Over the course of its nine-season run, the U.S. version of The Office welcomed memorable guest stars. Some like James Spader (Robert California) and Will Ferrell (Deangelo) had longer arcs as wacky managers in Scranton. As for Timothy Olyphant’s Danny Cordray, a competing salesman, he had a short yet notable stint on the workplace mockumentary. While the San Clarita Diet actor looks back on his appearance fondly, he’s not without his regrets.
During a recent episode of The Office Ladies Podcast, Angela Kinsey (Angela Martin) and Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly) were joined by Timothy Olyphant to discuss his few episodes on The Office. Not only does the Mandalorian actor play a rival salesman who is recruited by Michael, but he’s also a former flame of Pam’s, meant to throw a brief wrench into the epic Pam and Jim love story. Overall, Olyphant doesn’t recall the mockumentary style being difficult to work within, though he did name one scene he believes he completely messed up:
I’m sure I screwed up what would have been a really good scene with [Steve] Carell where I was — I just couldn’t stop laughing because it was so intense and funny. And there’s a little bit of disappointment still there that I could not keep a straight face.
To be fair, I think anyone in the Deadwood actor’s position would have trouble keeping a straight face around the Despicable Me star. The scene in question sees Danny finding out the employees at Dunder Mifflin have set up a sting operation to learn Cordray’s tricks of the trade. Based on how poorly it goes, this definitely ranks as one of the Office characters’ worse decisions. This leads to Michael chasing after Danny as he storms out, and that results in a hilarious encounter where Michael physically prevents the man from leaving the building.
For the final cut, Timothy Olyphant managed to hold it together, although he couldn’t seem to look at Steve Carell, or else he bursts into laughter as seen in this blooper posted to Instagram by a fan account:
Surely, working with a comedy legend like the 40-Year-Old Virgin star is no easy task because it’s likely Steve Carell won’t be the first to break. At that point in the series, he had been playing the character Michael Scott for seven seasons, and I would imagine he could play the morally questionable manager in his sleep. Other guest stars, including Rashida Jones, have commented on the Crazy, Stupid, Love star’s virtuosic acting abilities on The Office (which can be streamed with a Peacock subscription). So, if I was the Justified actor, I wouldn’t beat myself up about breaking.
If I’m being honest, even with this specific hilarious scene cut short because of Timothy Olyphant’s laughter, “The Sting” is still one of the best episodes, purely because of how poorly the gang’s prank on Cordray goes. What do you expect though when you put Meredith in charge?
Regardless of some lingering disappointment, it seems like the Daisy Jones & The Six actor had a good time moonlighting on the iconic workplace sitcom. To me, Danny Cordray would be a perfect side-character to make a cameo on the new Office spinoff that’s currently in development. Also, based on the comments the actor shared on the podcast, I think he’d be down to reprise the traveling salesman.
