- - Melora Hardin has the perfect pitch for her “Office” character Jan Levinson to appear on spinoff “The Paper”

Ryan ColemanDecember 30, 2025 at 12:30 AM

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Justin Lubin/NBCU Photo Bank Melora Hardin on 'The Office' with Steve Carell

It's been over a decade since the world last caught sight of Jan Levinson, the frosty, imperious, yet hilarious sales executive played by Melora Hardin on The Office. With the recent premiere of The Paper marking the beloved sitcom's first spinoff, Hardin has the perfect pitch how to get Jan back in the habit.

"Are you kidding? I would totally go back," Hardin tells Entertainment Weekly in a career-spanning conversation. "I love Greg Daniels," Hardin notes, referring to the TV maven who developed the American adaptation of Ricky Gervais' British counterpart. "He really knows television, and he really knows comedy, and we spitball sometimes, you know. 'What could Jan be doing now?'"

At a certain point, that hypothetical became an easily actionable proposal that would meld perfectly into The Paper's wry style.

Chris Haston/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

Melora Hardin as Jan Levinson on 'The Office'

Co-created by Daniels and Late Night with Conan O'Brien writer Michael Koman, The Paper follows the same mockumentary crew that captured the lives of Michael, Jim, Pam, and yes, Jan 20 years ago to Toledo, Ohio, where a ragtag band of volunteer reporters tries to keep a declining newspaper afloat.

The only connective casting thread between The Paper and The Office is Oscar Nuñez's Oscar Martinez, and it's with Oscar that Hardin's plan begins.

"I had this idea that they have Oscar kind of being like, 'Did you guys get enough out of this?'" Hardin explains that after watching the pilot of The Paper, she fell in love with Nuñez's fourth-wall-breaking interactions with the mockumentary crew, who are never seen. "I said to Greg and to Suzanne, his wife, 'It would be really fun, if Jan was the director, and eventually, every now and then, the camera turns around, and it's her."

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The Paper takes after The Office in never directly showing the crew filming the employees of the Toledo Truth Teller. Across the 10 episodes of its first season, which aired over the summer, various characters like Oscar signal to them, joke around with them, and bump into them, but they're never glimpsed.

The Office came close, but never quite revealed its fictitious mystery crew. But there was a close call written into the fourth season episode "Branch Wars," in which Josh Krasinski's Jim is exposed by a cameraman while trying to hide from Rashida Jones' Karen in a car. "Come on man!" he mouths directly to the camera in anger.

Aaron Epstein/PEACOCK

The cast of 'The Paper'

"Maybe we'll find something that Jan could do," Hardin muses. "But of course, I would totally, happily go back."

So far, Nuñez is the only core cast member from the flagship series to appear on The Paper. The spinoff's pilot episode did, however, include a cameo from Robert R. Shafer's Bob Vance, the oft-mentioned, rarely seen owner of Vance Refrigeration, and husband of Phyllis Smith's Phyllis Vance.

In the short scene, Bob updates the camera crew on the whereabouts of some fan-favorite Office characters. "Bill (Terrence Beasor) and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) keep in touch; we both have Schnoodles," he notes. Bob also speaks fondly and in the present tense of Phyllis, indicating that one of the series' strongest relationships is a solid as ever.

on Entertainment Weekly

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