In the first season of NBC’s former hit TV series The Office, Steve Carell’s Michael Scott – the iconic bumbling regional manager of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton – famously tells one of his colleagues during a meeting: “The Mets suck ... Go Pirates!”
Fast forward nearly 20 years since that season first aired in 2005 and it turns out Carell’s Pittsburgh fandom runs a bit deeper than that line of quirky throwaway dialogue.
In an appearance with former co-stars Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer on the Office Ladies podcast this week, the Emmy-award winning actor named the city as his favorite place he’s visited in the U.S.
“Pittsburgh was pretty cool,” he said when asked during the podcast’s “regular guy” section.
“Oh, yeah?” Kinsey asks, quizzically.
“Yeah,” Carell responds. “I mean, I’m not saying that ironically either. I’ve done a couple of movies there, and I liked it. And it’s a cool city.”
“Alright, shoutout to Pittsburgh!” Kinsey says.
“Shoutout to Pittsburgh,” Carell repeats before moving on.
In fact, Carell has been here for two big budget films in the past decade or so.
The first, Foxcatcher, started principal photography in and around the city in 2012 before hitting theaters in late 2014. The wrestling drama that also starred Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo and Sienna Miller wasn’t a big moneymaker but holds a favorable 87% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The second was 2017’s Last Flag Flying, in which he starred with Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne. With a 76% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, the comedy-drama is well-regarded, too, though it made less than $2 million at the box office.
It was during filming for the second movie that Carell was spotted at a Penguins game with Cranston and posed for a photo with then-owner Mario Lemieux.
Apparently those two visits left a good impression on the 60-year-old actor who won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for his work as Michael Scott. Just don’t tell the Concord, Mass., native what the Pirates have been up to lately.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: March 9, 2023, 8:11 p.m.
