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Filmmaking can be a pitiless business, particularly for actors. While it’s true all creatives are being judged on their personal attributes, performers face the added pressure of having to embody the physical and emotional attributes necessary to play a given part. This means they’re being hired or rejected based on their very appearance and essence as a human being. This is rough for anyone, but especially brutal for young actors who are in the midst of puberty or just on the other side of it. Furthermore, it can be rough on the folks behind the camera; an actor still getting comfortable within their growing body might dazzle in an interview, but once you get them on set, they’re just not right for the part. Just ask the tremendously talented thespian Tamzin Merchant and the folks responsible for bringing George R.R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones” to life for HBO. They shot an entire pilot with her, which had to be scrapped in part because she wound up being wrong for the pivotal role of Daenerys Targaryen.
Imagine that: you land your first big role, finish the production and then watch helplessly as the producers discard your hard work and reshoot the whole thing with another actor in your place. And, not for nothing, they wind up being iconic in the part!
One of the most famous instances of an actor getting replaced during production is Eric Stoltz in “Back to the Future.” The rising star who’d just impressed as Rocky Dennis in “Mask” went a month in the role of Marty McFly before director Robert Zemeckis had to slam on the brakes and recast his lead. Zemeckis has frequently called the moment he fired Stoltz as one of the hardest experiences of his career, but what rarely gets discussed is that the actor’s abrupt exit caused a co-star to lose her job as well.
This was Melora Hardin, who, decades later, would go on to be an integral cast member of NBC’s “The Office.” Why did she get the heave-ho as well?
A towering (over Michael J. Fox) disappointment
In a chat with the New York Post’s Page Six, Hardin discussed how she lost the part of Jennifer Parker to Claudia Wells after Michael J. Fox was hired to replace Stoltz. The reason? The then 17–year-old was taller than the diminutive breakout star of “Family Ties.”
Hardin told the Post the experience was “so very, very painful. There’s no doubt it was very painful.”
There was, sadly, more to her dismissal. According to Hardin, two women executives at Universal believed a taller Jennifer “emasculated” Marty — which is odd considering that, as portrayed by Fox, the character is hardly a model of machismo. This is what makes him coaching his father to be more assertive so amusing (outside of Crispin Glover’s aggressively loopy performance). Per Hardin, “I feel like it’s an interesting sign of the times that it was the female executives that felt like they had to be protecting the masculinity of their lead character that way.”
Hardin quickly recovered, and never wanted for film or television work throughout her still thriving career. She told the Post that she probably wouldn’t have appeared on “The Office” as Jan Levinson without fighting through this early setback, so fans of that beloved series have 1980s Hollywood sexism to thank for that!