Steve Carell Weighs in on New ‘The Office’ Series: “I Will Be Watching But I Will Not Be Showing Up”

Steve Carell is giving his thoughts on the recently announced follow-up series to The Office.

“I will be watching but I will not be showing up. It’s just a new thing and there’s really no reason for my character [Michael Scott] to show up in something like that,” Carell told The Hollywood Reporter at the premiere of his new film IF on Monday. “But I’m excited about it, it sounds like a great conceit. I love the idea — I guess it’s set in a failing newspaper company, and I worked with Domhnall Gleeson, who is one of the leads; I did [2022 series] The Patient with him and he’s an excellent actor and a super nice guy so I think it’ll be great.”

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The new series, co-created by The Office’s Greg Daniels and Nathan for You co-creator Michael Koman, will be set in the universe of Dunder Mifflin and introduce a new cast of characters, this time centered on a dying historic Midwestern newspaper but followed by the same documentary crew that immortalized The Office‘s famed Scranton office. The show will feature Gleeson and Sabrina Impacciatore leading the ensemble cast, and has been ordered to series by Peacock, coming 10 years after the original series came to an end.

Though he will not be appearing in the untitled new show, Carell is currently having his own The Office reunion with John Krasinski on IF, with Krasinski serving as writer and director and Carell voicing the film’s lead Imaginary Friend, Blue.

“He directed some episodes of The Office so I was familiar with him as a director and he’s a great director — he’s very thorough, he’s smart and he knows how to work with actors because he is one,” Carell said of Krasinski’s talents behind the camera. “It was just a joy from beginning to end and I jumped at the chance to work with him again, partly just to be with him. He’s a good friend and I hadn’t seen him in a while so it was nice to catch up.”

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