Dakota Johnson Reflects on Her Short ‘The Office’ Stint: ‘The Worst Time of My Life’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read

Dakota Johnson has no desire to revisit her time on “The Office.”

The “Madame Web” actress appeared in the series finale of the beloved NBC sitcom series, but called it the “worst time” of her professional acting experience during an appearance on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

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“That was honestly the worst time of my life,” Johnson said. “I love that show so much, and they were like, ‘Do you want to be in the series finale?’ and I was like, ‘Of course,’ thinking that I’d show up for, like, half a day. I was there for two weeks, and I’m barely in the fucking show.”

Johnson appears in the background as a new Dunder Mifflin employee; she only speaks in two scenes.

While “Late Night” host Meyers asked if “The Office” cast was upset due to it being the final episode, Johnson answered, “They were sad, and also, like, there were weird dynamics that had been going on for the last 10 years. Some people didn’t speak to each other, and I’m coming in like, ‘Hahaha, I’m so excited to be here,’ and no one wanted to talk to me, nobody gave a fuck. And I was like in the background of all of these scenes, faxing things.”

“The Office” series creator Greg Daniels previously teased to Collider that he would be open to reviving the show that helped launch the careers of Steve Carrell, Mindy Kaling, and John Krasinski.

“I can’t tell whether fans would want more of it, and when I say more of it, I don’t think it would be the same characters,” he said. “I think it would just be sort of like an extension of the universe, you know what I mean, like the way ‘[The] Mandalorian’ is like an extension of Star Wars. But I don’t know if that would be something people would want or not, it’s hard to tell.”

He added of the backlash to the later seasons sans Carell, “Everybody was like, ‘Eh, it’s not as good as ‘The Office’ Season 1.’ And then, you eventually keep plugging away and eventually people are like, ‘oh, I love this.’ It’s its own thing. And so I kind of feel like that would happen with a new show, but it would take a long time to do that. And it’s like, do you want to wade through all the negativity in the beginning to get to the good part at the end? I don’t know.”

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