Steve Carell Reportedly Wanted To Do More Seasons Of ‘The Office’

michael scott

NBC


GREAT! Just what we needed — more shitty news.

As we all know, there are three versions of The Office: the English one, the American one, and last but certainly least, the ones without Michael Scott.

No disrespect to the rest of the cast, but similar to Michael Jordan and the Bulls, Michael Scott was the show. In fact, there are still dozens of Michael Scott-less episodes that I’ve yet to see.

However, according to a new book, apparently, we didn’t necessarily have to lose Carell from The Office as soon as we did, as new reports indicate the Academy Award-nominated actor wanted to stick around for a few more seasons.

Speaking to Andy Greene’s new book The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, hairstylist Kim Ferry claims that Carell actually wanted to do more seasons of the show but decided not to due to the response from the network.

“He 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.” [via Collider]

Ferry wasn’t the only one to make this claim, though, as The Office boom operator/sound mixer Brian Wittle told a similar story about Carell’s shift in mindset.

“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. 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.” [via Collider]

Casting director Allison Jones also chimed in:

“As I recall, he was going to do another season and then NBC, for whatever reason, wouldn’t make a deal with him… Somebody didn’t pay him enough. It was absolutely asinine. I don’t know what else to say about that. Just asinine.”

If that’s even remotely true, that’s an absolutely massive fuck-up by NBC. While I argue that Parks and Rec is a “better show” than The Office, there’s no question that at its peak, The Office delivered some of the funniest moments in the history of modern comedic television.

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Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t quite sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Follow him on Twitter @eric_ital for movie and soccer takes or contact him eric@brobible.com

Eric Italiano BroBIble avatar
Eric Italiano is a NYC-based writer who spearheads BroBible's Pop Culture and Entertainment content. He covers topics such as Movies, TV, and Video Games, while interviewing actors, directors, and writers.