Things could have been very different if Ed Helms scored the “Office” role he originally auditioned for.

Jenna Fischer told her “Office Ladies” podcast co-host Angela Kinsey about how he joined the ranks of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

“Ed told me that he was a huge fan of the original BBC ‘Office’, and he said not many people know this, but he originally auditioned in New York for the role of Jim,” Fischer told Kinsey via Mashable. “Oh! I didn’t know that,” Kinsey said.

“[Helms] said he didn’t get the role [of Jim] obviously, but he heard that Steve got the role of Michael Scott and he was so excited because he had worked with Steve on ‘The Daily Show’,” Fischer continued.

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Living out every fan’s dream, Helms began as a viewer of the show’s U.S. version before later getting a call from showrunner Greg Daniels.

“He was so excited for our American version of the show and he watched it and loved it, and somewhere near the end of season 2 he got a phone call to meet with Greg Daniels and Paul Lieberstein about a new character that they wanted to introduce in season 3,” Fischer added.

“They thought that the Stamford storyline would not necessarily end in a merger and that his character would be finished when Jim went back to Dunder Mifflin,” Fischer explained. “This idea that the other Stamford characters would return wasn’t quite in the works yet.”

Helms was hired in two-episode stretches as a contingency, in case they pulled the plug on the Jim and Pam separation. Fortunately, Helms was ultimately given an offer to join the cast full time.

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Fischer also dished on how Rashida Jones came into the mix. Fischer ran scenes with a number of Karen hopefuls to determine a suitable actress.

“I just didn’t even feel like I had to work hard in my scenes with her. I effortlessly felt this chemistry between Pam and Karen,” Fischer said. “I knew who Pam and Karen were and who they were going to be.

“I didn’t know that they would necessarily care who I thought was the person I responded the most to,” she continued, “but it made me so excited when she was cast, so it’s funny to me that she thought she was going to be fired.”

“The Office” originally ran from March 2005 to May 2013.