Caffeinated Clint
’80s icon and TV fave James Spader is joining the cast of TV’s “The Office”. Spader will reprise his role from last season as Robert California, CEO of Dunder Mifflin’s parent company Sabre (in other words, he’s not replacing Steve Carell’s character).
Spader’s best known to us kiddies of the ’80s for his ever-so-frequent movie appearances in the likes of varied vehicles like “Pretty in Pink”, “Wall Street”, “Mannequin” and “Less than Zero”; younger readers will likely known him best from “Stargate” (the feature film) and both “The Practice” and “Boston Legal”, in which he played attorney Alan Shore.
Here’s the press release :
UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (July 6, 2011) Multiple Emmy Award winner James Spader (“Boston Legal,” “The Practice”) will be joining the regular cast of NBC’s “The Office” (Thursdays, 9-9:30 p.m. ET) as CEO Robert California of Sabre, the parent company of Dunder Mifflin.
“James will reprise his role as Robert California, this uber-salesman that has a power to convince and manipulate, like a high-class weirdo Jedi warrior,” said Paul Lieberstein, one of the series’ executive producers and a series regular. “He’ll have been hired over the summer as the new manager, but within hours, got himself promoted. Within days, he took over the company. James has an energy that is completely his own, and ‘The Office’ has no tools for dealing with this guy. We’re thrilled he’s joining our cast.”
From 2004-08, Spader won three Emmy awards for his seminal role as shameless attorney Alan Shore in “The Practice” and “Boston Legal,” making him the only actor to win consecutive Emmys playing the same character on two different series. He is represented at ICM and Melanie Cook.
“The Office” is executive-produced by Ben Silverman, Greg Daniels, who developed the series for American audiences, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Howard Klein and Paul Lieberstein.
