Revealed! The truth of Ed Helms’ casting and audition for The Office, and how his original plans of playing a different character would have changed the course of the entire show.
Ed Helms plays Andy Bernard in the popular NBC show The Office. However, a recent revelation by the actor and his co-star in a podcast show has just shown us a whole new side of the story.
Highlights:
- The truth behind Ed Helms’ audition for The Office.
- Ed Helms auditioned for the character of Jim Halpert in The Office.
If what revealed would have happened, then The Office would have been a different show with different kinds of characters.
As per the revelation, Ed Helms gave audition for a different character in The office and was supposed to play a character totally on a different scale to his current one. A character that’s as important to the show as Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell.

Another thing the revelation tells us is how Ed Helms ended up being Andy Bernard. That too is a whole story of a character becoming a crucial part of the show from a temporary character.
The truth behind Ed Helms’ audition for The Office.
Ed Helms became the part of The Office in the 3rd Season with the introduction of his character Andy Bernard.
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Andy remained a recurring character in the show since the 3rd Season to the 9th Season. As of now, the 9th Season has marked the end of Andy and Ed Helm’s journey on the show, but we never know.
However, what we know is that Ed Helms was never meant to be Andy, and when he became Andy, he was never meant to stay on the show for so many seasons.
A recent revelation about Ed Helms’ audition for The Office and his journey with the show has made us wonder about the different possibilities.
Ed Helms auditioned for the character of Jim Halpert in The Office.
Yes, the truth is that Ed Helms wanted to play Jim Halpert in The Office, and he even gave audition for it.
Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam Beesly in The Office, revealed this truth about his co-star.
Jenna is the co-host of Office Ladies Podcast alongside Angela Kinsey. On the same podcast, she recently revealed that at first Helms was supposed to play one of her favorite characters.
She said: “Ed told me that he was a huge fan of the original BBC Office, and he said not many people know this, but he originally auditioned in New York for the role of Jim.”
Fischer also revealed that Ed wished to join the show when he came to know that his “Daily Show” co-star Steve Carell has also joined the show as Michael Scott.
Ed Helms ended up being Andy Bernard.
Sadly, even after giving audition for Jim Halpert’s character, Ed Helms couldn’t beg the role and John Krasinski ended up portraying the character.
However, even after getting rejected, Ed remained on the list of creators, thus, eventually, they called him for the role of Andy.
As per Fischer: “somewhere near the end of Season 2, [Helms] got a phone call to meet with [showrunners] Greg Daniels and Paul Lieberstein about a new character that they wanted to introduce in Season 3.”
Revealing more about Ed’s portrayal of Andy, Fischer said that Andy was meant to be a very small part of the show, but he turned out to be something so important.
“They thought that the Stamford storyline would not necessarily end in a merger and that his character would be finished when Jim went back to Dunder Mifflin,” Fischer explained. “That was the plan, that Jim would eventually return. But this idea that the other Stamford characters would return wasn’t quite in the works yet.”
We can only wonder how The Office would have been with Steve Carell and Ed Helms leading together. Indeed, John turned out to be the perfect choice to play Jim, but only if Ed would have gotten selected in The Office after his first audition, the whole show would have been something different.
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