very different proposition altogether. One of the greatest acting talents in movie history, according to The Office’s casting director Allison Jones, he was originally in the running to play Scott back in 2003 when the creators were putting the programme together, along with another all-timer in the shape of Paul Giamatti.
She told the Office Ladies podcast, “I remember vividly the first meeting we had with the network when [creator Greg Daniels] had a list of names, and they were like, ‘Let’s try Philip Seymour Hoffman’, and then, ‘Let’s go for Paul Giamatti or whatever’.”
Jones didn’t feel either actor would be remotely interested at the time, however, because “nobody did TV. Comedy was at the bottom of the barrel”. Although Seymour Hoffman never tested for the show, plenty of other actors who didn’t end up being cast did, including Seth Rogen, who auditioned for the Dwight Schrute role, and Step Brothers’ Adam Scott, who read for the part of Jim Halpert. The latter did go on to appear in another Daniels-created show, in Parks and Recreation.
Not that Seymour Hoffman was exactly short of work at the time. He had landed his first leading role in the comedy Love Liza, before appearing in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie Punch-Drunk Love, the Silence of the Lambs prequel Red Dragon and a Spike Lee movie, all in the year before The Office began auditions.
He was also appearing on stage, winning a second Tony nomination for a show on Broadway, and in 2005, the year The Office first aired, he had what to that point was a career high thanks to the biopic Capote, in which the actor excelled as Truman Capote, receiving rave reviews and winning not just the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar, but the Golden Globe as well. From that point on, he was known as quite possibly the finest actor of his generation, winning three further Oscar nominations before his tragic death in 2014 at just 46.
