Greg Daniels Interview on Office Inspiration, Jim and Pam Comparisons

Greg Daniels is having a particularly good day. The Paper, his not-exactly-a-reboot of The Office, was formally renewed by Peacock the night before and, just a few hours prior to our early September meeting, the embargo lifted on reviews. Plenty of critics, including THR’s, seem bullish on his return to the workplace mockumentary. Several even suggest that it’s enjoying a more auspicious start than its predecessor’s. “That’s a nice way to sort of put me down,” says Daniels. He’s laughing, but he seems to agree: “I’ve really tried to learn from the experience of making shows where we don’t even see episode one until we’re shooting episode three. So, part of the contract this time was going down for a month after shooting the pilot — to learn something before starting up again.” 

That Daniels, the 62-year-old comedy legend who’s written for Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld and The Simpsons, is still figuring out how to make TV should be a lesson to us all. Adapting the U.S. version of The Office, as well as co-creating Parks and Recreation with Mike Schur and King of the Hill (recently revived at Hulu) with Mike Judge, he’s made some of this century’s more enduring hits. But this new spin on The Office, which only takes the original’s unseen documentary crew and one actor (Oscar Nuñez), brings with it a new kind of a pressure for the writer-director.

Meeting over half-priced beers at a sushi spot close to his already-busy writers room for The Paper season two, he unpacks this anxiety and his optimism (yes, really) for Hollywood’s current crossroads. 

Tell me more about this contract, because I read that you had it written in that you could pull the plug whenever you wanted. 

That was a very long negotiation. I was nervous, and I really didn’t want to do this show if it didn’t look like it was going to be good. So, I had a number of conditions. When I pitched it to [co-creator] Michael Koman, I was like, “I just have to warn you: If it doesn’t look like it’s turning out well, that’s it. We’re not going to keep going.”

So, where was the point of no return?

They didn’t want to spend money on kill fees for the cast, so it was right around the time of signing Domhnall Gleeson. 

Why the nerves? People reboot or remake things all of the time.

I love the artists [from The Office] so much. I never wanted to do anything that looked like I was cashing in at the expense of anything. So, after a certain period of time, I talked to Steve Carell about it, and he was like, “It doesn’t matter. The Office is fine. Go ahead, take a whack at it.” I felt I had permission to try something new. Also, the fans of the show are so protective …

Knowing that part of the relationship is tied to the duration of that show, how do you feel about 10-episode seasons — and the binge drop? 

Originally, I thought, “Oh, we should try and imitate The Office and drop them more spaced out.” But so many more people have watched The Office on streaming than NBC. They felt this audience is going to associate the binge-ability of that with this show. But I wouldn’t mind having a longer season. I have a deep ensemble, and it’s actually quite difficult sometimes to be like, “You’re amazing, and you can be the lead of another show, but I have to cut you down to a C-plot now.” 

Having written several at this point, how do you approach an obvious “”will they, won’t they” situation in a series? Not spoiling anything for those who haven’t watched The Paper, but you’re taking a different approach with Domhnall and Chelsea Frei’s characters.

I like to have adjectives that I apply on every series, touchstones: small, real, observational, relatable, funny… Depending on the show, I often tape a few to the computer. For The Office, it was funny, original, poignant. My goal was to keep making sure it’s all of those things. But I think if you’re going to be realistic — and mockumentaries are very realistic genre — you believe the characters are real. And if you’re telling the stories of real people’s lives, the things that have stakes in their lives are not pulling a big jewel heist. On The Paper more so than The Office, there’s this inherent interest in what they’re doing at work. They feel inspired about their jobs. But the biggest thing in people’s lives are often still who they are romantically into. And so I don’t think it’s repeating yourself to see what the romantic lives of the people in that space are. I don’t think it does it justice to be like, “Who’s the new Jim and Pam?”

No, but it’s not just them. There’s Sam and Diane on Cheers. There’s Maddie and David on Moonlighting. The list goes on. The history of when to break romantic tension on a TV series often has an outsized impact on the reception or even lifespan of that series.

You have to figure out the psychology of the relationship. In the instance of Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fisher), they were soulmates who were also best friends. When the impediments to their relationship were gone, they just had to get together. They didn’t have any clash in their background to world views that were going to cause trouble for them. Once they got together in season four, all the stories were of them as a couple. There wasn’t a lot of drama — though we put a little bit in season nine, which the audience hated. (Laughs.) But it was necessary to kind of set up the ending to give it some stakes.

To your point, that is not what you’re doing here.

