“The Office” is getting a new boss – a top boss.
NBC announced on Wednesday that James Spader has officially joined the cast of “The Office,” reprising his season finale role as the influential Robert California.
Fans of the show will remember Spader, as California, interviewed for Michael Scott’s job on the comedy’s season finale back in May.
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When Spader joins the show when it returns this fall, the actor’s character will be getting a big career boost.
Instead of taking Scott’s old job, he’ll be stepping in as CEO of Sabre, the parent company of the fictional 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,” Paul Lieberstein, one of the series’ executive producers and a series regular (he plays Toby Flenderson), said in a statement released to Access Hollywood. “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,” Lieberstein added.
Spader will no doubt be welcomed by his castmates, including Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute.
Rainn previously told Access Hollywood he was a big fan of the actor.
“I got to do some scenes with, really, a hero of mine, James Spader, who is, I think, one of America’s greatest actors,” Rainn previously said.
In particular, the spectacled “Office” star said he enjoyed trading barbs with Spader while in character.
”[He’s] a really confident kind of savant business manager type and he just really rubs Dwight the wrong way so they have these power battles,” Rainn said of the pair’s on-screen time.
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