Fan-Favorite 'Office' Star Discusses Surprise Cast Member Reunion (Exclusive)

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Fan-Favorite 'Office' Star Discusses Surprise Cast Member Reunion (Exclusive) originally appeared on Parade.

Creed Bratton has been incredibly busy lately. In the 12 years since The Office ended, the actor/musician has been hard at work pursuing various other ventures, including an upcoming music tour in the South Pacific, his tenth studio album (Tao Pop) and several different movie and television projects for networks and studios like A24 and HBO Max.

More recently, Bratton has also made headlines for reuniting with his former Office cast members in a new AT&T Business advertisement. Working alongside Craig Robinson, Oscar Nuñez, Ellie Kemper and Angela Kinsey, Bratton humorously reprises his role as his off-kilter TV alter ego from the original NBC series: the fan-favorite Quality Assurance representative who quickly became one of the show's most popular breakout characters.

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Recently, Parade managed to speak with Bratton in an exclusive interview, discussing the unconventional casting process that landed him a role in The Office, as well as his thoughts about reuniting with his longtime Office co-stars.

How exactly did you find yourself cast in The Office? As I understand it, it’s kind of an interesting story?

I had worked on The Bernie Mac Show and Ken Kwapis came on – our director who did many, many episodes of the first season of The Office. It was called The Office: An American Workplace at the time. He was a big Grass Roots fan and he found me funny, and I found out through the first AD, my friend Joe Moore, that he was going to do the pilot. I loved the Ricky Gervais show, so I did something you never do. I called him up and said, “Is there any way I can possibly come and get on the show?”

He spoke to [TheOffice developer] Greg Daniels, they said they were cast, [but] we’ll put you in the background and we’ll try to work you into the mix. I was there, working for a few weeks. I loved the cast, I thought they were extremely talented and I thought Greg Daniels was a genius – which he is. So I wrote my own part, I circumvented the whole casting process. I didn’t see Allison Jones, who cast everybody else. I didn’t tell anyone about it. I wrote out this character and created Creed – to think of myself in the third person. I created him as a drug-addled, ex-rock and roll guy who had psychic powers. And this stuff’s still out there on BuzzFeed or something like that, where you can see my audition tape. I submitted it, they said ‘“Wow!” Then they gave me my shot in [Season 1’s] “Halloween” and next [thing you know], here we are, talking.

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But I tell people all the time who say, “Oh, you got to go through the [regular casting] process,” no, not necessarily, you don’t. If your gut tells you to do something, [go with it]. I didn’t tell anybody about it. I just did it. Even my children and best friends. Because people will try to talk you out of stuff. “Oh, no, no. That’ll get them angry. Don’t do that. Blah, blah, blah.” I trusted my gut.

Did it surprise you at all, seeing how popular Creed grew to become over the course of The Office’s run?

I was “chuffed,” as the English say. I’m not going to say it didn’t please me. But then again, I had been working for a long time, and I knew people found me funny. Even at such a young age, I could make people laugh, so it was always something I could do. The thing was – well, it was kind of like doing the [recent] AT&T commercial. When we got back together, the cast members and I who worked on both commercials, it’s a synergy. A natural chemistry between all of us. It’s lightning in a bottle. You can’t plan for that stuff. You get together [with] certain people and the timing is just dovetailed, and that’s how I felt, and that’s how I feel every time I work with any members of the cast, and we all just harmoniously did our job working for the complete project, not just our own ego gratification.

And when we got back on the commercial, there was no, “Oh, gosh, are we going to find that [synergy again]?” No, it was bam, right there again.

It sounds almost like a kind of natural homecoming between you all, in a way.

Oh, gosh! Yeah, you were kind of like, “Oh, I want to see everyone.” Then you start working with everyone again, and they were just laughing and going, “Oh my God, we ought to do this some more.” I love it. I love it. That’s what I live for. Singing my songs and working on really good projects. Lucky me. And now I’m actually lucky enough to choose good projects. And they’re starting to come again too!

Circling back to the commercial, what was it like being able to play opposite Craig, Oscar, Angela and Ellie again, 12 years after The Office's finale?

First, Oscar makes me laugh so much, you know? And Ellie is just a crack up.

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I had one scene where I come driving up in my car and they’re all standing there and [Craig] says, “Here’s the ace in the hole” kind of thing with Creed, and I go [gruffly] “What are you doing here?” And I drove up and I saw their faces and I just got this big grin. I could see them standing there and I had to stay curmudgeonly, but I really wanted to go [enthusiastically] “Heyyyy, how are you guys?!” It was so great to see them. I had a ball.

I think it’s also fair to say you all kind of reprise your roles to some degree from The Office.

Yeah, we can’t be The Office, contractually. But we can certainly be a software company, making these little AI things with “CrAIgggggg.”

Well, even that whole thing, with Craig Robinson making headlines, claiming he was going to quit comedy.

