Steve Carell has admitted Paul Rudd warned him against auditioning for The Office.
The comedian had major misgivings about the show's American remake before it first aired, advising his friend not to attend the audition.
Steve, 63, who went on to star in the hit sitcom for the entirety of its nine-season run, revealed Paul had not believed it would be possible to make a show as good as the British original on which it was based - a sentiment Steve has now revealed was shared by most of their friends in the comedy world.
"It's funny that you guys all heard, 'Oh, they're doing an American version,' and everyone had the same reaction," the Rooster star told fellow comedian Amy Poehler on this week's episode of her Good Hang podcast. "Rudd pulled me aside and was like, 'Don't do it, man. Don't audition.' He was like, 'There is no way.'"
Elsewhere in the interview, Steve recounted an incident in which he tried to capitalise on his celebrity, only to go completely unrecognised.
"One time, and I would never do this, but I thought, I'm just going to do it," he recalled. "I was in Beverly Hills. I was driving around and a tour bus went by and I thought, 'I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna wave'. And I went, 'Hey everybody!'"
Unfortunately, none of the tour guests seemed to have any idea who he was.
"Not a person acknowledged," he confessed. "They were like, 'What? Who's that?' and I shrank into this little ball, like, 'Last time I'm ever doing anything like that'."