Ned (Gleeson) and Mare (Frei) aren’t soulmates who are kept apart with shyness. They have their own particular character dynamic that we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about with the actors. It’s not a cookie cutter process. And then we have Detrick (Melvin Gregg) and Nicole (Ramona Young) as an interesting couple. We have a lot of people who don’t only want the show to be about journalism. (Laughs.)

You’ve been renewed for a second season. Is that 10 episodes or is there a possibility of more?

I’m assuming 10 episodes, but I haven’t heard any specifics. I don’t know. I guess that works for them. It seems to me like if most people are watching on an ad basis and the show can somehow break even with its ad revenue, then why not do 20 episodes? Why would you limit it at 10? But I understand if someone gave you a pot of money, and you had to program your whole network out of your single pot, then it makes sense to limit it.

In the last month, you’ve premiered The Paper, the final season of Upload on Amazon and Hulu’s King of the Hill reboot. What are the noticeable differences in promoting three very different projects on three different platforms so close together? 

There’s just so much more of a push when you have [new versions of] old shows. I look at the amount of corporate push that the fourth season of Upload got, and I feel bad for it in a way. The money’s not there to have billboards. But I’m happy that we got to end that series. I really feel endings are almost like a third of a show, although I don’t know how many people are watching it.  

Plenty of creators have similar questions. 

But I’m optimistic! It seems a little churlish to be having problems with the industry when I have three shows coming out within a month. Everything’s cyclical, and it seems like it’s going back in that ad-supported direction. A nice thing about the ad thing is that maybe there’ll be a stronger correlation between what people want to watch and what is being made. The downside is that some more quirky, individualistic things probably won’t be made as much. 

You just relaunched King of the Hill. A 2024 poll about who people think fictional characters would vote for had Hank Hill second only to Archie Bunker as likely MAGA. What do you make of that?

Hank would probably have some problems with a real estate billionaire from New York who has a gold toilet, but I don’t know how he would vote now. We haven’t tried to be political. There’s no point, and I think Americans are a lot less partisan than it looks like they are. There is a sort of a well-meaning middle still, and that’s the show. We pitched it in 2017. We wrote it in 2023, so to think that it’s meant to be reacting to news events … no. 

You and Mike Judge launched an animation studio six years ago. What itch does that scratch that the rest of this doesn’t?

When Mike and I started pitching a King of the Hill reboot and no one was interested, we were a bit miffed. Our manager said, “Well, screw it. Why don’t you start an animation company and work on what you want to work on?” So, we did. It’s going well. We’re having a good time. We were nominated for an Emmy (for Common Side Effects). And I really missed working with Mike. He has such an interesting mind. 

I read that at one point you were in talks to revive The Muppets. What was your take on the material? 

I didn’t have a treatment, but I was trying to figure out what would be the next thing for the franchise. It felt very baby boomer and millennial, but I was more of a Gen X-er and didn’t get where it fit in 2005. This was just before The Office, so I ended up getting that instead. You know who I think should do it next? Robert Smigel. He would figure out a way to reinvigorate The Muppets and make it cool. I tried to work with Robert on Space Force, but he always has a lot going on. 

What was the lesson from Space Force? There was a lot of hype around that launch, particularly your reuniting with Steve Carell.

There was a mismatch between what the show was, which I loved, and the expectations — that it would be similar to The Office or come out swinging [at politics] like a late night show. It was a character comedy. Both Steve and I had relatives in the military, and we didn’t want to do something unfair. I don’t know that that matched the mood of the reviewers … 

It looked expensive.

Well, it was expensive. (Laughs.) Season two was a lot cheaper. I don’t necessarily think it’s super likable to launch a new comedy and have this feeling that it got the best of everything. So, if there was any takeaway, it’s that you can’t force people to [watch] something. My advice to Peacock was to put The Paper on the air with no promotion and then promote it afterward. That’s apparently counter to every sensible marketing thing.

We’re back to marketing, but it really seems to be such a crapshoot in the streaming era.

When a show doesn’t have a set time that it comes back, you have to market every season. It’s more like a series of movies, like Harry Potter. They don’t say, “Well, we marketed the first two Harry Potters, so we’re not going to spend anything on three.” Nobody has any expectation that they’re going to ever see anything unless you tell them that it’s ready.

Conan O’Brien recently said Ari  Emanuel suggested you two write a movie about your time living and working together in your early 20s. I can never tell when Conan is kidding. Is that true? 

Yeah, for sure. I guess he heard the story and just became convinced it was a movie. Ari’s got very good instincts, but I don’t know. … It feels more like a funny anecdote to us. 

This story appeared in the Sept. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.