NBC's comedy mockumentary TV series The Office, based on Ricky Gervais's BBC series of the same name, ran for nine successful seasons between 2005 and 2013.
It followed the lives of employees at the Dunder Mifflin paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and catapulted many of its cast members from small-screen stars to Hollywood heavyweights.
A reboot of the hit series is reportedly in the works with original showrunner Greg Daniels at the helm, though it's unknown at this point if any of the actors made famous by the show will return.
Read on to see what the stars of The Office are doing today and discover who went on to the greatest success after it ended.
All dollar values are in US dollars.
Musician-turned-actor Creed Bratton played a fictionalised version of himself throughout all nine seasons of the show. Bratton's former co-star B.J. Novak once stated that the character of Creed is almost identical to the real-life Creed, but with one key difference: the real Bratton is a kind and likeable person, while his fictional counterpart is a criminal deviant with a dark past.
The real-life Bratton was a member of The Grass Roots, a psychedelic rock band that toured between 1965 and 1975. Born William Charles Schneider, friends persuaded the self-proclaimed hippy that he needed a more rock 'n' roll moniker, and he decided to change his name to Creed Bratton after a wild night of ouzo drinking in Greece.
While Bratton’s salary from The Office is unknown, the star has a reported net worth of $3 million (£2.4m), mostly stemming from his stint on the show.
While Bratton enjoyed minor success as a musician and actor before his 2005 debut on The Office, his role in the sitcom remains his most renowned to date. His hilarious performance earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Series, along with his co-stars.
Now in his 80s, the multifaceted entertainer shows no signs of slowing down. Since The Office ended in 2013, Bratton has continued to pursue his musical passions, with his latest album, Slightly Altered, released in 2020.
Recently, he voiced a character in the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War video game and appeared in the 2022 sitcom PBC.
Phyllis Smith was working as a casting associate for The Office when she was offered the role of the mild-mannered saleswoman Phyllis Vance – a part created just for her. Before working in casting, Smith's varied career had included stints as an actress, cheerleader, and burlesque dancer.
A knee injury forced her to retire early from her life of glitz and glamour, but years later The Office catapulted her back into the spotlight. Smith appeared in all nine seasons as a pivotal supporting cast member. Again, her exact salary for her work on the show is unknown, but most of her reported $4 million (£3.3m) fortune can be attributed to it.
While still starring in The Office, Smith boosted her earnings with a supporting role in the 2011 comedy movie Bad Teacher alongside Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. That same year, she made a cameo in Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. Since The Office wrapped, Smith has enjoyed a successful acting career.
Her most notable recent role was her voice performance as Sadness in Pixar's 2015 flick Inside Out, which she starred in alongside her Office co-star Mindy Kaling, as well as comedy heavyweight Amy Poehler (pictured). She also had a supporting role in fan-favourite Netflix show The OA between 2016 and 2019, with the series' abrupt cancellation sparking outrage among fans.
Kate Flannery filmed the first season of The Office while also waitressing in Beverly Hills. Having previously made fleeting appearances on shows such as Saturday Night Live and Curb Your Enthusiasm, the improv comedienne knew all too well the trials and tribulations of trying to ‘make it’ in Hollywood.
But following the success of the first season of The Office, Flannery quit her day job despite her former boss's warning that she'd be back. Flannery proved him wrong, remaining on the show for all nine seasons and appearing in 187 episodes – almost as many as the show's major stars. Most of her reported $4 million (£3.3m) net worth stems from her role as alcoholic single mother Meredith Palmer.
Funny girl Flannery has enjoyed success in a string of comedy shows outside The Office, landing guest appearances on shows such as Wizards of Waverly Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, New Girl, and Young Sheldon. The actress also competed in the 2019 season of Dancing With the Stars alongside professional dance partner Pasha Pashkov (pictured), finishing in a respectable seventh place. Flannery joined the show’s live tour in 2020, but it was unfortunately cut short due to the COVID pandemic.
One of her more recent roles was in the 2022 comedy horror The Prank, which also starred Hollywood veteran Rita Moreno. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March and received positive reviews.
Baker's grumpy salesman Stanley Hudson was frequently cited as a standout member of The Office's supporting cast. The story of how the comedian landed his breakout role is pretty amusing. Baker got stuck in traffic on his way to his audition and as a result arrived on set "cranky". His bad mood helped him ace the audition, creating the perfect embodiment of Stanley's disgruntled persona.
Though Baker had previously scored minor parts in sitcoms such as That '70s Show, The Office truly launched his career. Stanley remains his most lucrative role to date, helping the actor to a reported net worth of $4 million (£3.3m).
Baker's comedy career has continued to thrive since the show's finale. In 2017, he appeared as a voice actor in the children's film Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, and the following year he switched things up by starring in adult comedy flick The Happytime Murders.
