‘The Paper’ Cast Says Season 2 Digs Deeper Into Its Newsroom Misfits

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The cast of Peacock’s “The Paper” says the hardest part of shooting a mockumentary comedy is not landing the joke. It is surviving everyone else’s.

Ahead of the show’s second season, stars Eric Rahill, Duane Shepard Sr., Melvin Gregg, Ramona Young, and Chelsea Frei spoke with Where Is The Buzz about breaking character, their reporters’ growing confidence, and the emotional turns waiting for viewers this year.

Asked whether it is harder to deliver a joke or react to one, Rahill did not hesitate.

“It is certainly harder reacting to it,” he said. “To keep a straight face, Duane is so funny in particular. He makes me laugh harder than anyone on the show, I feel like, because he’ll just have one line. If we have a big group scene and he has one line, we have to reset a lot of times because people are laughing. So it’s a joy to work with Duane.”

Shepard said the challenge does not stop when the cameras do.

“Reacting to the other characters is really hard for me because they are all so funny all 12 hours of the day that we’re shooting,” he said. “So it’s really not between action and cut. Once we start action at 4:30 a.m., it’s no cut until 7:30 in the evening when we’re done. So I really enjoy working with them. They’re just hilarious. Each one of them is an artist in their own right. And we just, the variety of the various things that happen there just keep you on point all the time.”

Asked how long the newsroom would last as a real workplace, Shepard was blunt.

“Well, with a conventional boss, I think probably not long,” he said.

Rahill said fan reaction to the first season helped the series step out from under the shadow of “The Office,” which it shares a universe with.

“I think people are wondering, is this going to be exactly like the American office?” he said. “And I think it took people watching the season to figure out it’s a totally different show. It’s its own thing even though it’s a similar format. And we have Oscar, but it’s totally its own show. And I think that’s kind of starting to catch on, that it’s its own thing. And I’m happy for that.”

Shepard said the feedback he hears is more specific.

“Pretty much in my circle, which are mostly elderly people, they want to see more of Barry,” he said. “I think they’re getting a kick out of the fact that Barry is such a wild card in the show and has such great lines that I have from such great writers like Eric himself, and they really enjoy the fact that an elderly person is really being spotlighted in a comedy series this time around.”

Both actors teased revelations in the new episodes.

“I think where Barry lives is really going to be a surprise,” Shepard said. “I think that’s going to be the most fun part of the season.”

Rahill agreed, then pointed to his own character. “I think you see a slightly softer side of Travis towards the end,” he said. “There’s some emotional stuff that happens, which was fun to play a little bit.”

As for who is most dangerous to look at during a take, Rahill said, “I made a lot of eye contact with Melvin. I would say we were on the same page of getting broken by the same things.”

Frei named a different pair. “I think Adam and Sabrina,” she said. “Alex and Sabrina, I should say.”

Rahill said the cast’s offscreen friendships are what he values most heading into the new season.

“The more time you spend with anybody, the more your chemistry grows,” he said. “And I feel like it’s fun to get to know these people off camera as well. And I think it really helps with our onscreen work. The more I know about these people, and the more that we were able to become friends outside of it, it’s even more fun to do the scenes.”

Shepard pointed instead to the characters’ professional growth. “The growth from season 1 to season 2, as we become more professional reporters, and the rapport that we have with each other, and the teamwork that we put together to get a story out, really has been a great revelation for the new season,” he said.

For aspiring comedic actors, Shepard offered a single piece of advice.

“You’ve got to be in the scene. You’ve got to be the character,” he said. “You’ve got to really be in the scene and really listen closely to what all the other actors are saying. Even in the background, you’ve got to be really aware of your environment. If you’re aware of your environment, the comedy is going to hit bang right on time every time it comes to deliver that line.”

In a separate conversation, Gregg and Young said fans of the first season will find more of everything in the second.

“I think they’ll love it,” Gregg said. “I think if they love season one, they’re going to love season two even more.”

