Although John Krasinski‘s Jim mostly only had eyes for Jenna Fischer‘s Pam on The Office, he certainly had a type.
Fischer recently noted that Amy Adams “was not the first person cast in the role” of Katy Moore on the NBC mockumentary sitcom’s Season 1 episode ‘Hot Girl’, which aired in April 2005, because they “looked too similar.”
“We originally shot ‘Hot Girl’ for an entire day with a completely different actress in the role of Katy,” she recalled to co-host Angela Kinsey on their Office Ladies podcast. “And unfortunately, she just wasn’t quite right for the role. They had to let her go. We replaced her with Amy.
“I remember when Amy came on the set, she was so seamlessly Katy. She improvises a lot, you guys. We’ll get to it. But a lot of her improvs make it in. She just knew who this woman was,” added Fischer.
Although she said Adams was everyone’s first choice, Fischer explained, “There was this concern that Amy and I looked too similar. I guess one of the writers even said, ‘I’m sorry. We can’t cast her. She’s like Jenna 2.0.’ And so they got cold feet and they cast someone else.”
The writer’s comment inspired a line when boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) compares their looks and refers to Katy as “Pam 6.0.”
While Pam was engaged to warehouse worker Roy (David Denman) in the first few seasons, Jim struck up a romance with Katy. She later returned in the Season 2 episodes ‘The Fire’ and ‘Booze Cruise’ before Jim broke it off as he was secretly in love with Pam. Jim and Pam ended up tying the knot in the Season 6 two-part episode ‘Niagara’ in 2009.
Based on the 2001-’03 BBC series of the same name, The Office ran for nine seasons on NBC from 2005 to 2013.