James Spader to Leave THE OFFICE at End of Season

According to published reports, multiple Emmy Award winner and Broadway veteran James Spader ("Boston Legal," "The Practice") will exit NBC's "The Office" (Thursdays, 9-9:30 p.m. ET) at the end of this eighth season. Spader plays CEO Robert California of Sabre, the parent company of Dunder Mifflin.

Some of Spader's credits include: Steven Soderbergh's "sex, lies and videotape," which won him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival; David Croenenberg's "Crash," which won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes; and Steven Shainberg's "Secretary," which won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. His other film credits include "2 Days in the Valley," "Wolf," and "Less Than Zero." Spader will be shooting Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks feature "Lincoln" later this year while he is shooting "The Office."

From 2004-08, Spader won three Emmy awards for his seminal role as shameless attorney Alan Shore in "The Practice" and "Boston Legal," making him the only actor to win consecutive Emmys playing the same character on two different series. Spader starred as a lead character in Race, a play written and directed by David Mamet, alongside Richard Thomas, David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington in 2009.

From Deedle-Dee Productions, Reveille and Universal Media Studios comes the award-winning comedy series "The Office," the hilarious documentary-style look into the humorous and sometimes poignant foolishness that plagues the world of 9-to-5 in the half-hour comedy based on the award-winning BBC hit. A fly-on-the-wall "docu-reality" parody about modern American office life, "The Office" delves into the lives of the workers at Dunder Miffflin, a paper supply company in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride/WM Photos