You may know Melora Hardin from her role on NBC’s hit comedy “The Office” as Jan Levinson, Dunder Mifflin’s rigid corporate boss and former love interest of Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott. Or you may know Ms. Hardin as Adrian Monk’s dead wife Trudy on the USA show “Monk” or in films such as “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” “27 Dresses” with Katherine Heigl or “18 Again” with Zac Efron. But NASCAR fans at Dover International Speedway Sunday, along with a national television audience, will know Ms. Hardin as a singer as she will perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” prior to the 1 p.m. Sprint Cup AAA 400. Although best known as an actress who started her career at 9 years old and has appeared in more than 70 movie and television programs since, Ms. Hardin, 44, has been singing and writing songs mostly all of her life. “My mom will tell you that I wrote my first song at 2 years old,” she said in a phone interview earlier this week. “I have always loved music and I was blessed with a singing voice. I’m not sure where it came from. No one else in my family can sing and my brother is tone deaf. I just got really lucky and I’m very grateful.” Ms. Hardin has recorded three CDs, including her latest “All the Way to Mars,” which features songs from Broadway, standards, pop and a few that she wrote herself. “The record is an attempt to let people hear my voice in many colors,” said the Houston, Texas native. “My previous albums had just created one kind of picture. But this one has a little bit of everything on it from Broadway to pop. You get a lot of different stuff with this one.”

It was released last year on the LML label and available on iTunes, Amazon and in stores. On stage, she played the lead role of Fantine in the August 2008 Hollywood Bowl concert rendition of “Les Misérables” and followed that up by making her Broadway debut in 2009, starring as Roxie Hart in Kander and Ebb’s “Chicago.” Longtime fans of “The Office” will remember her offbeat rendition of the song “Son of a Preacher Man,” that she performed during “The Baby Shower” episode in 2008. It was her three-night stint at the Hollywood Bowl that sparked the idea for her to do the number. “They knew that I was a singer and that I was doing Fantine at the Bowl at the time. (Producer, writer and cast member) Mindy Kaling came up with the hilarious idea to sing it to the baby,” Ms. Hardin said. “I also did a sort of an improvy song last season. They were very kind to let me do that.” Although she has performed at some legendary venues, including an upcoming December gig at the famed Feinstein’s in New York City, Sunday will be her stadium singing debut. “I guess I’ll know what it feels to be a rock star for just a little bit,” she joked. “I’ll know what it is to be Mick Jagger or Bruce Springsteen.”

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