Steve Carell has no interest in doing a reunion of The Office and he doesn’t ever see that changing. The notion of The Office coming back has been floated a lot recently. This in part due to the show becoming more popular than ever on Netflix and the abundance of classic TV shows getting revivals. Will & Grace, Roseanne and Murphy Brown have all come back to the air after having their series finales.
Carell has already addressed the prospect of an Office reboot, albeit in a joking manner, on Saturday Night Live. When the actor hosted the show to promote his upcoming movies Welcome to Marwen and Vice, several Office cast members begged him to come back for a reunion. Carell refused then, and in a much more formal setting, he’s continuing to refuse – but not without solid reasons.
In an interview with Collider, Carell was asked if there are any circumstance he can imagine returning to The Office. Carell was unequivocally negative in his response. He did explain why he doesn’t want to be involved, though, and it’s not simply disinterest. The actor replied:
I feel like I’m a broken record, talking about this because I get asked about it. The show is way more popular now than when it was on the air. I just can’t see it being the same thing, and I think most folks would want it to be the same thing, but it wouldn’t be. Ultimately, I think it’s maybe best to leave well enough alone and just let it exist as what it was. You’d literally have to have all of the same writers, the same producers, the same directors, and the same actors, and even with all of those components, it just wouldn’t be the same.
Carell’s response shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the actor’s stance on the revival. Carrell has always been open about wanting to not return to The Office. There was even uncertainty about if he would be back for the series finale after leaving the show in season 7. It’s rare for Carell to be this open and honest about why he doesn’t want to do The Office and it’s hard to disagree with him. The Office aired its last episode in 2013. That’s a relatively short time ago and many people who helped create the show are heavily involved in other projects.
John Krasinski has a burgeoning movie career as an actor and director as well as a starring role on Amazon’s Jack Ryan series. Likewise Jenna Fischer is the female lead on sitcom Splitting Up Together. Maybe most importantly, though, writer and producer Michael Schur has two shows on the air already with Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place. As Carell alludes to, it’s highly unlikely that everyone who made the first iteration great could return for the reboot. Carell is one of the reasons The Office was a success, but far more people need to be on board for the revival to be as much of a success.
Of course, The Office doesn’t necessarily need Carell in order to continue. The Office did survive for two more seasons after the actor originally left his lead role in season 7. It’s debatable if the final two seasons of The Office were as great as the seven that preceded, but the show did manage to survive without Carell. It’s presumed that the revival would be able to attempt a similar feat. However Carell might be right in that it “wouldn’t be the same.”
