Steve Carell reflects on the "emotional torture" of filming his final scenes of The Office

Steve Carell’s Michael Scott was essential to the success of The Office’s American adaptation. As cartoonish as the role often was, it also capitalized well on the sad vulnerability of Carell’s humor, and, in the series’ best episodes, gave him an opportunity to showcase one of the most desperately lonely characters in TV history. The show did its best to fill the void when Carell left toward the end of its seventh season, bringing on James Spader and Catherine Tate, but it was never the same without him—something reflected in a new episode of the An Oral History Of The Office podcast about just how how painful it was for Carell and his old Office castmates to film his departure.

In “When We Said Goodbye To Steve,” host Brian Baumgartner (the show’s resident chili expert) discusses the end of the character with Carell himself, showrunner/writer Greg Daniels, and other former cast mates like Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, and more. The podcast touches on the network choosing not to renew Carell’s contract—a decision heavily impacted by NBC’s Comcast acquisition and a decline in ratings during the rise of streaming services—as well as what it was like to shoot his last scenes.