‘The Office’ died in the U.K. but found new
It was when going to the office didn’t feel like work. For nine hilarious seasons, “The Office” kept TV audiences laughing. It reinforced Steve Carell’s stardom and discovered newcomers like John Krasinski. It confirmed the appeal of “cringe comedy” and breathed ironic new life into the old dirty-joke punchline, “That’s what she said!”
And it almost didn’t make it to TV at all.
Andy Greene’s oral history “The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s,” tells what it took. And it proves making a hit comedy can be serious business.
The TV show began in England, in the slightly warped minds of co-creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
“They say that drama is real life with the boring parts taken out,” Gervais said. “I was obsessed with the boring bits. … I was obsessed with the minutiae of an excruciating social faux pas.”
In 2001 they debuted “The Office,” a sitcom disguised as a documentary, featuring a sad company run by an insufferable twit. A “Fawlty Towers”-style fool, his need for approval was equaled only by his cluelessness.
“In British TV, there’s that long tradition of the fairly unlikeable protagonist,” Merchant explained.
There’s also a tradition of not beating a show to death. After two six-episode seasons and a Christmas special, everybody went home. “The Office” seemed permanently closed.
Except an American talent agent, Ben Silverman, caught an episode while he was in London. At first, he admitted, it went over his head. “I was like, ‘Are they doing a reality show or making fun of a reality show?’ ”
But then he got the joke and the idea of rebooting it for America.
In 2005 he sold it to NBC, which had just said goodbye to “Friends” and “Frasier” and was desperate for any comedy, even a slightly peculiar one. And some things about the show felt familiar. Like the network’s recently departed hits, it was an ensemble show.
It was also pretty white. Indian-American performer Mindy Kaling was hired, initially just as a writer. Still, at the time, she was not just the only person of color on the writing staff, but the lone woman. She was soon on air as Kelly Kapoor.
“It used to really embarrass me because I thought I had the scarlet letter on me,” said Kaling, who knew the network had a diversity-hiring initiative. “‘Diversity hire’ inchallenge. herently meant ‘less talented but fulfilling that quota.’ ”
Casting the show was a For the boss, Michael, the wishlist included Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Both passed. Louis CK read but turned out to have an exclusive deal at CBS. After narrowing it down to Bob Odenkirk and Steve Carell, the producers went with Carell, the closest thing they had to a name.
Seth Rogen and Patton Oswalt tried out for the severely weird salesman Dwight, a part that eventually went to Rainn Wilson, who had been kicking around Hollywood for years. Jenna Fischer was cast as Pam, the receptionist, after taking to heart the casting director’s unusual advice: “Be as plain as possible and dare to bore me.”
There’d been talk about getting a known actor like Steve Zahn or Paul Rudd for nice-guy salesman Jim. When the novice Krasinski came to audition, he knew he was a long shot. “Nervous?” someone in the waiting room asked. “I’m really nervous for the people making the show,” Krasinski said. “I really hope they don’t screw it up.”
“I’ll try my best,” the man said. He turned out to be Greg Daniels, the showrunner.
“I went into the [audition] room, and everyone was laughing at me because I was such a moron,” Krasinski relike, called. “Everyone was ‘Is this the jackass that told you the show was going to be ruined? Go for it, kid.’ ”
Luckily for Krasinski, his real-life faux pas was the kind of embarrassing gaffe the show was going to be all about. “He felt like our Jim immediately,” Silverman said.
It took a while for “The Office” to find its place, though. They not only kept the documentary framework and general relationships but for the pilot, did a painfully faithful remake of the British one. While true to Gervais’ acerbic style, it felt overly mean for Carell, and to