Eager to return to the role of Stanley Hudson, 2020 saw Baker launch a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for Uncle Stan, a spin-off show based on his beloved character. The fundraiser easily passed its target of $300,000 (£246k), with fans clearly eager to see more of the ever-grouchy Stanley.
Despite only joining The Office in season five, Ellie Kemper became one of the show's biggest breakout stars. Her performance as ditzy receptionist Erin Hannon received widespread acclaim, with many critics hailing her as a highlight of the show's eighth season after star Steve Carell's surprise exit.
Kemper hails from a privileged background. Her family is one of the wealthiest in Missouri, and her great-great-grandfather was William Thornton Kemper, a businessman who founded the United Missouri Bank. Despite her wealthy roots, Kemper has made her own fortune thanks to her lucrative acting career. According to reports she's worth around $9 million (£7.4m).
While starring in The Office, Kemper found time to act in a string of hit comedy flicks, including Bridesmaids and 21 Jump Street. Her career continued to flourish after the show ended too. She lent her voice to several animated films, including The Secret Life of Pets, The Lego Batman Movie, and Smurfs: The Lost Village.
Her next big break came when she landed the starring role in Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which ran between 2015 and 2020. Her dazzling performance in the sitcom scored her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Outside of acting, Kemper published her first book in 2018, a comedic autobiography titled My Squirrel Days.
Brian Baumgartner played accountant Kevin Malone, one of the few supporting characters in The Office directly inspired by the original British show. Kevin is based on Keith Bishop (played by Ewen MacIntosh), with the duo sharing a distinct lack of communication and social skills.
Prior to The Office, Baumgartner had multiple blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos in TV shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Arrested Development. However, his role as Kevin remains his most famous and lucrative to date. Several reports estimate his fortune at $10 million (£8.2m), with a large chunk of it coming from his stint on the NBC comedy.
The Office has secured Baumgartner critical acclaim as well as financial success. In 2007, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Broadband Program in the Comedy Category for his role in webisode spin-off The Office: The Accountants, receiving the prize alongside his co-stars Angela Kinsey and Oscar Nunez (pictured).
Since the finale of The Office, the funnyman has further boosted his income by appearing in a string of comedy shows, including Melissa & Joey, Disjoined, and Good Behavior, to name just a few. In 2020, he hosted and executive produced An Oral History Of The Office, a Spotify podcast that featured interviews with his former co-stars. The popular star has also banked at least $1 million (£821k) from sending greetings to fans via Cameo.
The multi-talented B.J. Novak not only starred in The Office as temp Ryan Howard but also co-wrote, co-produced, and even directed episodes of the NBC sitcom. Executive producer Greg Daniels saw Novak perform at a stand-up show and immediately knew he wanted to work with him. Novak is credited with writing 15 episodes of the show, including the Writer's Guild of America-nominated Diversity Day and Local Ad.
While Novak's character Ryan Howard may have failed in his bid for fame and fortune, despite multiple business ventures and get-rich-quick schemes, Novak himself has fared far better. As a result of the show and other projects, he has a reported net worth of $10 million (£8.2m).
Outside of The Office, Novak has flexed his acting chops in a diverse range of projects, including the 2009 Tarantino flick Inglorious Basterds, 2013 period drama Saving Mr. Banks, and 2014's superhero blockbuster The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Novak also wrote, produced, and directed The Premise, an anthology series for FX that debuted in 2021. More recently, he directed and starred in the black comedy Vengeance.
It's difficult to imagine anyone other than Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly in The Office, yet in a parallel universe Angela Kinsey could have had the role. That's right: Kinsey originally auditioned to play people-pleaser Pam, but producers dismissed her because she was "a little too feisty". Any disappointment she had was short-lived, however, as she was asked back to try out for Angela Martin.
Despite having had only a few roles before The Office, Kinsey's turn as the acerbic, cat-loving accountant Angela made her a star. Her breakout role set her up for a long and lucrative career, and her current net worth is estimated at $12 million (£9.8m).
Kinsey has found success in several shows since The Office ended. In 2020, she appeared in the Netflix comedy series BlackAF and also hosted the cookery contest Be Our Chef on Disney+. She has a recurring role on Netflix's Never Have I Ever, a comedy-drama series co-created by her former co-star Mindy Kaling.
Kinsey is no stranger to collaborating with her former cast members, and has co-hosted the podcast Office Ladies alongside Jenna Fischer (pictured) since 2019. The show deconstructs episodes of The Office and provides juicy behind-the-scenes gossip and intel to diehard fans. Kinsey and Fischer recently released a book together entitled Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There.
Paul Lieberstein played hapless HR rep Toby Flenderson in The Office, but even the most avid fans may be surprised to learn he was also a writer and producer on the show. In fact, he started out solely as a writer before being persuaded to perform by the show's executive producer Greg Daniels. With no prior acting experience, Lieberstein once admitted that Steve Carell's crazy improv during scenes frequently threw him off.
