Editing Office Space (section)

===Casting===
[[File:Jennifer Aniston 2011 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Jennifer Aniston]] was cast in ''Office Space'' to feature a recognizable star.]]
[[David Herman]] was the only actor Judge had in mind for a specific part: Michael Bolton. Herman had been trying to leave his seven-year contract at ''[[MADtv]]'', but the show would not let him. So, at its next [[table reading]], he managed to get himself fired by screaming all his lines. [[Greg Daniels]] said they could always find a place for him on ''King of the Hill'', where he had been doing some voice work; soon after he read Judge's ''Office Space'' script and was delighted with it.<ref name="EW oral history" />

At the first read-through of the script, Judge was pleased with Herman's performance, and felt [[Stephen Root]] improved on his own take on Milton, but was not happy with the rest of the cast. He considered abandoning the film, but Rothman said it worked and just needed the right actors.<ref name="EW oral history" /> According to Judge, while Fox at first told him to just get the best actors possible since the film's budget would not be large enough to consider [[bankable star]]s, the studio soon changed its mind.

In the wake of the success of ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'', he was advised to get that film's stars, [[Ben Affleck]] and [[Matt Damon]]. Again, he almost changed his mind about the film (Rothman said in 2019 that while [[A-list]] stars are often unlikely to take roles in low-budget productions, those films should nevertheless make the effort to attract them). He had agreed to meet with Damon in New York, but then [[Ron Livingston]]'s agent asked if his client could audition for the lead. [[Casting director]] Nancy Klopper was impressed, and after Judge saw the video he told the studio that he wanted Livingston in the part.<ref name="EW oral history" />

[[Jennifer Aniston]] was cast to accommodate Fox's desire to have a recognizable star in the film, although they were concerned that her part was so small; the subplot involving her battle with her boss over her "flair" was added as a result and she was written out of the sex-dream sequence, along with dialogue indicating she actually had slept with Lumbergh. However, she had liked the script since she was not getting many other films like that at that point, and she had gone to the same high school as Herman, [[Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School]] in New York. [[Kate Hudson]] also read for the part.<ref name="EW oral history" />

After casting the [[Indian American]] [[Ajay Naidu]] as Samir, who had originally been written as [[Iranian American|Iranian]], the character was rewritten to be [[Jordanian American|Jordanian]], and Naidu worked with a [[dialect coach]] to get the accent right. [[John C. McGinley]] auditioned for Lumbergh, but was ultimately cast as Slydell. Judge says that after [[Gary Cole]] read for Lumbergh, there was no doubt as to who would play him. "He made the character 10 times funnier." A casting search in Texas yielded [[Greg Pitts]] for Drew, but no one who could play the Chotchkie's manager, so Judge took that role himself.<ref name="EW oral history" />