Steve Carell Remembers When Paul Rudd Tried to Stop His 'The Office' Audition: 'Don't Do It, Man'

Yep. Paul Rudd was giving sound advice, it just turned out to be wrong in this one instance. Of course, a big part of why it turned out to be wrong was Steve Carell’s performance.

If the Office came out today, I wonder if it would have been cancelled after its first season. Thats definitely the worst season, especially if you’re only considering the Carrell era. I could see it coming out on Netflix or whatever today and then getting axed immediately because it didn’t have overnight success.

Ironically, Paul Rudd's parents are British. So *he's* the American remake, too

I remember being wary of the American office when it was announced

Exactly, they now released the Mexican version of it and I am so glad that it only shares the name because it’s so Mexican and it’s very own thing. The humor is similar but also so different.

The cast of the show like Krasinski have said as much too, they were a bit taken aback that the show was happening cause they thought it'd be impossible to replicate the UK version.

I remember when just the pilot had been aired and i hadn’t watched it yet but IMDb had the show at an abysmally low rating and all the reviews said it was the worst thing they’ve ever seen and not even remotely funny. I was surprised because 40 Year Old Virgin had just come out and I was already a huge fan of Carrell from Anchorman and The Daily Show. Looking back, I’m not even sure anyone had seen it yet because I don’t think the actual show came out till much later, but perhaps diehard UK Office fans were review bombing it just for existing

It helps that the BBC one is pretty shitty, even compared to their other weird slop lol

He should really change his name to Paul Rude

His career went downhill after Mack and Me

I dunno, I've been hearing good things about his work on Celery Man.

Bob Odenkirk was also considered for the role (and actually did an episode in one of the later seasons of *The Office* as a sort of mirror-universe Michael Scott). He would have been hilarious (because he’s brilliant in everything he does) but the energy would have been completely different.

Yes. I was in Canada when it came out and loved it, and I thought for sure the US version came out, and after the first episode where they copied the UK pilot. But it became its own thing, and loved the US version once it found its stride. But bingeing the UK version is much easier, and the final special is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever.

Rooster is good so far

But he was right about Boner Jams 03.