The Workplace has been off the air for greater than a decade now, however we’re about to return to that wild and totally ridiculous world with Peacock’s new spinoff The Paper quickly touchdown on the 2025 TV premiere schedule. The brand new comedy collection, which options the identical documentary crew from the Dunder Mifflin following a Toledo, Ohio, newspaper, contains a number of callbacks and staples from one among NBC’s greatest sitcoms, together with the enduring Jim Halpert “stare.”
I lately sat down with the brand new stars of The Paper to speak concerning the upcoming collection, and through our chat, I made certain to ask if that they had any recommendation for pulling off that traditional “stare.” Chelsea Frei, who takes on the position of Toledo Fact Teller journalist Mare Pritti, informed me that whereas she was “afraid of these stares,” she figured one thing out:
I believe the principle factor, and it took me, and I believe everybody, a minute to seek out, is how a lot you really wish to have a look at the digicam. I believe at first, I used to be in all probability doing it an excessive amount of. You study the steadiness of when your character can be speaking to the digicam crew and after they would not. That sort of progressed because the season went on, and likewise as I acquired extra comfy with my character and what she would wish to share with the digicam, and perhaps what she’d wish to preserve to herself.
Frei, who grew up watching John Krasinski pull off a number of the best-timed appears into the digicam in TV historical past, didn’t wish to take all of the credit score after I complimented her on her timing. As a substitute, she mentioned it was a group effort:
I believe it is about what the opposite individual does. To me, it was all the time like, as a result of I felt prefer it was lots of the time I used to be doing a stare to the digicam after one thing insane [pointing to co-star Sabrina Impacciatore] you probably did. I all the time discovered that the snort comes from her. It is like a layup. It is just like the snort comes from you, however then I get it as a result of it lands on my response. I all the time discover that it wants to return from someone doing one thing extremely genuine to their character that makes you’re feeling a sure manner.
Fortunately for Frei and everybody who’ll quickly have the ability to watch with a Peacock subscription, Sabrina Impacciatore knew her project whereas portraying Toledo Fact Teller’s over-the-top and completely fabulous managing editor, Esmeralda Grand. The White Lotus Season 2 standout opened up in our chat about how each she and her character approached the documentary crew:
I believed perhaps Esmeralda simply desires to turn into a star, and he or she’s going to make use of the digicam to seduce a potential viewers. That concept to me was a key to take a look at the digicam generally, it was a key to determine how Esmeralda was presupposed to have her hair performed. . . . That was principally my relationship with the digicam. Then, generally if [Domhnall Gleeson’s Ned Sampson] was doing one thing that Esmeralda would contemplate insufferable, she would have a look at the digicam, commenting like ‘Are you able to imagine what he mentioned?’ or ‘What’s he doing?’
As you will notice as The Paper goes on, Esmeralda has a knack for making life tough for Domnhall Gleeson’s Toledo Fact Teller editor-in-chief. I gained’t give something away, nevertheless it results in a number of the funniest and most absurd interactions the present has to supply.
The Paper debuts on Peacock on September 4, 2025, with all 10 episodes dropping directly.