On Sept. 24, actors Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, and Ramona Young participated in a roundtable on Zoom. All three of them star in “The Paper,” a brand-new workplace comedy that serves as a spin-off of “The Office” now streaming on Peacock. On the heels of its season two renewal, reporters from college newspapers across the country were invited to spend half an hour with the cast discussing “The Office,” journalism today, and the process of mastering “fake working” for the mockumentary series. 

First, some background. “The Paper” starts out by distancing itself from “The Office,” the extremely popular 2000s workplace comedy about the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of a paper company, Dunder Mifflin. The opening scene reveals that Dunder Mifflin closed in 2019 and was purchased by a company in Toledo, Ohio. “The Paper” takes place there today, where the titular newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller, has been downsized to occupy only one half of a single office floor. The other half is occupied by a toilet paper company that far outsells the Truth Teller. 

The first topic of conversation with the actors was, unsurprisingly, “The Office,” since it is the principal reason why many audience members have taken an interest in the new show. The parallels are clear: “The Paper” shares the same showrunner, writer, director, and creator of “The Office”: Greg Daniels.

Michael Scott, the famous regional manager from “The Office,” also has a spiritual successor in the principal character of Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson). Sampson is the Truth Teller’s brand-new Editor-in-Chief, and he wants to reinvigorate the paper by returning it to its roots as a local newspaper covering current events, community happenings, and school issues. To do so, he inspires various employees within the office to venture into the field, to research, and to write articles. For example, in one episode, a journalist returns to the local high school to settle a grudge with her drama teacher upon his retirement.

That journalist is one of the three actors in the interview, all of whom play journalists in the show. This includes Chelsea Frei, who stars in a leading role as Mare Pritti, a military veteran and eventual love interest of Ned Sampson. She joined the Zoom and was enthusiastic to participate, discussing the research she had done on journalists in the Pacific Palisades. 

Ramona Young hilariously portrays Nicole Lee, another employee of the Truth Teller, who tends to go with the flow. Young causes some of the biggest laughs of the show with her perfect facial expressions and timely reactions. Melvin Gregg plays Detrick Moore, an employee working in advertising who is hopelessly enamored with Young’s character. Gregg sat in the center of the trio, providing an anchoring presence to the interview with direct and confident answers. Young tended to let the other two answer first, but provided many well-thought out responses. 

Despite the link between this show and “The Office,” when asked about looking back for inspiration from “The Office,” the actors insisted that “The Paper” stood on its own. 

“I feel as though those characters were perfect, in their own right. And to try to emulate that would be a disservice to myself and to those characters. So I just tried to erase any knowledge or memory of those in creating my character,” Gregg said. “I didn’t look at it, like, ‘Oh, we have to make the new “Office.”’ I don’t want people to look at it like it’s a new ‘Office.’ Like, ‘The Office’ still exists.”

Frei agreed, adding that while she was a fan of “The Office,” she wanted to keep the two series distinct. 

“I am the biggest ‘Office’ fan ever, so I was very nervous and it did kind of overwhelm me a little bit when I was auditioning,” Frei said. “I used to watch ‘The Office’ every night before I went to bed, and I stopped the minute I got the part. … You have to let it go at a certain point, because we have a job to do.” 

Like “The Office,” “The Paper” takes place almost entirely in just one workspace: the office of the Toledo Truth Teller. Due to the limited number of locations, multiple cameras are often used at once. 

“You would never know, really, when a camera was on you, so you just had to be in that role the entire time,” Young said, “because there was less time used to set up, like switching cameras, taking down the set, we got to do a lot of takes. Most of it was really on-script, but a lot of the directors would give us time to do a fun take or play around with it.”

The actors indicated that they grew comfortable in the environment and have started to adapt to the mockumentary style — a kind of show which attempts to replicate a nonfiction show by having a fake documentary crew film the sequences of the show. 

“It kind of got to the place where we were going to work every day like a normal job,” Frei said.

This entailed a different style of performance from the actors.

“I try to just exist in a space as natural as possible,” Gregg said. “I try not to force a response or a reaction because it feels inauthentic. I just want to be a guy that exists in this space. … If they say something super outrageous, I might look up. … I’m not looking to find moments, or meme-able moments.”

The characters of the show are often performing their in-show jobs in the background of scenes, usually on their computers. One actor, though, had extensive experience with pretend-working: Oscar Nuñez, a veteran actor who portrayed the same character of Oscar Martinez in “The Office” and in “The Paper” on set.

“We also got to learn from the best, which is Oscar. He has perfected fake working for over 20 years, so he was very good at teaching us. It honestly is its own skill. Because it can get,” Young interrupted, “boring,” before Frei continued: “and like some of our computers worked and some didn’t. If you watch him throughout, it’s a masterclass in fake working.” 

Over the course of filming, each of the actors developed their own methods for convincingly fake working.

“Oscar’s playing a word game, Chelsea’s very good at solitaire now,” Young said. Frei jumped in to praise her own solitaire skills: “Disgustingly good, like I should enter a competition!” 

The actors also discussed how important it was for them to be making a show about journalism in today’s media landscape. Frei started the discussion by talking about a local paper in L.A – the  Palisidian Post. 

“I think [journalism] only gets more important [over time]. My parents had just bought a condo in the Pacific Palisades when the [L.A.] fires happened. It was impossible to get information about what was going on. And, truly, this is no joke, not online, not on TikTok, Twitter, anything, [but] we would get the Palisidan Post delivered to my house and I would read out to my parents: ‘This road is open, this one isn’t.’ … [I]nformation gets lost online, or is false and it can sometimes be so good just to go to the people in the town.”

“It’s nice that [the creators] Greg Daniels and Michael Koman have a passion for the old-school newspaper and the integrity of that,” said Young, agreeing that the show is essential for today. 

Frei noted that “It was important to talk to people at the local journalism level and know how hard their job is, and how it’s this uphill battle. And how, honestly, it’s becoming increasingly more important.” 

Frei finished: “I think that’s what I’m so proud of with our show is that it kind of shines a light on [local journalism]. And also shows the hope and optimism that we find in that.” 

All episodes of “The Paper” are streaming on Peacock now.