We're going get a lot candidates to replace Steve Carell once he finishes his final season of The Office next spring. And while we probably won't report on every single one of them, this new candidate comes straight from showrunner Paul Lieberstein (who also plays Toby Flenderson). The man in charge thinks Harvey Keitel (who jumped to television with Life on Mars) is the right man for the job. Lieberstein says, "He's probably the only guy who can do it, and he's doing TV now. I haven't started any talks with his people, but Harvey would do a great job — a very different energy." Hit the jump for details on his potential character and my thoughts on replacing Steve Carell on the series.
Lieberstein elaborated to E! Online on his desire to have Keitel join the cast,
"He's a real tough guy, but I saw him in Life on Mars and I saw a lot more comedy in his work, just little slivers of it, little things he would do that made me think he's capable of a lot more than what [he's done]. And we don't want to bring in another Michael, having someone play a very similar character because we have such a high regard for Steve."
With regards to the new character that Keitel would take on, Lieberstein revealed,
"He's an old salesman who thought he could retire and the stock market went down, and he has to come out of retirement to work for a few years."
It definitely sounds like an interesting character, but I'm wondering if Keitel would be a replacement for Carell or simply a new cast member joining the office with one of the current employees being promoted. Recently on the red carpet for the Emmys, producer Ricky Gervais even commented that we should be less worried about who will be brought in to replace Carell and more concerned with one of the current cast members stepping up to fill the supervising void. Don't forget Danny McBride and Rhys Darby have also been mentioned as potential newcomers. Surely we'll have a more definite idea of what changes are coming to the cast once this coming season starts to wind down in the spring, but for now, what do you guys think of Harvey Keitel heading to Scranton?
