Throughout the nine seasons of The Office, Creed Bratton became an essential part of the Dunder Mifflin family. But did you know that the beloved quirky character almost got cut in the second season of the show?
On the latest episode of Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey’s podcast, Office Ladies, the real Creed Bratton (who plays the character Creed Bratton on The Office) stopped by to talk about his first big episode, "Halloween," and revealed that the show-runners almost had Michael fire Creed instead of Devon White (played by Devon Abner).
The fifth episode of Season 2 finds Michael struggling to decide which employee he's going to let go. Corporate told him he’d have to fire someone in October due to budget cuts, but in true Michael Scott fashion he waits until the last day of the month to deliver the bad news. It also happens to be Halloween. While everyone anxiously awaits Michael’s decision, they’re also wearing their Halloween costumes, which makes everything a bit more chaotic.
When it came time to decide which character would be fired in the episode, Fisher recalled that show-runner Greg Daniels couldn't fire any series regular cast members because they all had contracts. She also said he didn't want to fire any of the supporting cast members who didn't have contracts, because they were already so well-established, so that left Creed and Devon, who at the time were the two background actors on the show.
"Greg found out that Devon had a theater contract and that he was going to go on tour," Fischer explained on the podcast, but Bratton added that Daniels didn't decide which character would be fired until after filming.
"He told us, 'One of you guys is going to have to go, but we don’t know yet. We’re going to shoot you both and see how it works," Bratton said. "I remember being a little nervous, and Devon and I were friends."
Since Creed was a background character on the show, this was his first official speaking episode. When Bratton was delivered a script with six and a half pages of dialogue, he knew he had to put his all into the preparation.
"I remember Ken threw the script down and said, 'OK here it is. This is your moment.' And I had memorized it forwards and backwards, I had set a timer on a little recorder and subliminally at two and three in the morning it would go off and play the lines while I was sleeping," Bratton said. "No joke. I had it backwards and forwards. I knew this was the rubicon. My intuition said, 'this is it.'"
The prep must have worked, because Michael ended up firing Devon after an iconic scene where he unsuccessfully attempted to fire Creed. Bratton said he still looks upon the scene he shared with Steve Carell with such fondness.
Creed went on to become one of the most popular characters in the show, and thankfully stayed employed at Dunder Mifflin long enough to dress in several other Halloween costumes, including his iconic Season 5 take on the Joker. Thanks for firing Devon, Michael!
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Topics The Office
