The Paper Interviews #1 with Domhnall Gleeson

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Hello.

Hi there.

Welcome to a very special Friday episode of Office Ladies.

It is Friday, but it is not Friday chitchat.

It's a little something different.

You all know that the long-awaited, much-anticipated television show, The Paper, is premiering on Peacock, September 4th.

And as you also know, we got exclusive access to the set.

You know, there are going to be 10 episodes of the paper.

I think we visited somewhere around episode 8.

And we brought along our portable microphone and we got interviews with several cast members.

We weren't able to interview everyone, unfortunately, because people were in scenes.

So we were pulling people in and out of scenes, but we did get to talk to a lot of folks.

So in anticipation of the premiere next month, we are going to start dropping those cast interviews every Friday.

So today, we are going to get to hear from Donald Gleason.

You might know him from his movies Ex Machina or as General Hux in Star Wars Rise of the Resistance.

He also starred in the the miniseries The Patient with Steve Corell and the movie Fountain of Youth with John Krasinski.

This is such a fun interview.

He talks all about his character on the paper and his experience shooting the show.

We were so tickled to meet him.

Oh my gosh.

Okay.

The other thing we wanted to let y'all know is that we only had one microphone.

So you might hear us passing our single microphone back and forth a little, but our friends at Odyssey did a great job cleaning up the sound.

You know, we really did this with that sort of man on the street style feel.

We were like on the fly reporters.

Yes.

With our one microphone.

Well, we are just so excited to finally get to share these with you.

And very soon, Greg said we could get an early access sneak peek of the show.

They are going to send us a screener for the paper.

I know.

That's right.

We're going to watch it and do a breakdown of the pilot episode.

So be on the lookout for that too.

But now, here's our chat with Donald Gleason.

All right, hello.

Will you please tell us your name and your character name?

My name is Donald Gleason, and I'm playing Ned Sampson in the paper.

Can you tell us a little bit about your character and what your role is in the world of the paper?

Sure.

So Ned, as the series begins, is arriving at the paper.

So the first day that the documentary crew arrive at the paper is Ned's first day on the job, and he is arriving to be the new editor-in-chief of the paper.

He is very low on experience, but high

on intensity and

intention and hope.

He's quite an optimistic person.

And he arrives into a place that's not all that enthused about being a paper.

And he wants to make it something special.

That's his idea.

What is his relationship to the documentary being done?

I think he likes the notion that the documentary crew are around because it means if there are good moments, they're there for posterity.

And if there are bad moments, I think it probably heightens his awareness of

how bad it feels.

We always ask everyone how they got their job, like on the office, their sort of audition story.

Can you share with us how you got your job on the paper?

It was great.

They sent me the first script and

I asked if I wanted a chat and I said sure.

And I talked to them for I think 20 minutes and

I think I thought maybe they were sort of interviewing me.

And then when I was chatting to them, it felt more like they thought I was interviewing them.

It felt like funny that way.

And then they offered me their part.

It was great.

What over these 10 episodes can you share with us that, I don't know, any moments, any uh storylines that you've enjoyed or have been a challenge anything at all well i i think i think we're kind of doing a

i think his relationship to the paper is the most important thing i think in a way

he's got a lot of romance about what it is to be a part of a paper and what it should be despite overwhelming odds and the fact that the newspaper industry on the most part is dying.

So trying to like

do something that's where he can still be hopeful and still be intelligent in some ways, and yet enough to undercut it and find the humor in all of that.

I think that's been the journey.

On the office,

we were encouraged to do improvisation, we were encouraged to pitch ideas to the writers.

Is it that same kind of environment here?

I mean, it feels like we're only 10 episodes, right?

For the first season, and they're pretty.

The office was

almost secretly plotted.

When you watch episodes of The Office, they don't feel like plot heavy or story heavy.

They feel very character driven.

Even though there is a lot of story holding all that up.

On this one, I think there's almost like a lot of the time it's the story of the week in terms of they're chasing down a particular story or whatever like that.

So actually, there's quite a lot of

story points to get across in every scene.

So I think that the improv,

it's really fun when we get to do it, but actually,

there's a load of information that needs to come out in every scene.

And so I think it feels so far the tracks might be a little bit more set.

Maybe that's more for Ned, I think, for my character than for other people because he's trying to push that stuff forward.

But I could be wrong on that.

I'm not sure.

No, I get that.

My character usually had something very specific she had to give to the scene.

And so if I ever got an improv in, it would be at the very top or the very end when I was already done giving information.

And I think some characters, that's that's their role: they come in, they have a purpose, and then they don't hang out as much.

Mine did.

