15 Best The Office Guest Stars, Ranked

Throughout the highs and lows of all nine seasons of "The Office," the formula for a great guest star stayed the same. They are largely "straight men" — comedic foils who are funny because of their reaction to the absurdity around them. They can't be so recognizable or wild that they break the verisimilitude of the mockumentary format or the deadpan comedic tone; they have to be understated and realistic without being boring, and they have to hold their own with some of the most idiosyncratic and imposing comedians on TV.

For this list, we're ranking the actors who used one or two episodes to create some of the best moments in the entire series. We opted to challenge ourselves by benching the prominent recurring guest stars like Kathy Bates, Will Ferrell, and Idris Elba — instead, expect to see names and faces that weren't so recognizable when they joined. They didn't have meaty storylines or (for the most part) star power to coast on. And while you may have even forgotten some of these actors appeared on "The Office," you certainly haven't forgotten how they made you laugh. 

Just two years before he would land his breakout role on the Fox musical dramedy "Glee," Kevin McHale had a memorable unnamed guest spot on Season 4 of "The Office." In "Launch Party," he plays a pizza delivery boy from Pizza by Alfredo (not to be confused with Alfredo's Pizza Cafe) who is held hostage by an emotionally wounded Michael Scott (Steve Carell) during the Dunder Mifflin Infinity office party.

For someone who was just 17 years old when he auditioned for what had already become one of the biggest sitcoms of all time, McHale holds his own impressively as a minor antagonist for Michael and Dwight (Rainn Wilson). His snarky annoyance about the whole kidnapping sells the ordeal as hilarious rather than genuinely troubling.

McHale serves as the floor of our list only because the best parts of "Launch Party" happen around or because of him, rather than through his character directly. Michael calling the restaurant with a list of demands, the office researching jail time, and Dwight treating it like an episode of "24" are all standout bits of an otherwise average episode.

As you might have expected, the vast majority of the guest stars who made the cut for this list come from the first seven seasons. This is, in a certain way, surprising — not because Seasons 8 and 9 are secretly great (they aren't), but because they're where the casting department really threw its weight around trying to get established name talent. Maura Tierney was a sleeper hit in this crowd.

In the Season 8 episode "Mrs. California," the "ER" and "NewsRadio" alum plays Susan, the wife of James Spader's Robert California. For as dicey as the incoming CEO's arc is overall, Tierney is a notable if underused highlight. The conceit of Susan being ostensibly normal, competent, and extremely pleasant to be around compared to Robert (who, ironically, spends the episode insisting that she be fired) makes her feel like a breath of fresh air. She's a great foil for a grating character, and there apparently were plans to bring her back in future episodes, potentially continuing her flirtation with Andy (Ed Helms).

Now regarded as one of the most recognizable character actors of the late 2000s and 2010s, Rob Riggle appeared on "The Office" just before getting his break on Steve Carell's alma mater, "The Daily Show." He plays Captain Jack, the commanding yet fun-loving "party captain" of the titular "Booze Cruise" that Michael takes his employees on in Season 2.

The character punches above his weight class because Riggle completely nails the kind of loser "alpha male" that brings out the weirdest in Michael, Dwight, and even Pam's soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Roy (David Denman). Their interactions with Jack make for great cringe comedy, the best of which is Roy's drunken reverence for Jack's time in the military — which gives him all the heroic courage necessary to set a date for the wedding he's been dodging for three years. To the three of them, Jack is the ideal leader; to the audience, he's a guy with such poor judgment and so little going on in his life that he'll ditch the tour to sleep with a trashed passenger (Kate Flannery's Meredith Palmer).

Airing during the uneven 1st season of "The Office," the episode "Hot Girl" is pretty much remembered as "The Amy Adams episode." The future Academy Award nominee was in a bit of a rut when she was cast, having just been dropped from an ill-fated Rob Lowe series "Dr. Vegas" and hoping that the indie film "Junebug" would turn things around. First-time "Office" writer Mindy Kaling wanted her badly for the role of purse saleswoman Katy Moore — even so, Adams nearly didn't get the part because she looked too much like Jenna Fischer.

It's a strange bit of trivia, given that the only reason Katy works is her dynamic with Fischer's Pam Beesly. On the surface, and beyond physical similarities, they have the same soft-spoken yet funny energy that psychologically deepens Jim's (John Krasinski) decision to ask her out. If Katy was really just a generic hot girl, the episode would be as flat as the worst parts of the script. The idea that Jim likes her because she reminds him of Pam is interesting in a sad way. The writers lean into this more in "Booze Cruise," when Jim and Katy break up because he actually seems to resent her deeper personality.

