A specific actor’s unfulfilled guest star appearance on The Office would have been the perfect callback to one of Jim Halpert’s most iconic lines. While the ensemble cast of The Office was full of strong performers, some of the best characters were only around for a short while. Throughout its nine-season run, The Office (U.S.) featured plenty of memorable guest stars in a variety of roles. Some, like Josh Groban as Andy’s brother Walter, made multiple appearances, while others played one-off characters that still left an impression. Some celebrities even made cameos as themselves, like Christian Slater in season 6.

The special guests only increased in the last few seasons of The Office, but a handful of future stars appeared on The Office before they really made it big. One of the sitcom’s very first guest stars was Amy Adams, who played Jim’s love interest Katy in seasons 1 and 2 when she was still early on in her career. Sadly, one guest star role that never came to fruition was a hugely missed opportunity because of the meaning behind a famous line in season 3.

The Office’s Katee Sackhoff Plan Would’ve Paid Off Dwight’s Love For Battlestar Galactica

Sackhoff Played Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace In Battlestar Galactica

According to Rainn Wilson, The Office wanted Battlestar Galactica actor Katee Sackhoff to make a guest star appearance, but her cameo never panned out. During a panel at Fan Expo Philadelphia, which took place from May 3-5, 2024, Wilson revealed that Sackhoff was one of the show’s dream guest stars because of his character Dwight’s obsession with Battlestar Galactica. Sackhoff played Kara “Starbuck” Thrace in the 2000s re-imagining of the original 1970s Battlestar Galactica TV series.

Wilson said that they continuously tried to get Sackhoff to appear in an episode, either as herself at a fan convention or as a character interacting with Dwight, but unfortunately, it never worked out. Sackhoff’s appearance on The Office would have been a brilliant way to pay off not just Dwight’s love for Battlestar Galactica in general, but specifically Jim’s reference to the beloved sci-fi series in one of the best cold opens on The Office.

While imitating Dwight in season 3, episode 20, “Product Recall,” Jim delivers his iconic line about Dwight’s three passions in his eccentric deskmate’s exact cadence: “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.” This became one of the most recognizable quotes from The Office, and Sackhoff showing up in a later episode would have been the perfect full-circle moment.

Why Katee Sackhoff Would’ve Been Perfect As A Guest Star On The Office

Sackhoff Has Starred In Multiple Sci-Fi Franchises That Dwight Is Fond Of

It’s not just Sackhoff’s Battlestar Galactica legacy that would’ve made her hypothetical guest star role on The Office so fitting. Three years after Battlestar Galactica‘s controversial ending in 2009, Sackhoff joined another sci-fi space franchise Dwight was a massive fan of. As The Office‘s penultimate season was airing in 2012, Sackhoff made her debut as the voice of Bo-Katan Kryze in season 4 of the animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Sackhoff continued her voice role in The Clone Wars season 5 when The Office was halfway through airing its final season.

Since The Office came to an end in 2013, Sackhoff has reprised her voice role as Bo-Katan in multiple Star Wars series, including Star Wars Rebels and, most recently, Star Wars: Tales of the Empire. She also returned for season 7 of The Clone Wars in 2020 and brought her voice role to life by appearing in person in The Mandalorian. While the majority of her Star Wars work took place after The Office ended, Sackhoff’s Star Wars role would have added another layer of significance to a guest-star appearance in the last two seasons of the sitcom.