The upcoming The Office reboot is a great reminder of how loved The Office still is today, over 11 years after the sitcom ended. The series was certainly part of the peak TV era, and the cast have become icons. The Office ensemble was, of course, led by Steve Carell, and an EP recently recalled how he had been eyeing him for the role of Michael Scott, specifically. However, there was a frustrating reason he nearly missed out on the part.
Carell starred on the NBC sitcom as the Dunder Mifflin regional branch manager in Scranton for the first seven seasons and returned to guest star in the final season. He was the lead of the show for a long time, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Michael. In honor of the one of the best sitcoms’ 20th anniversary, co-creator Greg Daniels spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how Carell’s name came up for the role, and Bruce Almighty actually had something to do with it:
The casting process was enormous. We started off thinking of Steve Carell because the NBC movie executives had given Ben a copy of Bruce Almighty, where Steve had an incredible cameo as a newscaster who was taken over by outside forces and didn’t really understand what was happening to him. We saw that, and we were like, ‘Oh, this guy is fabulous.’ I really wanted to crew up with Allison Jones, the casting director who had done Freaks and Geeks, and I thought she was the best casting director.
Carrell’s performance in Bruce Almighty, especially when it came to the scene where Jim Carrey’s titular character made his character, Evan, go completely nuts on live television, is hilarious. So, I totally understand why they wanted to cast him in The Office because of it.
However, Carell was originally booked for something else at the time, and the producer had to move on. It was understandably very frustrating, as Daniels explained:
While her deal was being made, we had said to Steve’s people, ‘Hang on, we really want to do it.’ But they took another job that came [on another NBC sitcom, Come to Papa]. That was very frustrating. Then, we began this months-long search for who else could play the character.
After those long months of casting, Breaking Bad star Bob Odenkirk was being seriously considered for the role. That is, until word got out that The Office team could cast Carell as Michael, as long as it was in second position to Come to Papa.
After the pilot was shot, NBC picked up The Office in 2004 for midseason. Meanwhile, Come to Papa aired that summer and was soon canceled, freeing Carell up to do The Office full-time. While it’s not particularly nice to be happy about a one-season show’s cancellation, this is definitely an exception.
Not only was The Office close to not having Steve Carell, but Odenkirk nearly landed the role of Michael. And if he got the role, it’s possible he wouldn’t have been Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad or lead his own spinoff, Better Call Saul, since Breaking Bad came just a few years after the NBC comedy. Luckily, that didn’t happen; Carell got Michael, and the show went on to air for nine seasons.
That doesn’t mean that things still weren’t a bit wonky at the beginning, though. The Office was nearly canceled after just six episodes. However, it was saved thanks to Carell starring in The 40-year-Old Virgin, which he filmed around the same time as The Office. After that, the NBC sitcom had a movie star attached, and they were able to move forward with success.
Then, The Office turned into a wild phenomenon that is still trending today as more folks watch it with a Peacock subscription. So, it’s wild to think about what almost was, because it’s hard to imagine the show any other way.
