The Office has always been everyone’s favorite comfort show. Whether you need to relax after a long day at work or just want to get your daily dose of the four happiness hormones, the sitcom will do it for you. A lot of credit for that goes to Steve Carell, though. Through his portrayal of the eccentric yet absolutely lovable World’s Best Boss, he somehow took an iconic script and turned it into plain awesome.
In an honest opinion, there is no one better than Michael Scott when it comes to putting a smile on your faces, all while simultaneously wanting to rip your hair out. Well, maybe there is one thing better: 2 Michael Scotts. What happens when two people who are wired the same way meet each other? Chaos and a lot of ad-libbing.
Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais don’t need a script
Of course, by a second Michael Scott, we mean David Brent, the general manager of Wernham Hogg paper merchants, played by Ricky Gervais. The show managed to do something absolutely iconic in its seventh season when it brought Gervais in for a cameo and had him bumping into Steve Carell‘s Michael.
In Season 07 Episode 14, Seminar, Michael bumps into David near the elevator, and the two immediately hit it off with each other, exchanging jokes that might have been a little too much for someone else. The British half of the duo makes a “That’s what she said” joke, and that was all it took for Michael to basically fall in love with him.
What makes the entire scene even better is that it wasn’t in the script. Gervais revealed that he was just visiting the set when they decided to include him in the episode. There was no preparation, no script, just pure comedy gold from two legends in the field.
Check out what he said:
I did this cameo for a laugh when I was visiting the set. It wasn’t in the script & there was no rehearsal. We just filmed 2 idiots ad libbing. What a fun morning. pic.twitter.com/43fYGExbsw
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) June 7, 2025
Two painfully awkward managers with a shared love for inappropriate jokes and zero self-awareness colliding in one brief, glorious moment – it’s scenes like this that prove why The Office isn’t just a show. It’s a whole phenomenon.
Ricky Gervais was offered the role of Michael Scott
The iconic elevator scene would never have happened if Gervais had taken the creators up on their proposal. As an executive producer, he had a huge hand in making the remake possible. In fact, he still remembers the first phone call he got from Ben Silverman on the topic.
After the phone call, the two arranged a meeting and began working on the American remake. Soon, they had a showrunner picked out and a title selected. But then, they believed that Gervais could pull off playing Michael in the remake, aka go from playing one hilarious boss to another.
Luckily for Carell, Gervais refused. Why? Well, he didn’t think there was a point to it at the end. He knew The Office USA would work only if it was “made by Americans for Americans.”
During an appearance on the BBC comedy podcast What’s Funny About…, Gervais stated,
In fact, initially they said ‘You could play the main character’, I said ‘What would be the point of that? This has to be made by Americans for Americans’. That was why The Office worked, it was made by someone who knew about what it was to be English in an office, you know, and as soon as they started doing their own thing, it just got better and better.
It definitely got better with time, and a lot of credit goes to Carell for helping it age like fine wine. The show just wasn’t the same after he left, even if it did have its moments.
So, even though we love Gervais, we are glad they chose Carell for the role. No one could have pulled off Michael Scott better than him, and we are ready to die on this hill.
Stream The Office on Peacock Premium.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