“It’s a different iteration of the show,” Young said. “It’s very fun. We get to explore the characters and the stories and the world a lot more.”

Asked which characters they would trust with an important assignment, both answered immediately.

“I would trust Mare with her expertise. I would trust Detrick with his work ethic. I would not trust Adam,” Gregg said. “And I would not trust Duane’s character either. Barry and Adam, they’re not going to get it done.”

Young split her ballot differently. “I would definitely trust Mare and Detrick. I would also trust Travis,” she said. “I feel like Travis is a wild card. I feel like he might have weird ways of getting the job done if I have an assignment for him, but he’ll surprisingly get it done somehow in an unconventional way. And weirdly, I don’t know if I would trust Ned. I feel like Ned has good intentions, but I feel like things pop up for him that would concern me.”

Gregg said playing Detrick left a mark on him.

“It’s very interesting. I’m not method at all, but a lot of what happens bleeds through, because when you’re working on a show for three months, you’re there every day with these people,” he said. “That’s your life more than your actual life. So I started building these insecurities and a lot of who Detrick was, and it was bleeding through my real life. I was excited to shed it once we wrap and work to get back to who I am. And then once you start back at season two, getting around those people, you just kind of go back to who you were last time you saw them. It’s like if you hadn’t seen your big cousin in 20 years, even though you’re an adult now, when you see them, you still feel that dynamic that you had last time you saw him. And it felt that way with the cast. And then from there, I could just continue to let my character grow.”

Young said she went through the same thing a season later.

“I started off with season two so strong. I was like, I know who my character is. I’m so confident. I’m so comfortable. I’m so comfortable around everyone,” she said. “And then towards the end of the season, I was like, Melvin, I don’t know if I’m doing a good job. I was like, I don’t know if people like me. I started feeling insecure. And he was just like, wait, isn’t your character going through that? And I was like, oh, yeah. OK. I feel way better now.”

Gregg said the exchange mirrored his own first season. “That was the exact same thing I was doing in season one,” he said. “Me and Ramona hung out a lot, and I’ll be like, I’m just insecure, I don’t know if this is working well. And she was such a great listener, because I would have told myself, yo, chill out, bro, you’re doing way too much. But she was so receptive of it.”

His advice to actors facing the same doubt is to stop fighting it.

“You got to use it. If you’re insecure, make your character insecure. If you’re sleepy, make your character sleepy. If you’re nervous, make your character nervous,” Gregg said. “And throughout the scene, it could shift. You could shift it. But if you come through with that intention based off of how you feel, you’re going to grow confidence throughout the scene or season, because you are feeling a true genuine feeling that aligns with your choice for your character.”

Young said the fix is often a matter of framing.

“Setting your intention. A lot of, like, me myself, I’m guilty of this. I set the intention of, oh, I want to be good,” she said. “But maybe it would be more helpful to be like, I want to be like the character, and have that be the central focus. And when you focus on that, then you don’t have that pressure or insecurity of feeling like whether or not you’re good enough. Because we’re never great in every moment of our life. Real people have offbeat moments. We have moments where we’re insecure and unsure, and that’s what makes it real.”

The offscreen closeness, Gregg said, is real but not identical to what viewers see. “We have the character dynamics too,” he said. “The way that is with Nicole is different than our personal relationship, but it’s still the same closeness. The dynamic is just a little different.”

Both actors said they pull from their own lives, with limits.

“On the romantic front, I would say that it’s kind of hard,” Young said. “I would never say, I hate that you’re so loyal like a dog. I just don’t relate to that. I pray for someone who is loyal like that. So I’m just like, this is so wild and bizarre. In that aspect, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around. But there are other attributes of the character that I relate more to.”

Gregg found his entry point in his own dating history.

“The whole good guy finish last type thing, I think that’s very true for Detrick. And I’ve had that experience with my wife actually,” he said. “When I first met her, I was trying to be the sweetest man in the world, and it didn’t work out.”

