Michael J. Fox Reveals ‘The Office’ Actress Was Initially Supposed to Play ‘Back to the Future’ Romantic Lead

The Office‘s Melora Hardin nearly starred in Back to the Future — until Michael J. Fox came on board the 1985 sci-fi comedy classic.

Fox, 64, recalled how his casting in Back to the Future inadvertently led to Hardin’s replacement as Marty McFly’s girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, in his new memoir Future Boy.

Hardin had already shot weeks of footage as Jennifer when Fox was brought on as the replacement for former leading man Eric Stoltz, but was deemed too tall to play the love interest for Fox’s Marty.

“My goal as a child was self-­preservation. Bullies often ridiculed my height, an easy target. I suffered the indignity of short jokes and prejudice against my smallness,” Fox wrote, as per Entertainment Weekly, explaining that his height “worked in my favor when I was a teenage actor playing a younger kid, but it turned against me as an adult, when I went up for romantic leads opposite taller actresses.”

“I regret that this prejudice inadvertently affected another cast member in Back to the Future – Melora Hardin, the talented actress who had played Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer, opposite the perfectly tall Eric Stoltz,” Fox went on. “Melora, several inches taller than me, was replaced in the movie after I took over as Marty. Initially, [director] Bob Zemeckis thought perhaps the audience could look past our height difference, but when he quickly surveyed the female members of the crew, they assured him that the tall pretty girl in high school rarely picks the cute short guy.”

Fox pointed out that while he had made his debut on Family Ties just a couple of years prior, in 1982, he didn’t have the star power to weigh in on casting. “No one asked for my opinion, but I would have risen to Melora’s defense,” he wrote.

Hardin would go on to be replaced by Zemeckis’ first choice for the role, Claudia Wells, who would later be replaced herself by Elisabeth Shue in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III.

Hardin has addressed her brief time working on Back to the Future in the past, recalling on The Joe Vulpis Podcast in March that she had originally signed on for a two-picture deal with the studio.

“I went and did some promotional pictures and stuff. And then [weeks] into filming, they fired Eric and brought in Michael J. Fox,” she recalled. “When they did that, it was apparently the two female executives at the time that thought that it was emasculating for their lead character male to be in scenes with a woman that was taller than him.”

“At the time, at 17 years old, that was crushing for me, and very, very upsetting,” she continued. “Whatever! If I had done it, I’m sure it would have all gone in a different way. I wouldn’t have done The Office.”