Following Steve Carrell’s exit from The Office , a new person was needed to sit in the manager’s chair at Dunder Mifflin . The show ultimately decided that Ed Helms’s Andy Bernard, who had joined the show in its third season, was the right character to take on that role. Thanks to an excerpt from a new book by Andy Greene called The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s that ran in Rolling Stone , fans are able to glean more information regarding exactly how that decision was made.
According to the excerpt, the show’s writers were divided about who should take the job.
“There was ultimately a big Dwight camp and there was a big Andy camp,” writer Amelie Gillette said.
Many of the writers thought putting Dwight in charge of the show’s office would have led to more interesting storytelling opportunities. They also felt that Andy might be too similar to the role Steve Carrell’s Michael played as manager.
Other writers were interested in the possibilities that may open up if Andy were in the top job.
“I do think that Andy was an interesting choice too, and believe me, I switched camps a lot. I think a lot of us did because you don’t really know until you do it. But we felt like we could still get some juice out of Dwight not being number one, but being a foiled number one. We thought that might be a good comedic engine. I think that’s ultimately why Andy won out,” Gillette said.
Halsted Sullivan, another writer who worked on the show at the time, said that Dwight was the more expected choice. She also said that they tried to figure out how the show would work with Dwight on top, and ultimately decided against that version of the show.
Writer Aaron Shure said that he opposed picking Dwight because he felt Dwight was not as benign as Michael Scott had been, and he thought putting him in the manager role might be a disaster.
Ultimately, the network also played a role in shifting things toward Helms’s character. They wanted someone who was a bigger star than Rainn Wilson to take on the job. Helms had an advantage because he was coming off of the success of The Hangover . The staff said that the decision between the two was a photo finish, but that Helms was the more high-profile cast member at the time.