'Office' exec 'hoped Carell would stay'

The Office's executive producer Greg Daniels has admitted that he wanted Steve Carell to stay on the series.

Carell, who plays Michael Scott, has announced that he will leave the show next year at the end of the seventh season.

"We held out a lot of hope at the beginning of the year, when it was first coming out that [Steve] might leave," Daniels told Entertainment Weekly. "We didn't comment on it at the time because we were making a last-ditch effort."

However, Daniels admitted that he does not expect Carell to change his mind.

"Steve doesn't play a lot of games," he explained. "He said that he wants to [leave] and he's doing it in a very classy, typical-Steve fashion. I'm 100% confident it's not some kind of ploy. He gave us plenty of lead time to really construct a great exit for him as well as a great ongoing storyline for other people."

Carell's final season of The Office will begin on September 23 on NBC.