Finding ‘The Office’s’ Jan after she loses hers

Of all the characters on “The Office,” none has undergone a more dramatic transformation than Jan Levenson, played by Melora Hardin. She’s gone from the exasperated straight man to Michael (Steve Carell) and the entire Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin to a more self-destructive presence. She gave in to her inexplicable attraction to Michael, eventually allowing their relationship to jeopardize her career and, finally, to end it, explosively.

The fourth season didn’t start promisingly for Jan. After being fired (or quitting, depending on your perspective) from her corporate job at Dunder Mifflin in New York, she moved in with Michael, but all viewers have seen is an unflattering portrait of her snoring on Michael’s bed and her occasional visits to the Scranton office, in sweats, to insult Ryan (B.J. Novak), who replaced her, and to make threats against Pam (Jenna Fischer), lest she consider making any moves on Jan’s man.

“I think she’s feeling threatened by everybody right now,” Hardin said about her character. “Jan’s used to being the boss. I think she’s still comfortable in that position and wants to keep a sense of that, her own sanity, but really has very little to hang on to in that regard.”

Hardin has had a blast playing Jan. “It’s fun now to see her unraveling in front of your very eyes. She’s going to have to find her way back to being a corporate woman, but I think this is a really excellent and interesting chapter in her life. She’s very different from me, so I have to find the Jan-ism.”

As Jan struggles to find her identity, Hardin has had no such problem. The daughter of actors Jerry and Diane Hardin, she’s been performing since childhood, appearing in television shows such as “The Love Boat,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Quantum Leap” and “Murder, She Wrote,” in addition to several films.

Also an accomplished singer, Hardin has released two albums, “Meloradrama” and “Purr,” but will she show off her singing talent on “The Office”? “I just don’t know if it suits Jan’s character to be able to sing. It might be funny to see her sing a lullaby to Michael.”

Hardin’s long career in television has given her perspective on the changing format of sitcoms. “I guest-starred on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ when I was 12. It was one of those shows that was very structured: The rehearsal was in a rehearsal room, and you’re playing to certain cameras and the laugh track and the applause and all that stuff. Certainly, ‘The Office’ is really different from that and, I think, making new roads toward a whole different flavor of comedy.”

One thing Hardin and Jan have in common is that they lost jobs in fairly high-profile ways. “I got cast in ‘Back to the Future,’ to play the girlfriend, which was a two-picture deal at the time, and Eric Stoltz was originally going to play Marty McFly.

“When Eric Stoltz got let go about a week into production, I was too tall for Michael J. Fox, so I got let go, and I was very sad and burst into tears. Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale called me at home to tell me they’d work with me again, so I’m still waiting for that call,” she said, laughing.

Considering that when Jan got fired from Dunder Mifflin she cursed at her former employers and had to be escorted out by security, it’s safe to say that Hardin handled her experience with more grace. Hardin turned out fine. Jan fans can hope for the same, although it may not happen for a while.

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