Evan Peters Once Delivered The Office's Most Cringe-Inducing Cameo
Who would have thought.
Over the nine spectacular seasons of The Office, the series invited more and more guest cameos to appear in episodes of the show, with the actors joining as one-off joke roles, such as the blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance of Conan in season 2, or occasionally recurring guest roles, including Josh Groban as Andy's brother.
However, none can claim the title of the most cringe-inducing cameo on the show other than actor Evan Peters, who many viewers may not have recognized at the time before his casting in some of his biggest roles to date.
However, Peter's appearance in a joint scene with Michael Scott ended up being one of the more memorable guest cameos of the entire series.
When did Evan Peters appear in The Office and who did he play?
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Evan Peters, best known for roles in X-Men: Days of Future Past and American Horror Story, appeared as a cameo in the first episode of season seven titled 'Nepotism'. The episode sees the office dealing with a new office assistant Luke Cooper, (played by Peters) who is not only poor at his job but also happens to be Michael's nephew.
After struggling with convincing the staff of Dunder Mifflin Scranton to ignore Luke's bad behavior, Michael eventually also begins to lose patience with his own relative.
Watching Peters throughout the episode is overall very amusing. He is introduced as the character of Luke delivering everyone their incorrect coffee order. His attitude gets increasingly lazy as the office assistant scene by scene.
Until you begin to realise he is likely doing it all on purpose, thinking his relation to Michael makes him invulnerable to punishment. But oh how wrong could he have been.
Towards the end of the episode, Michael finally cracks during an office meeting. Luke's unwillingness to cooperate with Michael's efforts leads Michael to publicly humiliate him in front of the whole office.
While attempting to wrestle a laser pointer out of Luke's hands, Michael bends him over a desk and spanks him like a child. As the viewer, it appears as an extremely cringe-worthy moment to watch, delivered in Michael Scott's classic embarrassing style. Even Jim looks away awkwardly doing one of his on-brand straight-to-camera looks.
Luke predictably runs off upset, as Michael stands there suddenly understanding the reality of what he has just done. As he begins to explain himself, surprisingly the office characters come to his defence, praising Michael for finally dealing with the nuisance they had been putting up with this whole time.
What happened to Evan Peters after his Office appearance?
Unfortunately, Peters never returned as his guest character of Luke Cooper. We assume that Michael's actions crossed the line, and the character was unwilling to return back to his job as office assistant following his telling off.
Peters' career in TV and movies continued to flourish after his appearance on the show. One year after his cameo as Luke, he starred in one of his most notable roles in the popular series American Horror Story. He also won the role of Quicksilver with the X-Men movie universe, appearing as the character in three of the franchise's films.
However, Peters remembers his short time in The Office fondly. In a 'Ask Me Anything' Reddit thread, he answered a fan's question about how he felt about being on the show as "awesome". Mentioning Steve Carrell actually spanked him pretty hard. It sounds like his time on the show won't be something he'll forget any time soon. And fans aren't likely to forget that cringey scene either.