Italian actress Sabrina Impacciatore is a relatively new face to English-speaking audiences. Before starring in season two of the cult drama series The White Lotus, she’d only ever done Italian roles. But after viewers fell in love with her witty yet acerbic portrayal of hotel manager Valentina, the doors of opportunity in Hollywood suddenly swung open on their hinges.
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The well-established Italian actress was suddenly getting calls for all sorts of English-speaking roles when the chance to audition for The Office spin-off series, The Paper, popped up.
Admittedly, Sabrina had never seen the iconic mockumentary series and had no clue about its place in comedy history, but after being urged by her manager, she watched it and quickly realised that The Paper was something she desperately wanted to be a part of.
“Can you believe I’d never watched this show?” Sabrina exclaimed to PEDESTRIAN.TV, her eyes wide in surprise.
“When I watched, first I thought, that’s a very weird show. It doesn’t look like anything I know. It looks so real, and it was so funny, but in a way that I couldn’t tell if they were serious or funny.”
After a whirlwind audition process, the Emmy-nominated actress landed the role of Esmerelda Grand, the managing editor of the struggling newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller.
Although Sabrina was originally asked to learn how to do an American accent for the role, it soon became clear to creators Greg Daniels and Michael Koman that her Italian accent and expressive gestures were a perfetto, molto bene fit for her character: a manipulative former reality star-turned-digital-journalist just trying to stay afloat in her generally cushy career.
While her performance in the upcoming series is incredibly hilarious, nuanced and captivating, Sabrina admits that there were plenty of times where she busied herself on set, completely confused about what was happening around her thanks to her English-speaking American colleagues.
“Most of the time, I was wondering ‘what the fuck is going on’ because I didn’t understand the language most of the time,” she laughed.
“I had no idea, so I was just wandering around the set. If you see Esmerelda wandering in the background, it’s just me, Sabrina, wondering what they are talking about. I was literally trying to survive every day because when you act with other people who have English as a first language, they speak very, very fast and react to each other.”
Just like The Office, the creators of The Paper allowed the actors plenty of space for improvisation. For Sabrina, it was an extra challenge, but one she welcomed.
“I was inventing things, trying to fit in. Somehow it worked, and to me, that’s a miracle,” she said.
“But day by day, I started feeling like I was part of this crazy family and that things were really happening.”
The Paper kicks off with the same documentary crew who followed the staff at Dunder Mifflin returning to the same office in Scranton to see how they’re getting on. However, when they rock up, they find things have certainly changed with another paper company residing in the building.
Instead, the crew stick around to follow the brand new editor-in-chief of the once-acclaimed newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller, Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), as he attempts to make it into a reputable publication again. Of course, he’s joined by a group of quirky, unqualified colleagues.
While The Paper is clearly different from The Office, the creators have somehow maintained the same essence that made the original so distinct and beloved. And, just one day before the series was set to hit streaming services, Variety confirmed that The Paper has already been greenlit for an early season two renewal from the US streaming service, Peacock.
You can now watch The Paper on BINGE.
The post Sabrina Impacciatore Didn’t Know ‘What The F’ Was Going On While Filming The Paper appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