Lieberstein had some success as a writer before The Office, although he was actually fired from his first writing job on the Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All in the 1990s. A few years later, he began working on the animated sitcom King of the Hill alongside Daniels, who also happened to be his brother-in-law. Thanks to The Office, Lieberstein's career soared to new heights, and he now has a reported net worth of $14 million (£12.2m).
After The Office ended, Lieberstein bagged minor acting roles on the small screen, including a guest appearance on The Mindy Project, the series created by his former Office co-star Mindy Kaling. However, Lieberstein has largely left acting behind, focusing instead on writing, directing, and producing.
Between 2013 and 2014, he directed three episodes of The Mindy Project, as well as episodes of political drama The Newsroom. He wrote and directed the 2018 comedy flick Song of Back and Neck and is also credited with producing four episodes of Space Force, which starred another former Office buddy, Steve Carell. Most recently, he wrote, directed and produced the 2022 TV comedy movie Out of Office.
It's almost as if Rainn Wilson was born to play militant paper salesman Dwight Schrute, yet the actor first auditioned for the role of office boss Michael Scott. Wilson described the audition as "awful", admitting that he just did a "Ricky Gervais impersonation". Gervais played David Brent, the counterpart of Scott in the UK version of the show.
Wilson had a lot to live up to after being cast in the role of Dwight, who was based on the UK version's fan-favourite Gareth Keenan (played by Pirates of the Caribbean star Mackenzie Crook). However, Wilson made the part his own and even earned three Emmy nominations for his iconic performance. Today, it’s reported the actor has a net worth of $14 million (£11.5m).
Before finding stardom on The Office, Wilson had already sunk his teeth into various acting roles, including the 2000 comedy Almost Famous, fantasy TV series Charmed, and the 2003 horror movie House of 1000 Corpses. He continued to demonstrate his diverse acting skills after The Office ended, starring in everything from horror movies to action films, as well as the Star Trek: Discovery TV series in 2017.
Now an established climate activist, Wilson participated in the COP26 summit in Scotland in 2021. He helped scientists transport a four-tonne iceberg, along with 1,000 litres of glacial meltwater, from Greenland to Glasgow, and delivered a virtual speech. In 2022, the actor "changed" his name to Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson in a call for urgent action to fight climate change.
While trying to make it as an actress, Jenna Fischer worked as a receptionist in LA. She channelled the experience in her audition for The Office and ended up landing the part of receptionist Pam Beesly. Although Fischer had been a struggling actress before her role in the NBC sitcom, her nine-series stint as Pam delivered fame and fortune.
Her estimated wealth today stands at a cool $16 million (£13.1m). According to reports, Fischer was paid $20,000 (£16.4k) per episode in the early days of The Office, with this figure jumping to $100,000 (£82k) per episode in later seasons.
Fischer's acting prowess didn't go unnoticed, and she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007. Film studios were also eager to snap her up, and she appeared in a string of silver screen comedies, including 2007's Blades of Glory, 2008's The Promotion, and 2011's Hall Pass.
Fischer has continued to perform in film and television since the finale of The Office. She appeared in The 15:17 to Paris in 2018, directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, while her TV credits include the comedies Drunk History and Splitting Up Together. As previously mentioned, she also co-hosts the Office Ladies podcast with Angela Kinsey, and the duo recently released a book together.
Ed Helms’s character – acapella singing salesman Andy Bernard – may have only joined The Office in season three, yet it’s almost impossible to imagine the show without him. Yet another Office alum to audition for a different role, Helms originally wanted to play Jim Halpert. A fan of the UK show, he'd also previously worked with Steve Carell on satirical news show The Daily Show.
Although he didn’t bag the coveted role of Jim, the producers did invite him back two seasons later. Andy was only supposed to appear in a few episodes but became a firm fan favourite, with Helms staying on the show until its conclusion. The comedian has enjoyed a successful acting career and has a reported net worth today of $25 million (£20.5m).
Outside of The Office, the actor is most famous for his role in the 2009 comedy blockbuster The Hangover and its two sequels. He's now a comedy heavyweight, having acted in a string of other funny flicks, including 2017's Father Figures, 2018's Tag, and 2020's Coffee and Kareem.
Like his character in The Office, Helms has a passion for music. The multi-talented musician is a member of the bluegrass band The Lonesome Trio, which he formed with friends while in college. If that sounds familiar, it's because Andy Bernard was inspired by none other than... Ed Helms. He's pictured here with his Hangover co-stars.
Mindy Kaling rose to prominence in The Office as Kelly Kapoor, a vapid customer service rep. The actress also served as a writer and director on the show and has received numerous awards and nominations for her work. Ambitious Kaling was just 24 years old when she was hired for The Office. At the time she was the only female writer on the team.
