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How Improv and a ‘Candy Bag’ of Ideas Helped The Office Cast Deliver Comedy Gold, According to Melora Hardin
Melora Hardin recounted being handed a “candy bag” which they utilized while filming the scenes in The Office.
It appears that improvisation truly helped make The Office the beloved show it still is, but what truly made it special were the creative ideas the team came up with to help the actors while filming. Melora Hardin, who played Jan Levinson, recalled a similar experience during a recent interview.
As per Entertainment Weekly, while conversing with Steve Kmetko on his Still Here Hollywood podcast, Hardin shared: “We would always do it the way it was written, and then they would hand us sort of a candy bag,” adding, “They would call it a candy bag, and we could literally pull out lines.” The actress explained that it would just be optional lines that the actors could use if they desired.
In the show, Hardin and Steve Carell’s Michael Scott share an on-screen romantic relationship from Seasons 2 to 4. The actress told the host of the podcast that most of her scenes were with the Evan Almighty star.
She stated that Carell was “great” and that she would, “throw a ball straight one time, a curveball the next time, and he would send it right back.” The performer revealed that she and the Beautiful Boy star both came from strong improv backgrounds.
Hardin continued by saying that it’s really enjoyable for an actor with improv experience to work with another actor with a similar background.
The actress also recalled that they were encouraged to do improvisation even during the pilot. She mentioned that director Ken Kwapis, who she called “amazing,” helmed the pilot.
The performer recalled one scene in that episode where her phone went off during rehearsals. She said she told the team she would make sure her phone didn’t go off again, but the director told her to leave it on because it would be hilarious. He even suggested that if someone called, she should answer it.
She expressed on the podcast: “You know, in character. I just thought, ‘This is my kind of group, where we get to really play like that, and they trusted our craft enough.’”
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