I love The Office, I still watch it, well, pretty much every day. It’s a comfort, especially in these times. It’s one of the only American remakes of a British series that can even be argued as being better (I also love the U.K. version). The Office had an interesting problem to deal with between its first and second seasons. One of the stars, Steve Carell, had become something of a movie star.
Carell ended up staying on the show until the seventh season. While hints of his leaving were dropped here and there before it actually happened, it may be that he felt as if he was unwanted. In a book released this week by Rolling Stone journalist Andy Greene, The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, two crew members state that Carell wanted to stay on the show. Check out what they had to say below.,
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Sound designer and boom operator Brian Wittle:
“I sat with him one time and he told me the story. He was doing a radio interview and he haphazardly mentioned, almost unconsciously, that it might be his last season. He didn’t plan on saying it out loud and he hadn’t decided anything. He was kind of thinking out loud, but he did it in an interview in public and it created news. Then what he said was the people connected to the show had no reaction to it.
Wittle continued:
“They didn’t call and say, ‘What? You wanna leave?’ He said he didn’t get any kind of response from them. When he realized he didn’t get any kind of response from them, he thought, ‘Oh, maybe they don’t really care if I leave. Maybe I should go do other things.’ So I think that made it easier, because when the news broke that he was considering it, the people that are in charge of keeping him there didn’t make a big effort to do so until afterward.”
Hairstylist Kim Ferry:
“[Carell] didn’t want to leave the show. He had told the network that he was going to sign for another couple of years. He was willing to and his agent was willing to. But for some reason, they didn’t contact him. I don’t know if it was a game of chicken or what… He planned on staying on the show. He told his manager and his manager contacted them and said he’s willing to sign another contract for a couple years. So all of that was willing and ready and, on their side, honest. And the deadline came for when they were supposed to give him an offer and it passed and they didn’t make him an offer. So his agent was like, ‘Well, I guess they don’t want to renew you for some reason.’ Which was insane to me. And to him, I think.”
Wow, this is certainly surprising. One reason, according to /Film was that NBC was going through personnel changes at the time. Even so, one would think this would be high on their list of priorities.
I am in a few Office groups on Facebook, and some fans refuse to watch the show after the departure of Michael Scott. While I will agree the show is different without him, it was still funny. Also, if Michael never left, then we wouldn’t have that awesome surprise return at Dwight’s wedding, with the absolute best “that’s what she said” line of the show )in my opinion). However, after reading the above information, I would likely trade his awesome return for a few more years of daily Micahel Scott antics.
What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments down below!
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