Would The Office ever get a reboot? The idea has fueled rumors and chatter for years now—but the shows original star isnt sure that moving back to Scranton would be a good move. Steve Carell, who played socially stunted Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott for seven of the NBC sitcoms nine seasons, believes the shows comedy might be incompatible with our current era.
“Because The Office is on Netflix and replaying, a lot more people have seen it recently,” Carell told Esquire, explaining why reboot fervor has peaked lately. “And I think because of that theres been a resurgence in interest in the show, and talk about bringing it back. But apart from the fact that I just dont think thats a good idea, it might be impossible to do that show today and have people accept it the way it was accepted ten years ago. The climates different.”
“I mean, the whole idea of that character, Michael Scott, so much of it was predicated on inappropriate behavior,” Carell continued. Indeed, especially in its earlier days, The Office largely wrung uncomfortable laughs out of Carells character, who was prone to cringeworthy behavior like gawking at a photo of his employee Stanleys daughter—who was middle school-aged—and blundering through the companys “Diversity Day” by unleashing a parade of racist behavior—including shouting vaguely “Indian”-sounding gibberish at Mindy Kalings character, Kelly Kapoor, until she slaps him. As Carell put it in the Esquire story, “Hes certainly not a model boss.”
“A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded,” Carell said. “Thats the point, you know? But I just dont know how that would fly now. Theres a very high awareness of offensive things today—which is good, for sure. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesnt really work.”
A reported Office reboot was supposedly in the works at NBC as of last winter, although the network declined to comment on its progress at the time. That project would have involved a mix of characters, old and new, but Carell would not have returned.
Either way, Carells point is well worth considering. A lot of old hits age poorly, especially comedies. Sometimes reboots can push past the flaws of their progenitors, taking a truly modern spin on beloved old material; Netflixs One Day at a Time transcended the original Schneiders creepiness and recast its central family with Latinx actors, for example, and the same streaming services new Queer Eye feels very contemporary: the series no longer treats its Fab Five as gay fairy godmothers fixing the lives of cis-gendered, straight men. But those properties also had time to breathe before being brought back to TV; the original One Day at a Time aired long before the majority of the reboots viewers were even born, while Queer Eye 1.0 ended in 2007. The Office, however, wrapped its original run just five years ago. To use a borrowed quote, its true that you miss 100 percent of the shots you dont take—but in this case, that might be better than swinging and missing.
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.
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