The Next Big Thing: Melora Hardin

            In an unchanging world where Michael never learns from his gaffes and Dwight is perpetually frustrated by Jim’s schemes, Melora Hardin’s Jan Levinson represents an anomaly: the sitcom character that evolves.
“When I came in to read for The Office, it was a guest starring/possibly recurring character,” Hardin recalls. Since then, the development, both mentally and, ahem, physically, has been staggering. (Hardin insists her character’s implants were the writer’s idea, not Steve Carell’s.) “She’s done so many wonderful rises and falls,” Hardin says. “Dramatically and comically she’s changed so much that it really makes her so much fun for an actor to play.”
            Her evolution (or descent into neurosis) is an actor’s dream. Jan has transformed from the stiff corporate head to Michael’s implausible love interest to a washed-up, mentally unstable stay-at-home candle maker, to (now this is downright crazy) an expectant mother. “Jan as a mother is a pretty funny concept,” Hardin admits. Then, trailing off in hint of unease, “and Michael as a father . . .”
            Thus, the straight-laced corporate eye candy proved likeable, and, like the woman playing the part, malleable. Born into a family of thespians, acting is the only life Hardin has known. (She had not one, but two bookings, on Diff’rent Strokes and The Love Boat, by her 7th birthday). “I was raised by two actors, so I think I feel like this is the normal lifestyle,” says Hardin, as she lowers the phone to tend to her own two daughters. “When your parents are working, they’re working, but when they’re home you really get to have them more than a 9-to-5 parent.”
And work she has. Having jumped from TV to film, drama to comedy, with a few cabaret shows thrown in for good measure, Hardin’s career has been long and diverse. She proved particularly popular as Ross’s dirty-talking love interest on Friends. But, she claims, “I was never really architecting a career as much as I was wanting to work.”
            The Office, though, changed all that, and her upcoming projects promise to further press the issue. Appearing alongside two current teenage superstars (High School Musical alum Zac Efron in Seventeen Again and the ubiquitous—and scandalous—Miley Cyrus in Hannah Montana: The Movie) could make Hardin, at age 41, “the oldest teen idol ever,” as she amusingly puts it.
            Opening in February, the teen comedy Seventeen Again stars Matthew Perry, magically transposed into 17-year-old high schooler Efron’s buff body. In the film, Hardin plays the high school principal and unlikely love interest of Perry’s best friend. “It’s kind of like a Big story reversed,” Hardin explains, as Perry embraces the opportunity to re-evaluate his regrettable life choices. Fortunately for Hardin, teenage regret, or any regret for that matter, isn’t a problem. “At 17, I was filming Dirty Dancing the series, was just about to graduate high school and had fallen in love for the first time,” she reminisces. “You learn so much as you go, and you can’t really regret stuff. You have to be in the moment and do it as it comes and try to be as present for everything as you can.”
            Embracing life seems to be Hardin’s specialty. In addition to filming Hannah Montana: The Movie in Nashville (“Billy Rae is one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with,” she gushes), she recently wrapped the movie You, her directorial debut, and will perform in a concert version of Les Miserables at the Hollywood Bowl, about which she beams, “I’m so excited. I can’t even believe it. When I saw Les Miserables on Broadway, I sat on the edge of my seat and thought ‘I want to do that.’ I learned the song ‘I Dreamed a Dream,’ and I’ve been singing it ever since.” When the opportunity arose, she jumped on it. “I guess once I dreamed a dream, and now my dream comes true.”