Watch 'The Office' Stars' Original Audition Tapes—Plus a Few Surprising Could've-Beens

It’s always odd to think about what your favorite fictional characters would be like if they were played by completely different actors. In a show like The Office, which features an ensemble cast of iconic characters, it can be easy to forget that any one of those roles could have been played by someone else altogether.

Had things worked out differently, Adam Scott could have played Jim Halpert and shared a desk with either Seth Rogen or Patton Oswalt as Dwight Schrute. Even Steve Carell wasn't the only actor being considered for Michael Scott; Bob Odenkirk was a major contender, too (which makes us wonder if Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman would've been as lovable if played by another actor, and whether or not he would have gotten his own spinoff). Well, you can judge for yourself. A YouTube channel posted a compilation of auditions for The Office, and you may never look at the show the same way again.

When you see the stars auditioning, it can be hard to grasp that the characters on the show did not always belong to the actors we have come to know them as. From the auditions, however, it's pretty easy to tell why those actors got the role over others. We could also just be biased because of how perfectly they all fit together on the show.

This article also appears on Mental Floss.