To mark the 25th anniversary of The Office’s BBC premiere, Martin Freeman and Ricky Gervais revisit how the show was made. Freeman, who played Tim in the original UK mockumentary sitcom, says he was “slightly annoyed” when the show’s scripts were later published. He argues the published versions were not the original scripts used on set, but transcriptions of what had been shown on television, noting that lines attributed to him and others came from specific moments during filming. Freeman also comments on the long-running claim that nothing was improvised, saying creator Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were “always quick” to dismiss suggestions of improvisation. While praising their writing as “brilliant” and describing it as “nicely loose,” he maintains that the cast had room to play.
Separately, Gervais tells Empire that the BBC did not provide many notes while he worked on the series, though he says he learned to keep the broadcaster at distance. He also recounts an edit-stage moment when the BBC disliked something; he asked that it be reviewed without changing the work. He describes a question from BBC producer Jon Plowman about how David Brent could survive if he is so bad at his job, which they settled through discussion. HuffPost UK reports it contacted Gervais’ team for comment.
