Even though the show has been off the air for nearly seven years, we are learning a whole lot about NBC’s The Office thanks to a new book, Andy Greene’s The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s. Two stories have popped up that highlight bittersweet alternative Offices that never were.
The first story is about Steve Carell’s replacement. As you know, Carell was the lead of the show and undeniably the strongest aspect of it. But he left the show after seven seasons. His departure marks when most people — including yours truly — totally tuned the show out. The series was losing its core and comedic engine, it seemed impossible to recover from that. Not to brag but I was right: the show was markedly different after Carell left and markedly worse. But the show kept trying and, of course, they lured in a big star to replace Carell. That star was James Spader, who was met with mixed response. But it could have been someone better. It could have been James Gandolfini.
That’s according to Green’s book, who says “everyone found an actor they were really excited about: James Gandolfini.”
But the Sopranos star was more than just dream-casting by the crew, he was actually this close to taking the part. Here’s more from the book:
“Paul Feig and B.J. Novak met with Gandolfini to chat about the role, and though the Sopranos star was very complimentary, he wasn’t sure if he was right for comedy. Apparently Gandolfini eventually said yes to the role, but then hesitated before things became official”
The fact that we never got the late Gandolfini on The Office will forever haunt me. While he was never able to show off his comedy chops enough (though he did — check out In The Loop) he was a funny dude! Plus he was just ridiculously talented. I think we have reached the point as a society where we can all agree that his work on The Sopranos is the single best performance from an actor — ever. It’s untouchable. Even if the man never did another damn thing, he would still be a legend.
Anyway, it’s a damn shame that the deal didn’t come together. Damn shame.
The other damn shame that we’re learning about regarding The Office is that Carell never had to leave at all. Yep, he could have stuck around a lot longer, possibly until the end of the show. That’s also according to Greene’s book, who cites multiple people who claim Carell was on board to return to the show for season eight and beyond but NBC never contacted him or initiated contract negotiations.
Here’s a choice quote:
“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.”
Hairstylist Kim Ferry added this:
[Carell] was like, ‘Look, I told them I want to do it. I don’t want to leave. I don’t understand.’ It just is mind-boggling how that happened. And I feel bad because I think a lot of people think he did leave the show on his own merit and it’s absolutely not true. I’m telling you. I was there. I was there. He really wanted to stay. And it devastated all of us because he was the heart of our show.
So NBC could have had more of Carell but they didn’t even reach out to his team to make that happen. Were they playing hardball? Did they forget? Carell’s departure happened during a huge shake-up at NBC but, damn, someone should have picked up the phone. Instead, the network let Carell go and, with him, the heart and soul of the show disappeared. Damn shame. Damn, damn shame.