‘The Office’: Amy Adams Replaced Another Actor Who Was Fired
Amy Adams guest-starred on several episodes of The Office right as her career was taking off, but the role actually was supposed to be played by another actor. Steve Carell, who played Michael Scott on the hit series, shared that Adams was hired after the other woman was fired.
‘The Office’: Amy Adams played Katy Moore
Adams played Katy Moore, who made her first appearance in the season 1 “Hot Girl” episode, as a woman who came to the office to sell handbags. Michael and Dwight both try to win Katy over, but are unsuccessful and she gets a ride home with Jim. Katy and Jim start dating.
Katy also appears in the season 2 episodes “The Fire” and “Booze Cruise.” Jim brings Katy as his date to the office’s booze cruise event but he breaks up with her by the night’s end. Jim reveals to Michael that he has feelings for Pam, even though she’s engaged. Michael tells him not to give up on Pam, explaining, “Engaged ain’t married.”
Amy Adams could have returned to ‘The Office’
Adams might have made another appearance on The Office, in Michael’s film Threat Level Midnight, but she wasn’t available. During a Q&A discussion on OfficeTally, writer B.J. Novak was asked, “Were there any other characters that you wanted to bring back but were unable to do it because of the actor’s schedules?”
Novak revealed, “We really wanted Amy Adams (Katy).”
“I had scripted a scene in which she is a ‘Floozy’ in bed with Michael Scarn before Dwight wakes him up with a mission from the president,” Novak explained.
He continued, “In the scene, Michael is unsatisfied from their empty lovemaking because no one is as good in bed as his wife was, and Michael explains to her what love feels like.”
“Then, in a talking head, Katy explained with a little embarrassment how she had some interest in acting back then, and we catch up with where she is in the present day,” Novak added. “But she wasn’t available to film the week we were filming.”
Amy Adams replaced another actor on ‘The Office’
During a 2015 SAG-AFTRA Foundation interview, Steve Carell shared some details about his time on The Office and revealed that Adams wasn’t initially cast in the role of Katy.
“Amy Adams — she actually replaced somebody, she was not … they cast another woman and this rarely happened,” Carell explained. “But after one day, they had to let this other actress go and they brought in Amy Adams on Tuesday.”
“And talk about … and I’d never met her before and I thought, ‘She is going places,'” Carell recalled.
“Because that camera awareness, that being able to look to the camera, was a really specific ability that was especially hard for people who had not done the show,” he explained. “But she had it immediately that she had the awareness — but she played it with such subtly. She was fantastic.”
