The Office is still regarded as one of the best sitcoms of all time (both the U.K. version from Ricky Gervais and the NBC hit starring Steve Carell that came along later), to the point where the TV show actually became more popular once it was streaming and its current home on Peacock has special “superfan” edits of some episodes. It’s been a teensy bit over 12 years since the series finale, but fans can now look forward to the 2025 TV schedule delivering the spinoff, The Paper, which will star Domhnall Gleeson. However, the actor realizes that people are already comparing his character to Michael Scott, but he thinks it’s a fool’s errand.
What Did Domhnall Gleeson Say About Fans Comparing His The Office Spinoff Character To Michael Scott?
The upcoming series (which will hit Peacock on September 18) is set in the same world as The Office and is also created, in part, by Greg Daniels, who had the same job for the 2005 U.S. version of the comedy. But, The Paper isn’t about an additional cast of characters who work at Dunder-Mifflin or any other paper company, but employees at a struggling Toledo, Ohio newspaper.
About Time star Domhnall Gleeson talked to People about the quickly approaching series, and noted that while people are already comparing his lead character, Ned Sampson, to both Steve Carell’s (who’s advocated for The Office spinoff) Michael Scott and Ricky Gervais’ David Brent, he doesn’t think it’s a fair comparison. As he said:
I don’t think my character’s like Michael Scott at alI. I think if you’re trying to compete with what Steve did or with what Ricky Gervais did, I think it would be a massive mistake. They are geniuses who are incredible in loads of different ways. We made a whole new character. And it’s a whole new sort of set up, but I hope people will find a reason to love him as well, just in a different way than they did the guys before.
Even though I can see where it would be completely natural to assume that Ned would either be lovably (and frequently) incompetent like Michael or a tragically lonely people-pleaser like David, The Paper would have to bring us a whole new thing as much as possible to set itself apart. Otherwise, why would the documentary crew that covered Jim, Pam, Michael, Dwight and everyone else in Scranton decide to follow those at The Truth Teller?
It should be noted that while Gleeson has his own set of great performances behind him, he’s not the same kind of performer as either Carell or Gervais, along with helping to bring a new character to the small screen. He’s portrayed many different kinds of roles (even playing a kidnapping serial killer opposite Carell in The Patient cast in 2022) and is sure to give us something brand new, but still funny and lovable, when his show premieres.
