Paul Rudd didn’t think he should use a “10-foot pole” for the role in “The Office,” starring Steve Carell.
Carell, who played Michael Scott for seven seasons, revealed on Tuesday’s episode of the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast that Rudd, 56, “pulled[him]aside” to warn him not to do the project.
“(He) was like, ‘Screw it, stop auditioning,'” Carell, 63, recalled. “I was like, ‘That’s impossible.'”
Host Amy Poehler responded, “Exactly. Everyone was like, ‘Don’t touch this.'”
Rudd did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
After thoroughly discussing his iconic character with Poehler, Carell revealed that he had only watched “one minute” of the British version of The Office before auditioning.
“[Ricky Gervais]was so good and so specific and so funny that I thought, ‘I’ll watch it two more times and then I’ll audition for this,'” Carell recalled. “You can’t even imagine anything else.”
He noted that “The Office” was NBC’s “least tested pilot” and that “people really hated it” at the time.
The comedian confessed, “I don’t really know how I grew legs after that.”
The Golden Globe winner quipped that appearing on the show from 2005 to 2011 “provided a public service” at a time when people still turned to comedy for “safety and security.”
He passionately said that Poehler’s “Parks and Recreation” is the same for viewers.
After Carell left the series, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, and other cast members continued on for two more seasons.
He gave insight into his final scene in the mockumentary on Tuesday, saying, “A year before I knew he was leaving, I talked to[producer]Greg[Daniels]about what the final arc could be for him. And I wanted to give him a sense of growth.”
Carell thought that making it “the last day…not the last day” would be “an interesting way to go out (for the Dunder Mifflin boss).”
“Everyone thinks they’re going to throw a party for him, but he doesn’t have to and leaves the day before. He wants to say goodbye on his own terms,” he explained.
The Emmy nominee claimed in 2018 that a revival would be “impossible” and similarly “unacceptable” to the public.
“Right now I don’t know how it flies,” he explained to Esquire at the time. “There’s so much awareness of offensiveness today, and that’s certainly a good thing. But at the same time, if you take a character like[Scott]too literally, it doesn’t really work.”
