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Rainn Wilson Spills the Toxic Tea: Why "The Office" Felt Like a Dumpster Fire Without Steve Carell!

Ever wonder what happens when the cosmic energy of change meets the sudden exit of a superstar? Well, grab your popcorn because the stars and Steve Carell’s departure from The Office have something wild to say about that chaos! Rainn Wilson, our beloved Dwight Schrute, dishes on just how messy – and I mean chaotic – things got after Michael Scott’s iconic exit. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t all beet farm bliss behind the scenes. As Mercury dances through a tricky transit today, bringing confusion and unexpected twists, it’s almost poetic how the show’s tone shifted after losing its comedic engine. Could the universe have been mirroring the scramble to find the heart of The Office once Steve left? Rainn candidly spills the tea on the struggle to keep the show’s spark alive — proving that even in comedy, some stars just can’t be replaced overnight. Wanna dive into the full ups and downs? LEARN MORE.

Rainn Wilson: Making The Office After Carell A Struggle

At this point, the American remake of The Office is one of the most beloved TV sitcoms in the history of the medium. It’s just a fact.

A large part of what made the show work so well was Steve Carell’s performance as Michael Scott. He effectively made the character iconic, and he even won a Golden Globe for his efforts in 2006.

You probably also know that Steve left the show at the end of its seventh season, in 2011. The show would go on for two more seasons before closing out for good in 2013.

Some believe that the show was never the same after Steve left, and it sounds like that includes Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute across all nine seasons of The Office. In a recent appearance on the Good Guys podcast, Rainn got real about how the cast tried to make it to the end without their effective lead anchor of a performance.

“When Steve left, then it was a little bit chaotic of trying to figure out the tone of the show and who’s the lead and, how are we telling these stories without, you know, the comic engine of the show, which is Michael Scott, and without one of the greatest comic actors in American history at the center of our show,” he said.

“That was also a struggle.”

Rainn also said that, for most of the show’s cast, the writing had been on the wall about anticipating Steve’s departure — and they were none too surprised when it took place.

“We knew it was coming for a long time,” he said, after noting that Steve was “such a big movie star at the time.” “He was doing, like, Burt Wonderstone and these big comedies,” Rainn added. “I’m forgetting all the names of them at the time, but, Get Smart, you know? [Movies] that were in 2,000 theaters at the multiplex.”

“So, of course, he’s going to leave The Office when he can!”

Fair enough! You can listen to the entire interview here.

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