page_title: Michael Scott (The Office)
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: Michael Scott (The Office) / Casting
caption_attribution_description: English: Steve Carell pauses for a moment to take in the grandeur of the 82nd Academy Awards, March 7, in Hollywood, Calif.
context_page_description: Michael Gary Scott is a fictional character on NBC's The Office, portrayed by Steve Carell and based on David Brent from the British version of the program. Michael is the central character of the series, serving as the Regional Manager of the Scranton branch of a paper distribution company, known as Dunder Mifflin Inc. from seasons 1 through 7. However, he temporarily leaves Dunder Mifflin to form the Michael Scott Paper Company with Pam Beesly and Ryan Howard toward the end of the 5th season and shares a co-managerial position with Jim Halpert during a 6th season arc from "The Meeting" to "The Manager and the Salesman". In the end of the 7th season, he proposes to HR representative Holly Flax and moves to Colorado to take care of her aging parents, leaving the manager position to Deangelo Vickers in "Goodbye, Michael", to Andy Bernard in season 8, after Vickers becomes brain dead, and ultimately to Dwight Schrute in season 9. For his performance, Carell received critical acclaim and was nominated for 6 Emmy awards as well as winning a Golden Globe.
context_section_description: All original series characters were adapted for the U.S. version. NBC programmer Tracy McLaughlin suggested Paul Giamatti to producer Ben Silverman for the role of Michael Scott, but the actor declined. Martin Short, Hank Azaria, and Bob Odenkirk were also reported to be interested. In January 2004, Variety reported Steve Carell of the popular Comedy Central program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was in talks to play the role. At the time, he was already committed to another NBC mid-season replacement comedy, Come to Papa. Due to Carell being unavailable, Bob Odenkirk was selected as Michael Scott and was part of the cast presented to NBC executives. However, Come to Papa was quickly canceled, allowing Carell to commit to The Office. Odenkirk went on to appear in the series in a brief role as an office manager reminiscent of Scott. Carell later stated he had only seen about half of the original pilot episode of the British series before he auditioned. He did not continue watching for fear that he would start copying Gervais' characterizations. On the audio commentary of the pilot episode, director Ken Kwapis says that Carell's unfamiliarity with the British version of The Office and their experience working together on Watching Ellie influenced him being cast as Scott.
  Two supporting roles in films helped get the attention of audiences: Bruce Almighty, in which Carell plays Evan Baxter (an arrogant rival to Jim Carrey's character), who gets a humorous comeuppance while co-anchoring the news. In Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Carell plays another news personality, as slow-witted weatherman Brick Tamland. Although the series premiered to mediocre ratings, NBC renewed it for another season because of the anticipated success of Carell's movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the show subsequently became a ratings success. Carell won a Golden Globe and Television Critics Association award in 2006 for his role. He also received Emmy nominations in 2006, 2007 and 2011 for his work in the series. Although The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a surprise success, Carell revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he had no plans to leave The Office. However, on the BBC Radio 5 Live Film Review show, he stated in an interview that his time on the show would probably end after his contract ran out after Season 7. This was later confirmed on June 28, 2010, when Carell confirmed that the seventh season of the show was to be his last after his contract with NBC expired.
caption: Steve Carell portrays Michael Scott in the U.S. rendition of The Office
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D80", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Roxio PhotoSuite", "Image DateTime": "2010:12:28 14:17:02", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "974", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4951", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:03:07 19:24:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:03:07 19:24:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Cloudy weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "82", "EXIF SubSecTime": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "40", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1565", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2237", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "822", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "123", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}