The Office fans might be surprised to know that Steve Carell and John Krasinski were on set for The Paper spinoff.
During the Tuesday, September 23, episode of “The Viall Files” podcast, Chelsea Frei recalled randomly meeting Carell, 63, and Krasinski, 45, while filming season 1 of the new Peacock series.
“The trailer door opens and John Krasinski and Steve Carell walk in,” she shared. “It was like 5 a.m. and I was like, ‘What? No, please don’t do this.’ It was, like, literally a nightmare because I just looked insane [while preparing to film].”
Carell and Krasinski showed their support for the follow-up to The Office while filming a commercial on the same lot.
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“They both worked with Domhnall [Gleeson] and adore him and just came in and surprised us and were so sweet,” Frei, 32, who plays Mare, gushed. “It was insane. Like, they literally couldn’t have been nicer. We told them that we were so nervous because we just don’t want to be compared to what they did.”
The Office, which aired on NBC from 2005 to 2013, focused on the lives of office employees at Dunder Mifflin paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The Office starred Carell, Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, Angela Kinsey, B.J. Novak, Brian Baumgartner, Melora Hardin, Kate Flannery and more familiar faces.
After the hit mockumentary came to an end, there became a demand for a reboot or revival. The Paper premiered earlier this month and introduced Us to the two shows by having the same camera crew returning to check in on Dunder Mifflin. The paper company was gone after being acquired, so instead the documentary shifted focus to the Toledo Truth-Teller — a Midwestern newspaper on its last legs until an overzealous cardboard salesman turned editor in chief (Gleeson’s Ned) stepped in.
The rest of the cast is made up of Frei, Sabrina Impacciatore, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young, Tim Key and The Office alum Oscar Nuñez.
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Before The Paper debuted, it was already renewed for a second season. Frei expressed gratitude for the chance to keep the story going after receiving some sound advice from Krasinski about filming a comedy for several years.
“John kept asking me, ‘What do you put in your desk? You have to put fun things in your desk.’ I hadn’t even thought about that yet,” she recalled on Tuesday. “I put food [in mine] — which then I did get in trouble for — because Universal has a raccoon problem, which I didn’t know about.”
Krasinski also told Frei to make sure she had internet on her computer.
“That is something they told me to make sure I had and I did. It was crucial. Because he told me that Jenna used to answer fan mail,” she added. “She would literally be on her computer on MySpace answering fan mail.”
The Office and The Paper is streaming now on Peacock.