Before The Office, Kaling's filmography was sparse, with a fleeting part in the comedy flick The 40-Year-Old Virgin one of her only credits. Kaling is now a bonafide superstar, with a reported net worth of $35 million (£28.7m) thanks to the NBC sitcom and her other acting and writing projects.
Following The Office, Kaling wrote, produced, and starred in Fox's hit comedy series The Mindy Project, which ran from 2012 to 2017. She went on to create another NBC sitcom, Champions, in 2018, as well as Never Have I Ever, a comedy-drama original on Netflix.
In addition to writing and producing, Kaling has starred in other people's work too, including Ocean's 8 and A Wrinkle In Time in 2018. She's also lent her voice to several children's films, including Despicable Me, Wreck-It Ralph, and Inside Out.
John Krasinski made the part of paper salesman Jim Halpert his own – yet an awkward audition blunder almost cost the actor his dream role. A big fan of the UK original, he remarked to the person sitting next to him at his audition that he hoped American producers wouldn't "screw it up". It turns out the man beside him was none other than the show's executive producer Greg Daniels. Crippled with embarrassment, Krasinski tried to leave; luckily his manager convinced him to stay.
Interestingly, Krasinki's management originally had him audition for the role of Dwight, but the actor thought he would be a better fit for Jim, who was inspired by the UK show's Tim Canterbury (played by The Hobbit star Martin Freeman). Krasinski was right and according to reports he was making a cool $100,000 (£82k) per episode by season four. He currently has an estimated net worth of $80 million (£65.7m).
While still starring in The Office, Krasinski found the time to star in a string of comedy flicks, including 2007's License to Wed and 2011's Something Borrowed. Since the show's finale, he's transitioned from a comedy dork to a bonafide Hollywood hunk and currently plays the lead role in Amazon Prime's Jack Ryan series.
The multi-talented Krasinski co-wrote, directed, and starred in the acclaimed horror-thriller A Quiet Place and its sequel, which also starred his wife Emily Blunt (pictured). Recently, he starred as Mister Fantastic in the 2022 Marvel blockbuster Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
The casting of inept office boss Michael Scott – based on Ricky Gervais's iconic David Brent character – had to be perfect. More than 35 actors, including Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, and Stephen Colbert, were considered for the part before it was finally offered to Steve Carell, who had previously starred in The Daily Show, Bruce Almighty, and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
Carell's performance earned him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006. In addition to a multitude of critical accolades, he also made a fortune. According to reports, he was earning a cool $175,000 (£144k) per episode by the third season. By the time he left in season seven, the figure had risen to $300,000 (£246k).
Carell was in such high demand during his time on The Office that producers had to give him flexible working hours to allow him to star in comedies such as Evan Almighty, Knocked Up, and Date Night. Like many of his co-stars, Carrell also lent his voice to various children's films, including Horton Hears a Who! and Despicable Me. Following his departure from The Office in 2011, Carell's comedy career flourished, with his extensive filmography including Crazy, Stupid, Love in 2011, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues in 2013, and Vice in 2018.
Carell has continued to act on both the small screen and silver screen, with roles in Apple TV's The Morning Show and Netflix's Space Force, which he also created and produced. In 2021, his net worth was estimated at $80 million (£65.7m), though it's likely much higher now. Variety named him one of the highest-paid actors of 2022, having earned $12.5 million (£10.3m) for his voice role in Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The Office wouldn't exist without comedy legend Ricky Gervais. Fact. The show was created by Gervais and Stephen Merchant and first aired on the BBC in 2001. Gervais won several awards for his role as David Brent, including a Golden Globe for Best Comedy Actor. In 2004, The Office also bagged a Golden Globe for Best Comedy Television Series.
Even though the British version of the show ran for just two seasons, its relatable premise led to spin-offs in countries and territories around the world, including Sweden, France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil, and the US. Gervais rose to international stardom as a result, and with a reported net worth of $160 million (£131.3m), he's currently one of the wealthiest comedians in the business.
Gervais and Merchant both worked as producers on the American version of The Office and even co-wrote an episode for season three, The Convict, which featured the iconic 'Prison Mike' character. The duo continued to collaborate on other comedy projects, including 2005's Extras, 2011's Life's Too Short, and documentary series An Idiot Abroad. The success of The Office helped Gervais transition from the small screen to the silver screen, and over the years he's appeared in Hollywood blockbusters such as 2006's Night at the Museum and 2007's Stardust.
In 2020, Gervais hosted the 77th Golden Globe Awards (pictured), although his brand of humour didn't go down well with everyone. Between 2019 and 2022 he created, wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Netflix series Afterlife. His most recent project was a voice role in family flick Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank.
Now discover which of these 1980s stars is richest today