Sabrina Impacciatore has been a famous and successful actor in Italy for many years, but she made global waves in 2022 after starring in season two of HBO’s “The White Lotus”.
And now, the Rome-born star is about to blow up all over again with her scene-stealing role in “The Paper”, the spinoff series to the juggernaut hit US version of “The Office”, which has already been green-lit for a second season before its premiere.
Not that Impacciatore knew. As she tells Variety Australia ahead of the premiere of “The Paper”, she hadn’t even watched a single episode of “The Office” prior to her audition.
“I was entering into a plane from Cape Town, South Africa to Italy,” she recalls. “So it was a very long trip and my agent said, ‘Tomorrow, Sabrina, you’re going to have the audition for this project.’ And I read the email. It was 11 pages of monologue and, you know, English is not exactly my first language!
“So on the plane, I watched the first episodes of ‘The Office’ of my life. I was seriously impressed because it looked like a very weird show, something that didn’t look like anything else that I had seen before and the level of acting was so high level and the level of writing was so brilliant. I thought ‘I can’t make it. It’s impossible that I make it’. I studied as much as I could for this audition.”
Fans of the UK and US “Office” should take some comfort knowing who is behind “The Paper”. Greg Daniels, who adapted the US “Office” co-created the new spinoff with “Nathan For You” co-creator Michael Koman (who also happens to be the husband of “The Office” star Ellie Kemper), while UK co-creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant return as executive producers.
“The Paper” brings back the documentary crew that followed the staff of Dunder Mifflin to the Toledo Truth-Teller – a famous (though past its prime) newspaper that new editor-in-chief, Ned Sampson (played by Domhnall Gleeson) aims to bring back to its former glory.
Impacciatore plays Esmeralda Grand, the infotainment specialist of the newspaper. Esmeralda moved to the US with her boyfriend who then abandoned her and now, too proud to return to Italy, likes the spotlight that the documentary crew brings.
“I improvised for 45 minutes only bullshit! I was saying so [much] bullshit,” she says. “I was out of control… then actually they appeared – Greg Daniels, Michael Koman, the producers from Peacock, NBC, the casting director, they all appeared and they said, ‘Sabrina, you made us laugh so much.’
“Then they said, ‘Can you do an audition in 2 days, but with all the memory?'”
So impressive was Impacciatore’s audition, Daniels re-wrote the character specifically for her and has noted a few times publicly that she is his favourite character in “The Paper”.
“First they asked me, ‘Can you learn an American accent?’ And I said, ‘Yes, of course.’ I was lying. And they said, ‘You know what? We changed our mind. Your Italian accent is charming. We love it and we changed the character.”
From there, Impacciatore became addicted to watching “The Office”. So much so that she admits to being starstruck by “The Office” favourite, Oscar Nuñez, who features as part of “The Paper” ensemble.
“I was very shy next to him, and I was in awe,” she says.
“I thought, ‘He’s going to be so disappointed because he’s used to working with these other people. I was really so scared to disappoint him, but I promise he was so supportive. I think it was a very sophisticated technique. He knew that encouraging would help more than discouraging. After every take, I remember him coming to me and telling me ‘That was so funny, that was hilarious, great job,’ or just the thumbs up every take, it helped me so much.”
Much like the US version when it launched its spinoff from Gervais and Merchant’s original, “The Paper” cast and crew are not trying to re-do or mimic the employees of Dunder Mifflin. What it has leant into however, much like “The Office” is showcasing the ensemble cast and improvisation.
“This project is so different, it’s so fresh,” Impacciatore says.
“I really believed I was inside an office. I really believed these people were my colleagues… this is the spirit of this show is that things look like they’re really happening in that moment. There is a lot of improvisation also. Of course we follow the scripts that are brilliant, but then if something happens in that moment, Greg and Michael, they gave me all the freedom. I went wild. I didn’t even know what I was doing. If you tell me what I did because I didn’t watch the show yet, I have no idea what I did.
“I just know that I was feeling so safe because having a genius like Greg Daniels, he’s containing your craziness. I just went nuts.”
All ten episodes of “The Paper” are available to watch on BINGE and Foxtel now.