The Office star Melora Hardin, best known for her role as Michael Scott’s crush Jan Levinson in the hit sitcom, reveals she “burst into tears” after she was fired from the 1985 production of Back to the Future. Hardin’s removal from the sci-fi adventure film was essentially collateral damage after the original Marty McFly, actor Eric Stoltz, was fired, and producers decided she wasn’t right for the role of Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer Parker.
Hardin recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly about her short stay in the Back to the Future universe. Although it was far from her on-camera debut (she started acting in films and TV in the late 1970s), Hardin says she was still just a teenager, and it was “very tough” to get fired:
“Back to the Future was a huge disappointment. I was 17, you know. I burst into tears. It was very sad. There were quite a few of those that I remember, you know, things that never really got made. But that I remember being very tough.
“To be where I am, you have to have failed more than you’ve succeeded. I think people don’t realize that when they look at it from the outside — you have to really be somebody who’s comfortable with failure, and with putting yourself on the line all the time.”
Earlier this year, Hardin shared the probable reason she was removed from the project after Stoltz was fired: “It was apparently the two female executives at the time that thought that it was emasculating for their lead male character to be in scenes with a woman that was taller than him. If I had done it, I’m sure it would have all gone in a different way. I wouldn’t have done The Office.”
Additionally, Fox reflected on Hardin being fired in his memoir, “Future Boy.” The actor wrote the following about his height: “Worked in my favor when I was a teenage actor playing a younger kid, but it turned against me as an adult, when I went up for romantic leads opposite taller actresses. I regret that this prejudice inadvertently affected another cast member in Back to the Future – Melora Hardin…Initially, Bob Zemeckis thought perhaps the audience could look past our height difference, but when he quickly surveyed the female members of the crew, they assured him that the tall pretty girl in high school rarely picks the cute short guy. No one asked for my opinion, but I would have risen to Melora’s defense.”
The ‘Back to the Future’ Recasts Did Anything but Hurt the Film
While it seems to be water under the bridge now, the Back to the Future recasts did have some effect on the production. All of Marty McFly’s scenes had to be reshot, but Zemeckis had to make some adjustments because of other sequences that were impossible to shoot. Fox, on the other hand, had to balance his time shooting the sitcom Family Ties at the same time.
In the end, it all worked out. Back to the Future became the highest-grossing film of 1985, and one of the genre’s defining films—one that paved the way for a groundbreaking franchise that’s still as beloved as ever. But the issue of the recasts didn’t stop there. For Back to the Future Part II, Crispin Glover, famous for playing George McFly, had a salary dispute with producers, and he was eventually removed from the film. Claudia Wells, on the other hand, left the sequel because she decided to take care of her mother, who had health issues.
- Release Date
-
July 3, 1985
- Runtime
-
116 minutes
- Director
-
Robert Zemeckis