The Office star Oscar Nuñez is the only original cast member returning for the spin-off The Paper, which is arriving this week on Peacock. According to the creators, this decision made sense with the comedy classic's finale, and his character's potential.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Office US creator Greg Daniels said Nuñez is "fabulous" and "hilarious", and there was more story to tell about Dunder Mifflin's beloved accountant Oscar Martínez.
"If you look at the finale of The Office, the characters have a lot of wrap-up and they were mostly going in different directions, leaving Dunder Mifflin; Oscar was kind of the same as he was in the beginning when he was still there, so it made sense,” he explained.
"Oscar’s just really funny and I love him," added The Paper co-creator Michael Koman, "and I thought he works really well because he blends in to almost any ensemble. He makes the show funnier."
According to Koman, after The Office, "his story was a little more open-ended. So it made sense to bring him back because it felt like there was more story there."
In the first trailer for The Paper, revealed last month, we saw that Oscar is not very happy to be back in front of a documentary crew. "Not again," he says in the footage. "I'm not agreeing to any of this. I will make this unusable."
In case you are hoping that iconic characters like Steve Carell's Michael Scott, John Krasinski's Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer's Pam Beesly and Rainn Wilson's Dwight Schrute will make an appearance in the new show, Daniels has some bad news.
"Most of the cast, their stories had closure, and I don't think they really want to open them up again just to guest on another show. It was very important for me to create a show that would stand on its own and make its own name for itself and not need guest stars from the old show every week to get [people to] tune in," he said.
The new show sees a documentary crew following a failing Ohio-based newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller.
Nuñez is joining a brand-new cast led by Domhnall Gleeson as the editor-in-chief and The White Lotus star Sabrina Impacciatore as a reporter. Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Ramona Young, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Alex Edelman complete the line-up.
The Paper starts streaming on Peacock on September 4. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the best new TV shows still to come in 2025.