It worked out eventually, he confirmed.

“Just the feeling of putting your best foot forward and trying to be what you think women want, and being vulnerable and transparent, it doesn’t always work, because the law of attraction doesn’t always call for that. Sometimes we could kind of do too much,” Gregg said. “So having lived it at one point, I could pull from that experience with Detrick. But Detrick is a lot more vulnerable emotionally. He has access, I’m not going to say he has access to his emotions, but he’s more transparent than I was in a way. And it feels good to just kind of be transparent sometimes and not have to worry about living up to some type of ego. He has no ego. So to be able to live with no ego is a place of comfort, and I get that with him.”

In her own conversation, Frei said she is still catching up with the finished episodes.

“I can’t believe it. I’m so excited,” she said. “We shot it earlier this year, and I’m just starting to get to see the episodes, and it’s so fun to see what makes the cut, what doesn’t. See how it all comes together. It’s been really fun.”

Asked whether she and her character, Mare, would get along as coworkers, Frei laughed.

“I think Chelsea would be very intimidated by Mare. Mare’s tough,” she said. “I could never be as cool as Mare. So I think I’d be intimidated and probably weird and awkward.”

She said the season tested her ability to keep a straight face more than any job she has had.

“Oh my gosh, there were so many this season. Honestly, I’ve never broken this much on a show before, in a way that was really bad, but really fun,” she said. “I think in particular Eric Rahill and Melvin Gregg made me crack up. Domhnall always makes me break in every single scene we do together. It was nonstop. It got to the place where I had to tell the cameraman to not point at me.”

Mare gets more interior life this year, Frei said.

“I think this season we get to see her a bit more vulnerable,” she said. “I think she is leaning into more personal aspects of her life that she kind of doesn’t always dive into. And I think that leads to making some choices that she might look back on and be like, why did I do that? It’s like when you kind of have a crush or something, and you do something silly, and you regret it. And I think that’s Mare a lot this season.”

Asked what Mare takes too seriously about herself, Frei pushed back on the premise.

“It’s funny because I think the things she takes herself seriously for, she’s right to,” she said. “I would say she’s kind of right on the money. She knows herself quite well.”

Her preparation ran from research to reality television.

“She’s a military vet, so I read a lot of books on the army. I read a lot of books by editors, journalists, just to get in that headspace,” Frei said. “But also I just watched a lot of reality TV, because I think there’s something so interesting about seeing how people act when they know a camera’s on them, which is kind of what our show is. So I found it very helpful to see people doing that on reality shows.”

The mockumentary format, she said, changed her approach to comedy.

“In a mockumentary, the camera catches so much more, and I think everything needs to be a bit more subtle,” she said. “I think sometimes I find myself needing to go bigger, and I’m like, it doesn’t feel real. So it’s kind of like finding that balance of still keeping it comedic and fun, but also incredibly grounded, so the audience feels like, you know.”

The relationship she most enjoyed deepening was Mare and Ned.

“Definitely Mare and Ned,” she said. “We have so much fun together, and I consider him such a dear friend. And it’s been so fun as we both just kind of progress through life, to progress through these characters and talk about what’s happening in our personal lives and how it sheds light on certain things we’re playing. It’s amazing.”

Fans looking for her online should keep expectations modest.

“God, I’m too old for anything other than Instagram,” Frei said. “I’m not great at it. Don’t do TikTok. You’re never going to see me doing a dance. There’s some cool people on our show. I’m not one of them. But yeah, I’m on Instagram. That’s about it.”

Two seasons in, she said the job still does not feel routine.

“It’s kind of been a pinch-me moment from the beginning,” Frei said. “Since I got the part and knew I was going to be in a show that was in the same universe as ‘The Office,’ my favorite show ever, I was like, what? That can’t be. Nobody’s going to let me do that. And so it feels like I try not to take any moment for granted, genuinely, because it’s just so amazing.”

Season 2 of “The Paper” is streaming on Peacock.