Michael Scott and Jim Halpert aren’t in Scranton anymore — but they’re still up to their usual antics in a new promo video for Krasinski’s film ‘IF’
Move over, Scranton — Michael Scott and Jim Halpert are taking on a whole new adventure.
John Krasinki’s latest directorial endeavor, IF, sees him reunite with his The Office costar Steve Carell, and in a behind-the-scenes video taken while the pair were working on the film, they’re both up to their usual nonsense as they enjoy a hilarious reunion.
“Blue is played by Steve Carell who happens to be a dear friend,” Krasinksi, 44, says of his former costar, before joking about their time on the hit NBC sitcom from 2005 until Carell’s exit in 2011. “We actually worked together on this little thing a long time ago.”
As Carell, 61, enters the recording studio, he and Krasinki embrace as they both tell each other, “It’s so good to see you.”
“I was just telling these guys – has it been years?” Krasinski asks.
“Years,” Carell replies, before joking with a shrug toward the cameras, “I’m glad we’re getting it. This is so intimate.”
The actors then decide to do a re-do of their reunion moment, with Carell exiting the studio and Krasinski pretending to introduce him a second time. “So anyway, I haven’t seen Steve in, jeez, it’s gotta be…”
As Carell enters, he exclaims, “Oh my God!” as if he didn’t just see the A Quiet Place actor seconds before, prompting Krasinski to do a perfect spit-take of his water in feigned surprise.
“Are you kidding me?” Carell says excitedly.
After a hilarious reunion — twice-over — the pair then gets to work, and Carell begins recording lines for his role as a big furry imaginary friend to the movie’s protagonist, Bea (Cailey Fleming), who starts to see everyone’s imaginary friends while going through a “difficult experience,” per the film’s synopsis.
“Almost every kid has one. We say IF — get it? Imaginary friend,” Carell says in the snippet as he records one of his character’s lines, earning a laugh from Krasinski, who tells him, “That was great.”
IF also stars Ryan Reynolds and includes voice-overs from Jon Stewart, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Meloni, Richard Jenkins, Awkwafina and Louis Gossett Jr..
Even with an all-star cast, Krasinski has been vocal about his excitement at working with Carell again in particular.
“Oh my God, The Office reunion we’ve all been waiting for is in it,” he told Entertainment Weekly of the film. “The truth is, Steve’s one of the most talented people on the planet. So whether I had ever worked with him before or not, I would’ve been gunning for him because I just had his voice in my head when I was writing Blue.”
The film has not been afraid to lean into the Dunder Mifflin angle, either, as one of the first promotional videos recreated an iconic scene from The Office where Krasinski and his onscreen wife, Pam (Jenna Fischer), prank Dwight (Rainn Wilson) into thinking Jim has been Randall Park all along.
In the video, Park, 50, joins Reynolds, 47, claiming to be Krasinski, the film’s director and star.
“You’re not John Krasinski, you’re Randall Park,” Reynolds says.
“Uh, Ryan, I know it’s been a while since we shot, but we spent like four months together, like 10-hour days,” Park replies, continuing the joke.
“Ten-hour days? The real John Krasinski knows I only work four hours a day,” Reynolds retorts, before Park introduces a behind-the-scenes look at the film, which sees him playing an active role on set despite the fact that he was not actually involved in making the movie.
In the original iteration of the skit, during a season nine episode titled “Andy’s Ancestry,” Jim and Pam go to great lengths to prank Dwight with Park, convincing him that’s what Jim has always looked like. They even remove photos of themselves and replace them with photos of Park and Pam to throw off a frustrated Dwight.
In the years since The Office aired its final episode, cast members have all expressed love for their time on the sitcom — and a desire to dive back into the Dunder Mifflin world.
Fischer, 50, told PEOPLE that a “spinoff” is currently “in the works” from Greg Daniels, who adapted the original U.K. series, and Michael Koman, but she admitted, “I don’t know a lot of details.”
“I’m not involved,” she said. “I haven’t been approached about it.”
She did reveal, however, that the cast keeps in touch regularly with a group chat called “Office Peeps.”
“We all text on it, send pictures and updates and all the things you have on a text thread,” the Office Ladies podcast co-host said. “We all run into each other and get together on the side. But we have our text thread, it’s going strong.”
