‘The Paper’: Melvin Gregg Breaks Down Detrick’s Complicated Romance With Nicole

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Paper Season 1.]

The Paper is bringing viewers back to The Office with a new set of stars as the Peacock comedy follows employees at The Toledo Truth Teller, a struggling Midwestern paper. One of those workers is Melvin Gregg‘s affable Detrick Moore, who serves as an ad sales guy for Enervate, the company that owns the paper and bought out Dunder Mifflin.

As viewers see in the series, Detrick is a people pleaser who has an unwavering crush on coworker Nicole Lee (Ramona Young), and he comes on a little strong. She’s looking for a less committed situation, one that Detrick is willing to embark on, or at least make her believe he is. When Nicole discovers that Detrick has fibbed about seeing other people, she says, “You tricked me into a monogamous relationship… we had a good thing and then you acted like a dog, all loyal.”

Below, Gregg opens up about Detrick’s journey in Season 1, his romance with Nicole, hopes for Season 2, and the importance of shining a light on journalism with the new comedy.

How was it forming the Detrick and Nicole romance storyline with Ramona Young? His interest in her manifests in some interesting gifts, including a terrifyingly crafted bird. 

Melvin Gregg: It wasn’t terrifying. [Laughs]

Maybe not terrifying, but it was a little strange.

So, there’s a lot of room for improvement, but I think with things like that, it’s received based on how much you like the guy. So if it’s a guy that you are really into and he does that, it’s like, “Oh my god, he’s so sweet.” But if you’re really not into it, it’s like, “Oh, he’s a creep.” My first meeting with Ramona, we had to do the chemistry read, and the producers gave us a minute to get to know each other. And they turned the camera on and walked out of the room, and it was just like, “Hi, where are you from?” Just real small talk. I think we built a lot of chemistry, and filming, [we] spent a lot of time together. We shared a lot of scenes, so we had a lot of downtime together. We ate lunch together, and then our characters were getting to know each other, too, so I don’t think they needed to have chemistry in the beginning. Our chemistry grew as the characters’ chemistry [did].

Was there any storyline you were particularly excited to tackle? The product testing seemed fun, although Detrick seemed to get off easier than others, especially compared to Nicole’s kombucha tasting.

Yeah, I think so. They were writing as we were filming, so it was kind of week by week, but that was a fun episode. We had to test all the stuff. I will say I kind of got off easy in the sense that Detrick got off easy, but I don’t think Melvin got off easy. [Ramona and others] had to act sick; they weren’t really sick. I had to actually wear this thing on my face, which was kind of uncomfortable, and I had to keep remembering to turn the light on. If the light went off and we were filming, we had to stop and reshoot it because the light went off. So it was a little bit more work, but it was a fun episode.

What do you hope to see next for Detrick?

I like to think that he has a lot of potential, but he still has a way to go. He’s very optimistic, he’s enthusiastic, he’s a hopeless romantic, he’s trying to figure it out, but he’s a people pleaser, so he’s just trying to do what he thinks everyone wants. You know what I mean? He’s happy to be here, a what-do-you-need type of guy. I think that what he’s going through with Nicole, his perspective has shifted a little bit. It didn’t work out for him. And I think as he takes more agency over himself, his job, and gets a little bit more confidence in comes into his own, he will be a hero.

Nicole breaks off her and Detrick’s romance when she learns he lied about keeping things casual by dating other people, when he was really only dating her. How do you think he’d feel knowing she’s sobbing about it in the hotel room with Mare?

I think he’d care. He’d want her to be okay, but he’d also realize that he did all he could, and she didn’t appreciate it. And now that he’s not there, she’s sobbing, and people don’t realize what they have until he’s gone; it might light a different fire. He wants to get better, but I think Detrick… people are seeing him more, and things have changed. This is the first glance of Nicole seeing who he was and what she might’ve missed out on.

How did it feel to join The Office universe while also shining a light on the importance of journalism?

Nowadays, with social media, anybody can be a journalist, anybody can put bold font on a picture, and people believe it without looking at sources. So I think it’s great that these guys are shining the light on journalism on a local level. I think it brings the community together, local newspaper, and within this local newspaper, this team creates community. As far as the show being from The Office [universe], it’s just from the same world, but it’s a different show. I like to compare it to an artist making different pieces, or two siblings from the same parents. This show is like a sister or a sibling to The Office, but it’s a different show. I think once people get into it, they’ll see that it is a different show and they’ll learn to love it.

The Paper, Season 1, Streaming now, Peacock