In his two fleeting appearances on "The Office," Vikram made more impact than most other characters given a similar amount of screen time. Bollywood comedy actor Ranjit Chowdhry plays the Indian-American telemarketer, whom Michael first meets in the Season 4 episode "Money." It's a surprisingly depressing hour of TV, but the scene in which Vikram shares his food with Michael is as endearing as it is poignant. The telemarketing agency feels like purgatory for the unfortunate — a manager undone by a codependent relationship and an ex-surgeon trying to make it in America. (Michael's "I wonder what I would've been back home" gives their somber exchange a tragicomic gut punch.)

Vikram is unexpectedly brought back in "Dream Team," his appearance a perfect callback in and of itself. His increasing distrust of Michael's new business drives the episode's tension in the background, as though he's voicing the thoughts Pam is too scared to admit out loud.

In terms of broad comedic talent, Patrice O'Neal is easily one of the funniest people in the original cast of "The Office." Some may argue the show underutilized him as Lonny, the warehouse worker who appears to be something of a right-hand man to foreman Darryl (Craig Robinson) in early seasons. At the same time, it seems he was way more interested in building a career as your favorite stand-up comic's favorite stand-up comic.

This is all to say that while O'Neal's work on "The Office" is massively underwhelming compared to his later output, it's notable on its own merits. He has the talent to make even the smallest moments memorable — his dance with Darryl in "Basketball," his quick back-and-forth with Kelly (Mindy Kaling) and Ryan (B.J. Novak) in "Safety Training," "Fat Butt Disease," "Hasselhoff," screaming "D*** it, Michael!" across the warehouse. O'Neal has some of the slimmest material compared to the rest of this list, but his delivery and presence are everything.

The latter seasons of "The Office" leaned harder into known star power, perhaps in part to soften the loss of Steve Carell. When it came time to finally fill his shoes after the brief Will Ferrell/Deangelo Vickers era, they brought in a slew of A-list actors for guest-starring roles in the two-part "Search Committee" episode. Ostensibly, NBC wanted the audience to believe that any one of them could be cast. To this day, we still wish it had somehow gone to Ray Romano.

Though he was busy with "Men of a Certain Age" at the time, Romano's scenes are enough to remind one that he's an unbeatable sitcom talent. Specifically for "The Office," he arguably would've been a much better choice than James Spader. Andy was already too sharp, abrasive, and narcissistic for a boss that behaved like Alan Shore, if Alan was somehow a bigger egomaniac. Romano, on the other hand, has a gentler quirk about him. His "Search Committee" character, Merv, is still off-putting and neurotic, but in an amusingly understated way. Had Andy been up against that kind of character, his aggressive energy would've felt balanced and necessary rather than oversaturated.

Josh Groban's original guest spot in "The Office" Season 8 doesn't get the credit it deserves. At first, it might seem like desperate stunt casting to bring in the global music icon as Andy's brother, but "Garden Party" legitimately makes it feel like no one else could've played the role.

The star power is partially the point — Groban is somewhat distracting just by being him, which helps quickly establish that he is, for some intangible reason, the natural golden child of this family. Then there's the fact that Andy's greatest pride outside his alma mater is his musical talent. Given that Ed Helms has a credible singing voice (and actually has to put on a bit of an affect to make his singing cringe comedy), someone of Groban's caliber is needed to upstage him clearly and realistically. On top of that, their unspoken rivalry turns a musical number for Groban into a hilariously brutal comic put-down. "Garden Party" is a perfect use of an exceptional guest-star pull.

On the subject of actors who could've filled Michael Scott's shoes, we have Bob Odenkirk. As readers might be aware, the Emmy nominee was in the running to play the character before Steve Carell got the job. He instead went on to become one of several breakout stars on "Breaking Bad." The now-ascendant Odenkirk appeared in the Season 9 episode "Moving On" to show NBC what it had missed out on.

As Pam says, he is Michael Scott. Odenkirk's Mark Franks is written and performed as an eerie echo of her former boss; she encounters him when looking for work in Philadelphia. It's so successful in this endeavor that Odenkirk's scenes are more bittersweet than funny — Michael is hardly spoken of after Season 7, so to even hear his name mentioned was enough to give fans chills. Odenkirk is very much evoking Carell's work, but that role is so close to perfect for Odenkirk that it feels totally natural rather than imitative. In the absence of Michael getting to guest-star for an entire Season 9 episode, this is the next best thing.

Timothy Olyphant came to Dunder Mifflin just as Raylan Givens rode into Kentucky on "Justified." His character, Danny Cordray, has a lot in common with Amy Adams' Katy Moore — both are traveling salespeople (though Danny works for Dunder Mifflin), both characters were originally written by Mindy Kaling (who also influenced their casting), and both of them have the same defining character trait of being hot. Oh, and they both have romantic history with the Halperts.

Danny far outclasses Katy, however, because the episode treats him as more than a romantic object or obstacle. As much as "The Sting" centers his attractiveness, it's an episode about a masterfully charismatic salesman using his assets to undercut Dunder Mifflin at a vulnerable time. He's an engaging minor antagonist who even manages to put Jim on the back foot. Olyphant is also just too good at playing this kind of role to not run away with the entire episode. "Costume Contest" is the lesser of his two appearances, but Olyphant nonetheless makes his attempted ghosting of Pam pretty funny.

