Earlier this fall “The Paper” premiered on Peacock. The show, a tangential spinoff of hit 2005 sitcom “The Office” begins streaming on NBC at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 10.
“The Paper” takes a similar style of mockumentary filmmaking to “The Office,” and follows the same camera crew as they document a dwindling Midwestern newspaper. As a Midwestern journalist and someone who watched “The Office” growing up, I was excited to see this show from the moment it was announced.
The show does an impressive job of distinguishing itself from “The Office,” only tying them together with a hamfisted opening scene that reveals the former office no longer hosts Dunder Mifflin. Accountant Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nuñez) does return, a fun addition to the cast considering his past experience with the documentary crew.
As a journalist, the narrative of “The Paper” has its appeals. The attempts of Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mari Pritti (Chelsea Frei) to turn around the struggling Toledo Truth Teller are based in the real-world media ecosystem, and the plots of especially the first two episodes “Pilot” and “The Five W’s” lean heavily on core ideas of journalism.
When asked how she prepared for her role as a journalist, Frei said she explored her character’s background as a military reporter by reading lots of Stars and Stripes. On the other hand, Melvin Gregg said the biggest thing he learned in his role as Detrick Moore was that as a journalist “you can take bribes.”
These comments came as a part of a college media roundtable, where I got to ask Frei, Gregg and Ramona Young a few questions about their characters.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: In the show, you guys all have romance plots. What is it like being involved in that side of the story?
Melvin: I enjoy it. You have a scene partner, you know what you want. It’s that definite ‘this is what I’m going after,’ and you understand the stakes. But it's so dependent on the other person too. It was probably my favorite part of the show, being able to do our scenes together, because the stakes were so high for my character.
Ramona: It’s really nice working with actors that you admire performance-wise and talent-wise. It makes your scenes a lot better. When you play a love dynamic, or even a hate dynamic, it’s nice to have actors that you trust, that you feel safe around, that you can really act and be vulnerable around.
Q: One of my favorite scenes in the show is when you’re trying all those products and throwing up in the bathroom. What was it like shooting that scene?
Melvin: It was one of my favorite scenes. Haha nah. It was a fun scene to shoot — from my perspective. I don’t know about Ramona, but I had to really dig deep and pull something out that I didn’t know I had and share it with Ramona. I think it was a pleasant experience for both of us — if I could speak for both of us.
Ramona: I will have to disagree on that slightly. Being the person that got thrown up on, I would say that Melvin enjoyed throwing up on me and messing up and doing little dribbles, the director making him have to throw up on me more. On one take it went down the side of my face and into my eye, and it was nasty. But you know what? Melvin’s a great acting partner — I’ll give him that.
Melvin: Thank you. We gotta commit to those scenes. When I see throw up dripping down the side of her face I have to stay in the scene because my character’s sick. So I can’t be like ‘I’m sorry Ramona.’ I just have to keep doing it because that's what would naturally happen.
Oliver Gerharz is the arts editor and former podcast director for the Daily Cardinal. He is a journalism major and former host of the Cardinal Call. Follow him on Twitter @OliverGerharz.
