Office Ladies - The Paper Interviews #1 with Domhnall Gleeson

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

This Friday on Office Ladies 6.0, we have a special bonus episode where Jenna and Angela interview Domhnall Gleeson who is in the upcoming “Office” spinoff “The Paper”! The ladies ask Domhnall how he got his job on “The Paper” and what his experience has been like so far. They also talk about how Domhnall got into acting, some wonderful plays he’s performed in and how his “Paper” character Ned differs from previous characters he’s played. This is a wonderful episode to get you ready for “The Paper” premiere, enjoy!  Office Ladies Website - Submit a fan question: https://officeladies.com/submitaquestion  Follow Us on Instagram: OfficeLadiesPod Follow Us on YouTube Follow Us on TikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello. Hi there. Welcome to a very special Friday episode of Office Ladies. It is Friday, but it is not Friday chit-chat. It's a little something different. You all know that the long-awaited, much-anticipated television show, The Paper, is premiering on Peacock's 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 eight. 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 a from Donal Gleason. You might know him from his movies X. Machina or as General Hux in Star Wars Rise of the Resistance. He also starred in the miniseries The Patient with Steve Carell 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 you 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. Yes. 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 Gleeson. All right. Hello. Will you please tell us your name and your character name? My name is Donal Gleeson 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. It's quite an optimistic person. And he arrives into a place. it'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 um i asked if i wanted to chat and i said sure and i talked to them for i think 20 minutes and um 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 i don't if felt like funny that way and then they offered me their part. It's great. What over these 10 episodes can you share with us that I don't know any moments, any storylines that you've enjoyed or have been a challenge, anything at all? Well, I think we're kind of doing it. 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 you 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 in 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 out the tracks might be a little bit more set. Maybe that's more for NAD. 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 their role, is they come in, they have a purpose and then they don't hang out as much. Mine did. I know it is a bigger role. But I still got very excited when one or two would make it in. Um, 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 on, on, yes, that then would seep into the scripted work.

Because we would play around at the top or play around at the bottom of a scene. Yeah. I think that's the ideal scenario as well. But it's also like, it's also the sketch. man, like is full on. And so we're squishing a lot, you know, there are 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, 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 days where like the dynamic of the scene is clear from the top and you can play in that sort of sample. 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. This is an ad by BetterHelp. You know, it feels like nowadays there's advice for just about everything. It's like, do you write in your journal? Do you do, I don't know, cleanses or the cold plunge or, you know, what helps you get through the day? What helps you get through stressful moments? Mm-hmm. For me, it's talking it out. Mm-hmm.

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From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things comes The Roachers. Roses starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch Andy Samburg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney. A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See the roses only in theaters August 29th. 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 I, I, 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 at 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 first. 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 of Inish 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. 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. ever read, which is insane. So I just read it all the time for fun. I wasn't, 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, it was a very dark comedy about the IRA in Ireland, like about

terrorism. So it's darkest subject matter as you can get basically. And yet it was the funniest, most punk rock thing I never read. I love that play. I love him as a writer. I saw, I saw, a production of it. Not with you, unfortunately. I wish 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, 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 its 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 yeah love Martin would you would you like to do more theatre? I mean 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 playwriting called Enda Walsh one of those was a big verse and one of those was an absolute very funny moments in a bit of real tragedy. He's another genius. So yeah, yeah, I like doing theater once every three or four years. 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 fun. 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 any time when we are there, that's where we'll kind of hang out in between. But actually, I think, 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, yes, you end up with sort of 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 the same time, for the most part, we're kind of spread out and slightly separate storylines. But yeah, it's such a lovely group. It's very nice to hang out when we've died. 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 is 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 of 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 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 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. Like everyone's singing the national anthem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah, no, there's definitely, yeah, there's definitely days like that on this, but it's, I think we all knew, like, Greg, it's your show. Like, we all knew the deal. Like, you're, you're kind of signing up for an office job. You're kind of signing up for office hours when you sign up the job. That's just, that's just part of it. So I don't mind. 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, for sure. Yeah, I think for the most part, we got our script 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 Come and 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 take, 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 for trying to like be cool. but I don't know how I'm really being cool

because you're just really an amazing talent. And so thank you for letting us talk to you. I don't deal well with compliments, but that was incredibly nice of you. 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. 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 Bubbicot. Odyssey's executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis. Office Ladies was mixed and mastered by Bill

Schultz. Our theme song is Rupertree by Creed Bratton.