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The ‘Office’ star was originally cast opposite Eric Stoltz in the beloved sci-fi comedy
Kevin E G Perry in Los Angeles Tuesday 23 December 2025 21:04 GMT- Bookmark
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Melora Hardin has reflected on losing the part of Jennifer Parker in Back to the Future, calling the experience “a huge disappointment.”
The Houston-born actor, known for playing Jan Levinson on hit sitcom The Office, was originally cast as Marty McFly’s love interest opposite Eric Stoltz in the beloved 1985 sci-fi comedy.
She shot several weeks worth of footage opposite Stoltz before producer Steven Spielberg and director Robert Zemeckis decided to recast the lead role.
When Michael J. Fox replaced Stoltz, it was decided that Hardin was too tall to play his love interest. The role of Parker was given to Claudia Wells.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hardin recalled: “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 [lost roles] that I remember, you know, things that never really got made. But that I remember being very tough.”
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Melora Hardin, who was fired from 'Back To The Future', pictured at the LA premiere of 'Is This Thing On?' in December 2025 (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Searchlight Pictures)Earlier this year, Hardin spoke about the reason she was replaced during an appearance on The Joe Vulpis Podcast, saying: “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.”
She added: “At the time, at 17 years old, that was crushing for me, and very, very upsetting. Whatever! If I had done it, I’m sure it would have all gone in a different way. I wouldn't have done The Office.”
In the new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hardin went on to reflect on her experiences with disappointment and failure within her career, saying: “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.
“That failure doesn't mean anything about you. You just have to fail better, and keep failing better... to be able to really weather this career choice.”
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Earlier this year, Michael J Fox claimed that his Back to the Future co-star Crispin Glover “created friction” on the set of the classic film. Glover played Fox character’s father, George.
“Nobody puts Crispin in a box,” Fox wrote in his memoir Future Boy. “But that didn’t prevent the camera crew from literally building a box around him. As George McFly, Crispin had his own ideas as to how and where his character should move.”
Fox also wrote in the memoir about how he doesn’t remember anything about his final day on the Back to the Future set.
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