The Office Crew Risked Getting Fired for Bringing Steve Carell Back for Finale 

There aren't many shows in the world that have managed to stay on the air for seven years without devolving into something absurd. In some unimaginable way, the finale of The Office managed to satisfy both critics and ordinary viewers. Most importantly, the show ended at the right time and the right place, despite the rather high ratings.

To everyone's delight, Finale brings the characters back together and even jumps in time a bit to show us Angela and Dwight's wedding. It also briefly brings Michael Scott back to The Office, without whom any show finale would be incomplete.

However, few know that the show's creators took a big risk and thought they might lose their jobs when they decided to bring Steve Carell's Michael Scott back for the final episode.

Greg Daniels, the series' showrunner, admitted that even though NBC gave the team free rein to create the finale, some of his staff still feared that the uncoordinated return of the show's main star could cost them their jobs:

“They [NBC] didn’t know about Steve and the line producer was a little nervous about it, I think he was afraid he was going to lose his job. But we shot the Steve stuff and we kept it out of the dailies and didn’t tell them about it.”

The cast of the show also took part and had to keep everything a secret until the very end. John Krasinski, who played Jim, admitted that he even had to lie to David Letterman on his show:

“It was so thrilling. We all just flat-out lied. I lied to Letterman! I have to apologize to him for that at some point.”

Carell himself, however, wasn't so sure about his return to The Office – he didn't want viewers to be distracted from the characters who were currently on the show. Michael Scott's storyline on the show ended in season 7, but his return for Dwight and Angela's wedding was the perfect way to bring him back one last time.

Greg Daniels wanted the finale to be a big family reunion, and The Office reunion wouldn't be complete without Steve Carell – and he was right.

Sources: Entertainment Weekly, People