I know your is a bigger role, but I still got very excited when one or two would make it in.

I mean, I feel like we improvised a lot, and a lot of that

improvisation never saw the light of day.

So there was, there, but there was just that feeling of fun.

Spontaneity.

Yes, that then would seep seep into the scripted work

because we would play around at the top or play around at the bottom of the scene.

It would help us get loose.

I think that's the ideal scenario as well.

But it's also like, it's also the schedule, man, like is full on.

And so we're squishing a lot, you know, they're 42-page scripts, you know, so it's like we're getting a lot or can be.

between 38 and 42 for the most part.

And

I know it's similar for everybody, but like there's a lot, just in a day, there's a lot to get through.

So my favorite days are the the days where like the dynamic of the scene is clear from the top and you can play in that sort of sound.

Like that's where you know where you are and then you can really bounce things around or group scenes.

There's a lot of that.

And then yeah, it just depends on the scene.

But I'm also just still getting to know it.

It's a new process for me.

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What is your background as an actor?

Can you tell us a little bit about your training and all that?

My training I can tell you about very quickly because I have none.

But

my father is an actor and

I like fell into it in that really lucky way that is unfair, basically.

But

I read a script by Martin McDonough when I was like 19.

His agent sent me a script and I did that.

So I auditioned for it and got the part and did that in London and in the West End and then went to Broadway once I was done with college.

Can you say the name of the play?

Yeah, it was called The Lieutenant Diminish Moore and it was like a lot of Tony nominations and it was a very successful play.

And then after that took a big dip in terms of I think that quality of written work is so rare that actually

I wasn't built to make the most out of scripts that weren't that great after that because I was spoiled.

And so, yeah, so then things slowed down and then slowly built back up.

And then I started doing more movies and stuff like that.

And that's been great.

I've been very, like, incredibly lucky.

I can't believe that your first job in the business was a Martin McDonough play in the West End.

I just need you to repeat that for me one more time.

It was that.

So, and actually, I don't think I would be an actor if I hadn't read that.

That script was the funniest thing I'd ever read, which is insane.

So, I just read it all the time for fun.

I was getting ready for an audition, but when I read it, I was like, imagine being able to do that.

That is the funniest thing I've ever read.

It was a very dark comedy about

the IRA in Ireland, like about terrorism.

So as dark a subject matter as you can get, basically.

And yet it was the funniest, most punk rock thing I'd ever read.

It was fantastic.

I love that play.

I love him as a writer.

I saw a production of it, not with you, unfortunately.

I wish I I had, but it is, that's pretty freaking cool that that was your first acting role.

Yeah, the last scene in that play is me and another character

cutting up the bodies of everybody else who's been in the play up to that point.

It's a very bloody ending.

The lights come up and just it's body parts everywhere.

And we're like literally cutting bodies up, which is incredibly grisly, but it is, I've never still have not heard a reaction from an audience like it.

When the lights would come up, it was like gasps and people saying, holy shit.

And what like people, like, it didn't feel like

what i knew what i thought the theater was it felt so vital and so funny and um yeah love martin would you would you like to do more theater

i've i've kept it up over the years but i'd say once every sort of three or four years so the last two plays i did were by another genius of irish player i think called endo walsh one of those was a big farce and one of those was an absolute

still very funny moment in a bit of real tragedy uh he's another genius So, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I like doing theater, but once every three or four years, then it works.

Do you have sort of a dark sense of humor if you're sort of drawn to that?

Because I know I love dark comedy, but is that something like you particularly like yourself?

Most certainly.

I would say that's probably where most of my, yeah, that's what I would laugh at most.

And that's funny then, because Ned in this is not a dark character at all.

He's very optimistic and all that.

So it's actually coming from

a different place, which is, which is, again, really falling.

This is a question, and I don't know if it applies to this story because we don't know much about it, but we would do so many scenes in a conference room, and we would be there all day for five days in a tiny room.

And you get punchy, you start to overshare.

And do you have in this show, is there a space where you all gather?

Well, we have our own sort of conference room, sort of a setup.

And anytime when we are there, that's where we'll kind of hang out in between but actually

i think our set is our set bigger than your set

much much bigger so there's not quite the same thing of being on top of each other there's a lot of kind of but like yeah so you end up with sort of uh groups chatting depending on who's in and actually as it's gone along there are not lots of days where everybody's in at the same time i mean there might be one day a week when everybody's in at the same time for the most part we're kind of spread out and slightly separate storylines but yeah it's it's such a lovely group it's very nice to hang out when we've time

Do you have to do a lot of background work for other people's scenes?