The absence of Michael's family throughout "The Office" is a quietly significant part of the character's underlying psychological drive. It's no coincidence that the series starts his final season by introducing another rare on-screen relative: his half-nephew, Luke Cooper (Evan Peters). The Season 7 premiere aired about a year before "American Horror Story" Season 1 would establish Peters as a rising star in the world of television.

Peters is simply delightful as an immature office assistant who phones in every aspect of his job. Luke might've come across as purely irritating if the actor hadn't been able to deliver a performance with the same level of screen presence as Michael and the rest of the cast. In particular, he goes toe to toe with Steve Carell in the moments leading up to the spanking, which is a tough moment of absurd physical comedy to pull off. Peters and Carell smack it out of the park, with Luke's sobbing exit serving as the icing on the cake. It even seems like it made John Krasinski subtly break when Michael returns to the conference room in the aftermath.

If we were ranking this list based solely on impact relative to screen time, Randall Park would be at the very top. As a largely unknown character actor at the time, he completely sold what is one of the best cold opens in the entire run of "The Office" – so much so that the episode itself, "Andy's Ancestry," is mostly known among fans for being the "Asian Jim episode."

Years before "The Interview" and "Fresh Off the Boat," Park played Steve, a friend of Jim's who agrees to sit at his desk to prank Dwight. Conceptually, he's the best-written character here. The premise of them attempting to gaslight Dwight into believing that plain white Jim had always been an Asian man is absurd and unhinged in all the right ways. The reveal of the family portrait — with Park nailing his Jim face to the camera — still crushes. Screen time and narrative scope are the only reasons he isn't higher on this list.

Here's another incredible guest-star pull, brought to us by one of Jim's best pranks. When Michael insists on hosting both the bachelor and bachelorette parties for Bob and Phyllis Vance at Dunder Mifflin, Jim is tasked with hiring a male entertainer for the women. Naturally, he contracts the services of an above-average Benjamin Franklin impersonator, played by Andy Daly.

Aside from "The Office" trying to reheat this joke in "Gettysburg," "Ben Franklin" hasn't aged a day. Daly's enthusiastic and overly committed impersonator makes the wholesomely ridiculous bachelorette party a refreshing contrast to the awkwardly sexual strip show in the warehouse (Jackie Debatin, who appears in this episode, "Fun Run," and the series finale as Elizabeth the Stripper, was a near-miss for our ranking). He's the kind of guest star the show manages to showcase in every way possible — it finds humor in Dwight's suspicion that he's not the real Ben Franklin, in an awkward breaking of character with Pam, and in the (arguably historically accurate) idea that Franklin would probably give Michael worse relationship advice than a dancer. Daly and Rainn Wilson deserve props for apparently improvising their heated exchange about Franklin inventing the bifocal.

Larry Wilmore might be the most underrated guest star on "The Office." The accomplished television producer and comedian took on a deceptively simple role in "Diversity Day," the 2nd episode of the series, and the first original installment for the U.S. adaptation. Up to that point, NBC's "The Office" didn't have its own identity, and it certainly didn't have a formula for guest stars. Wilmore helped define both.

His character, Mr. Brown, is the template for 90% of the guest stars featured on the series — a true professional with a clear separation between his work and personal life, who arrives at the office trying to accomplish a simple, mundane task on behalf of his boss, and whose day is subsequently derailed by Michael's behavior. Beyond the character archetype, it's Wilmore's performance. He has to play the straight man for an ensemble that's already playing the dialogue pretty straight and deadpan. To avoid being boring or flat, Wilmore has to take complete control of the room as an authority figure, and tailor each of his setups to support what comes next. His scenes in "Diversity Day" are funny because he's the one teeing up every joke.

For our No. 1 choice, we wanted to go with a guest star who has it all — the comedic pedigree, the performance, the full episodic arc, the lasting impact on the series. There was no other choice than Tim Meadows.

In Season 2's "The Client," one of the most underrated "The Office" episodes, Meadows plays Christian, a potential whale whose business could save Dunder Mifflin from downsizing. He was the first big guest star on the show, being well-known for his time on "Saturday Night Live." Meadows, consciously or otherwise, understood precisely how to come in at the start of the episode: the "Office" straight man defined by Larry Wilmore. But what's so brilliant about the character is that — as Michael plies him with appetizers, tacky drinks, and tackier jokes — he changes sides in the dynamic. He goes from Jan (Melora Hardin) to Michael over the course of the episode.

As a character, Christian is foundational in the tonal pivot of the U.S. "Office." "The Client" uses him to show why Michael has been able to keep his job for so long — he's pretty great with people who aren't working for him, and even better when he's out of the office. It's the seed of the tremendous character growth that takes place throughout the remainder of his tenure on the series.