The Office’s Felicity Ward: ‘It’s a different dynamic than if a male boss is doing it’

As the hit show gets a sex-swapped Australian makeover, Helen Coffey sits down with its leading woman to talk gender in comedy, the joy of playing female chumps and why no one can match the British for cynicism

The character has lots of crossover with me – I’m not very different.” Comedian and actor Felicity Ward is talking about her role as the lead in the new Australian iteration of The Office – she plays the David Brent/Michael Scott character – and I can’t help but raise a sceptical eyebrow.

Before me sits a veritable siren, all platinum curls and scarlet lipstick, poured into a gorgeous 1950s-style spaghetti-strap white dress with black polka dots. A dress that – without wanting to sound like a total and utter perv – showcases her magnificent decolletage. Ward is instantly likeable, too: magnetic and warm in a way that induces me to share an inappropriate period anecdote within the first few minutes of meeting. Though she started out her career as an actor, Ward is best known these days for her work as a stand-up (she’s currently touring the UK with her latest show, I’m Exhausting) and has the charisma and comic timing to match.

Hannah Howard, the new Ozzie incarnation of the infamous buffoon of a boss, is poles apart from Ward. For one thing, she’s frumpy – decked out in the kind of office-wear millennials used to go nuts for in the Noughties (think boot-cut black trousers, ill-fitting pencil skirts and unflattering shirts that make Ward look a decade older than her 44 years). For another, in true Ricky Gervais spirit, she is painfully un-self-aware – a walking ball of slapstick cringe comedy who elicits near constant grimaces from her long-suffering employees. How, I ask, do you in any way resemble this car crash of a character?

“All of the annoying parts of her are just me,” she insists. Ward describes a scene where the script called for her to hula hoop, and she begged to do it around her neck instead of her waist. “They asked if I could fling it off. So I did, and I managed to hit one of the other actors in the head and smash a lamp as well. Yeah… there’s not a lot of delineation when it comes to attention seeking. Like, that’s this guy” – Ward gestures towards herself – “all day long.” (When she burps loudly and somewhat proudly several times during the interview thanks to a hastily consumed ginger beer, I can just about start to see the resemblance – though it’s still a bit of a stretch.)

Initially premiering on Amazon Prime with an eight-episode run, the Australian Office relies on the same mechanism as both its predecessors to act as the literal heart of the narrative: the underlying love story between Tim and Dawn/Jim and Pam (in this case Nick and Greta, played by Steen Raskopoulos and Shari Sebbens respectively). The overlying plotlines, meanwhile, could have been plucked from either of its American or British cousins: Hannah organises a “charity” pyjama dress-up day but plans to keep the money to avoid mandatory remote working being introduced; Hannah attempts to create a video awards entry to prove her commitment to “diversity”, in which she shoehorns in every ethnic minority she can find to toe-curling effect. Tone-wise, though, it undoubtedly shares more of its DNA with the warmer, fuzzier US version than the bleaker British original (“I mean this as a compliment: you cannot impersonate British cynicism,” says Ward firmly).

Covering similar ground to two established and beloved shows clearly comes with its challenges – “I know that people are going to have very strong opinions about this regardless” – but Ward is pragmatic about the inevitable judgement that’s coming her way. “When people ask, ‘did you feel the pressure?’ I’m like, ‘no, not at all,’” she says. “This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.” It likely helped that she hadn’t seen a single episode of the American Office before filming, and only started watching it once the initial Australian series was in the can. Yet, curiously, the Michael Scott character – played by Steve Carell and loosely based as it was on the David Brent original – had somehow managed to permeate. “We did this take, and one of the background actors said, ‘Oh my god, that was so Michael Scott,’” recounts Ward. “And I’d never seen an episode. So basically I’m calling myself Steve Carell now.”

Felicity Ward was cast as the first female lead of The Office (John Platt)

The biggest difference with this latest reimagining is, clearly, gender. Not only is the central character female, Hannah’s right-hand man – Rainn Wilson’s Dwight and Mackenzie Crook’s Gareth in the American and UK shows – is a right-hand woman, Lizzie, played by Edith Poor. It’s a natural evolution, says Ward. “If you’re going to make a show again – and this is the 13th remake of The Office, by the way – it makes sense to do something completely, radically different.” Were there alternative comedic furrows that could be ploughed thanks to casting women instead? “It didn’t happen very often, but occasionally… There was some improvisation where Hannah would flirt with someone very, very slightly. And it’s just a different dynamic than if a male boss is doing it.” Fewer #metoo vibes, for a start.

Mainly though, Ward is keen to stress that putting women at the centre doesn’t inherently change the humour of the show. “The wonderful thing is there is nothing implicitly female about it; it just happens to be a female boss,” she says. “There are so few female chump characters, and it’s such a joyful thing to do, to be incompetent and happy about it. It’s rich idiot fodder – which is my safe space.”

There are so few female chump characters, and it’s such a joyful thing to do, to be incompetent and happy about it

And yet, conversely, it was because “there were so many women involved” that the show didn’t have to feel like it was specifically expressing a woman’s story, argues Ward. “That, I think, is a superpower in itself,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love women’s stories, I’m obsessed with women’s stories – but there is room for someone who is just being terrible at their job, regardless of gender.”

When she mentions “so many women”, she means it: everyone from head writer Julie De Fina and director Jackie van Beek to all of the directors from Amazon were female. Look down the list of producers, and it’s a list of seven women. Even if it didn’t necessarily shape the jokes, it certainly changed the atmosphere while filming. “When you have all these other women in the room, it just means that you’re not so conscious of your own voice,” says Ward. “You’re not representing all women every time you speak. You’re just representing yourself. And you can be flawed, or you can be funny, or you can be whatever you want. And when there are loads of other women in positions of importance, you’re not worrying, ‘Oh, are they going to think it’s weird that I say I’ve got my period…?’”

Hannah Howard’s right-hand man is right-hand woman Lizzie Moyle (John Platt)

We’ve already joked about the tired trope that all women stand-ups ever talk about is their periods, but Ward leans into it now, telling me about an all-female writers room she worked in years ago. “The head writer was talking, and then she stopped, and she was like, ‘Sorry, I’ve just got the worst period cramps.’ And everyone instinctively reacted: someone grabbed a water bottle, a banana, paracetamol, ibuprofen, a tampon. It was really beautiful,” she says wistfully.

Ward has been in the business long enough to know what a rarity working with women at the helm is. After 20 years of hard graft, she’s also been in the business long enough to truly appreciate landing a starring role in an established sitcom. “I felt like I was in a playground every day,” she says. “To get the lead in any sitcom is unbelievable. To get the lead in The Office is insane. But then to turn up and just be told, be as funny as you can, for 10 hours a day, for nine weeks – that’s the dream.” If it sounds like a polished, PR-ready answer, it feels anything but – Ward wells up as she recalls these days on set, and the prior two decades of hard grind that got her there. Her voice trembles – just for a moment – before immediately switching to self-deprecating mode. “God, sorry, I’m such a pussy! I cry at everything.”

‘I felt like I was in a playground every day,’ says Ward of filming ‘The Office' (John Platt)

There’s no need to apologise; if anything, it makes her even more likeable. If anything, it makes me even more sceptical that she’s “not very different” to Hannah Howard’s “female chump” of a bad boss. But I guess I’ll just have to finish watching the series to find out.

All eight episodes of ‘The Office Australia’ are available to watch on Amazon Prime from 17 October 2024