Steve Carell and writer Greg Daniels got so close while making “The Office,” they became like family.
So much so that Daniels once wanted Carell to play his dad Aaron in a biopic he wrote about him almost 20 years ago.
“He’s a very colorful person and he actually was in the Olympics in 1968, and I wrote a movie for Steve to play him, like on spec during the writers strike of 2008,” Daniels told me at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star unveiling on Thursday morning. (Writers were allowed to write uncommissioned spec scripts during the 2008 strike.)
What was his sport?
“He had a very rare sport. That’s how he was able to do it,” Daniels explained. “It was the demonstration sport of Mexico, basically like jai alai but with paddles and so he managed to wrangle his way in with some friends.”
The elder Daniels competed as an amateur athlete in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Carell, along with Conan O’Brien, spoke at the star unveiling. “Everyone told me not to do ‘The Office,’” Carell said. “[They said] it will not work. The original is too good. It is a waste of time. And mostly, it is just going to stink. And then a crazy thing happened. It didn’t stink because of Greg Daniels.”
During our chat, Daniels put the kibosh on fans’ hopes for any sort of “Office” revival or reboot. “I don’t think we need to find out what all the characters are doing so much because of the way the show ended,” he said. “It seemed like people liked the ending and you’re just sort of risking a lot to open it up again.”
Daniels adapted “The Office” from the British series of the same name. It premiered in 2005 before ending after nine seasons in 2013.