It was quite a ploy, wasn’t it? The thought that he was going to spend that much money to say he was quitting. I was like, “What the hell is going on? Oh, that’s right! That’s the project we were working on.” [laughter] I’m always the last to know.

What was it like being able to once again play that exaggerated version of Creed Bratton for the commercial?

The Creed character, I always think of him as a fractured tuning fork. He’s a tuning fork that should be vibrating properly, but one of the sides of the tuning fork has a little fissure in it, so it’s a little cattywampus. He’s twitchy.

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I’m trying my best to channel Jacques Tati and Charlie Chaplin and my facial stuff in terms of people I loved during the ‘50s – George Gobel, Bob Newhart, Jack Benny. These old guys who, with one look, they could make you laugh. My mother had the ability to just turn around and give you a look that would kill you. So I had good influences as a child.

As an actor, that’s your job: to watch others’ behavior. All day long, if I’m eating or driving around, I’m watching people and I see something that, subconsciously or consciously, I file away to use later. Always. And I’m aware of that process.

Almost all of the comments on the CrAIg Robinson ad are all just so wholesome and supportive. What’s it like being part of a show with such a massive, loyal, truly avid fan base even now, all these years later?

You kind of scratch yourself. I don’t take it for granted. I wake up every morning, before I’m getting up to go get my coffee, and I go, “Lucky me. Look at how this turned out.”

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There was a period in my twenties when I was part of a really successful group. I had four gold records and was doing great things in my twenties. And then, years of studying and studying [acting], staying in class. I was still in class the week “Halloween” happened. Still doing it. Still going there and setting up a scene and working. How do you plan for something like that? You can’t. I’m just – I guess that the word is grateful. Extremely grateful.

And also, I tell the young actors, “Do the work – whether you’re going to get paid to or not – because you love it. Do the work because you love it.” And that’s what I always said, even if it was at a class and I’d memorize a scene with my acting partner, and we’d film it sometimes, and then I’d critique the work with the director and file that away – what to do, what not to do. You know when you get the line so down that the character takes over, and you’re kind of outside yourself, watching the process happen, that you know that you’re in that place.

There’s also times you can do it around friends, where you read a monologue and go, “Oh, we should’ve recorded that!” But I think the best work is when it’s not being recorded, sometimes. The muse is leary of cameras and too much publicity. It’s a pure thing.

We’ve spoken about how special it was working with Craig, Ellie, Oscar and Angela again. Does everyone from the cast still keep in touch?

I just did the Office Ladies [podcast] with Jenna [Fischer] and the lovely Angela. I love those girls. They’re kind of like daughters to me in a way. Oscar and I get sushi all the time. I see Rainn [Wilson] periodically. We get together and I’ll play music for his charity or something like that. I talk with Craig on the phone. I haven’t really seen Ellie because she’s off doing busy projects. But we all, pretty much all of us, stay in contact to some degree. Of course, there’s an Office feed where we’ll comment on stuff, all of us together.

Speaking of, The Office spinoff, The Paper, recently released its first trailer late last week. Are you planning on tuning in?

Oh, of course! Absolutely! Domnhall Gleason – I mean, Ex Machina, it’s one of my absolute favorite sci-fi movies. It was way ahead of its time with all the A.I., robotic things. It kind of eerily rings true nowadays.

Your former Office castmate Oscar Nunez is officially set to appear in the upcoming Office spin-off, The Paper. Can we expect to see a return or cameo appearance from Creed Bratton at all or is he still languishing in federal prison?

No, not that I know of, but of course I would’ve loved to do it. I got to go on [Greg Daniels’] Download. I got to play a guy whose head was blown off. [laughter]

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I had a great time talking with all of the people behind the scenes on the commercial. My son, Beau, has a company called Ricochet360, and he reiterated what AT&T does is that, if the mechanism breaks down between the business and the people who are purchasing the service, they can’t do their creativity. So their mind has to be free to know that whoever’s trusted to do the communication is taking care of it. It’s so important. And I think that’s what they’re doing, for sure. Just making sure people have trust that it’s going to be working for them, meaning the job will get done the right way. AT&T is the grease on the wheels.

Before we wrap, I have to ask: What’s your personal favorite Creed Bratton moment on the show?

It comes down to “Halloween” when I made my bones with Steve [Carell]. It was powerful and emotional. The Friday after it aired, I was at crafts service, and John [Krasinski] and Rainn saw me and came over. Both just gave me a big bear hug and said, “You knocked it out of the park.” [It was] huge. Meant so much. And of course, getting into all that silliness with the regional manager [position].

But probably number one emotionally, for me and for the fans, is me playing my guitar at the end of the finale. That song that I wrote, “All the Faces,” it’s still an emotional moment. I can think about it right now and still get emotional about it. It was a lucky, lucky ride, and we’re all still reaping the benefits of the fans still enjoying it.

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Fan-Favorite 'Office' Star Discusses Surprise Cast Member Reunion (Exclusive) first appeared on Parade on Aug 11, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 11, 2025, where it first appeared.