Like, do you have to sit at your desk a lot and just kind of be busy?

So

yes, it certainly happens, but my

desk is, or my office is over in the corner and it's hidden away from a lot of the bullpen.

So you could be passing through stuff or you could be there in the background of certain shots.

But yeah, everybody does background work for everybody else.

But my character tends to be on or off.

There's not a lot of middle territory.

You're so lucky.

When you saw that desk, were you just so pleased?

You're like, oh, sweet.

I'm not going to be in the background of half the day.

Depending which way they're shooting.

Yeah, I mean, you know, they're still like, you know, you're in.

I mean, yeah, I'm in most of the time.

So yeah, yeah.

I know.

I would think, oh, I'm not in this scene.

I'm tiny.

I'm behind the partition.

No one's going to see me.

And they'd be like, Angela's Angela's at the copier.

I'm like, again, like, how many times is my character at the copier?

I remember talking to Will Arnett about arrested development.

And he said that had a really big cast.

And if you watch later seasons of arrested development, he said, you'll see that like five of us are all stacked in a line because we didn't want to have to do more than like two.

setups of coverage.

He's like, so later seasons of arrested development, we realized our days could be shorter if we all just bunch up in a line and talk to the other character.

So it'll be like all of the children.

Rather, they used to spread out around the room, but then they'd have to cover it.

And he was like, we shaved a good three, four hours off our days.

Yeah.

Like everyone's singing the national anthem.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny.

Yeah.

No, there's definitely, yeah, there's definitely days like that on this, but it's, um, I think we all knew, like, you know, like Greg

did your show.

Like, we all knew the deal.

Like you're kind of signing up for an office job.

You're kind of signing up for office hours when you sign up for the job.

That's just, that's just part of it.

So I don't mind, you know.

And also you're signing up for last-minute script changes, last-minute scripts.

We would get scripts and we'd have a table read and we think that's what we're shooting.

And I'd start to memorize my lines.

And then in hair and makeup, they'd hand me a different scene.

Or some weeks we would start the week with a few scenes and get the full script on Wednesday.

Bonkers.

But that's the madness of it.

But also, I think the genius of Greg, too.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I think for the most part, we get our script the Saturday before we should start on the Monday.

So that's the weekend.

What you do is prepare for the week, and then there's changes that kind of come along as we go.

But like, it changes all the time.

And again, I think there's

the whole process is new.

It's new for Greg, you know, because it's him and Coman making it now and a whole new cast of characters and stuff like that so it's all i think we're just finding our way and finding what makes the show tick you know well we can't wait to see it i'm so excited this has been so wonderful thank you for taking your time out of your day and we're really big fans we're trying to like be cool but i don't know how i'm really being cool because you're just uh you're just really an amazing talent and so thank you for letting us talk to you uh i don't deal well with compliments but that was incredibly nice of you um i uh you're both wonderful and your show is wonderful.

And it feels

so dumb in a way to be doing a show that has anything to do with that because you did your show so well and so beautifully.

And hopefully we'll make something different enough that people will be able to kind of treat it as its own thing.

Because otherwise, there's no winning.

You know what I mean?

Like what you did was absolutely incredible.

So yeah, thank you for having me on the show too.

Thank you so much.

So fun.

I loved his story about when he first met with Greg and Michael, how he said at one point they weren't sure who was interviewing who.

Yes, that was very funny.

And I just loved geeking out with him over theater.

I know you did.

I still can't believe that story.

I mean, that's wild.

Okay, everyone, we hope you enjoyed that.

Please join us next Friday for our interview with Chelsea Fry.

Thank you for listening to Office Ladies.

Office Ladies is a presentation of Odyssey and is produced by Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey.

Our executive producer is Cassie Jerkins.

Our audio engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubico.

Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis.

Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill Schultz.

Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton.

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And you're going to love their Boarshead Sweet Bees Honey Barbecue Glazed Chicken Breast.

It's honey drizzled and barbecue sizzled.

It's got all the things.

It's so good.

I love some barbecue.

And are you ready for this?

It is slow-roasted and crafted with layers of proprietary glaze and a zesty dry rub, then infused with the delicate sweet wildflower honey.

Boar's head, sweet bees, honey barbecue, glaze, chicken breast.

It is perfectly balanced.

It is all the flavors you want.

Barbecue and real hickory smoke.

You can get it sliced fresh at the deli.

Do you hear how excited I am about it?

Get me that sandwich right now.

I love it.

And it's made with wildflower honey, which just gives you that little bit of sweetness.

And then you've got barbecue, you've got some smoked paprika, some garlic powder.

Come on, get me to the deli counter.

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