Incompetency has a brand-new name and it’s Hannah Howard.
Meet the charming, yet pretty inept, and definitely not self-aware new female boss in The Office. Comedian and actor Felicity Ward is the first woman to play the iconic lead role, 23 years after The Office first debuted. The highly-anticipated Australian version of The Office is the thirteenth adaptation of the global hit franchise and follows the employees at a packaging company, Flinley Craddick in Sydney.
As The Office prepares to launch around the world (excluding the US) on Prime Video on October 18, Nick L’Barrow spoke with the shows leading star, Felicity Ward, about leaning into the iconic look down the camera, the key to great physical comedy, and the emotional connection she found within the character of Hannah Howard.
Nick: I’m super excited to talk with you! I appreciate you taking the time. You are so funny in this show…
Felicity Ward: Stop it!
Nick: I’m not going to stop! Because I love your stand up as well. And that’s where I’d love to start, because I’m curious about the fact that with stand up, if a joke works, you get immediate feedback when people laugh. How do you know when a joke has worked when you’re on the set of The Office, and there’s no audience there to give you that feedback?
Felicity Ward: You don’t! Like, there are some takes where you’re looking around to the crew to see if can see shoulders moving, or someone walking offset laughing. But everyone is so good!
Josh Thomson [who plays HR Manager Martin] would break all the time, thank God! Thank God! I could not have got through that show with out Josh Thomson! But all of the other actors were pretty good. Occasionally, they would break, or get to the end of a scene, and they call cut, and everyone laughs. Thank God they happened. I really need that! I needed the crumbs of approval, because it’s so many hours of listening to people not laugh at you.
Nick: That must be such a different feeling compared to stand up…
Felicity Ward: Oh, it’s straight away. Then when you think it doesn’t work, you go a change it to make sure it works. Whereas with this, you’re just scrambling to try and make it funnier. And hopefully you’re moving it towards what does make it funnier, and not just desperate.
Fortunately, Hannah Howard, the character, she’s so cringe and so desperate and so needy, that it kind of worked for the character. That’s sort of her vibe anyway. What do I have to do to make these people like me?
Nick: Was there a particular moment where you are the most proud of making Josh break?
Felicity Ward: Oh, yeah! There was one in particular. It was the Melbourne Cup Day episode, and I’m in his office. He’s the HR manager, for people that don’t know who his character is, Martin, and I’m hammered at work.
And he’s like, “Hannah, I think you should slow down on the drinking.” And I say, “I’m not drinking.” And he goes, “I just saw you drink.” Then I take a massive skol, and when we were filming it, they just kept rolling, and we were giving each other these death stares.
I was playing it so drunk, and out of nowhere, and I think it was too mean for the character, but I just looked at him and went, “You’re a loser.” And then he broke, and I broker, and everyone who heard it laughed. I think it was the pause leading up to it was so long, and the meanness of it punctured the tension.
Nick: I love that! What’s the key to pulling of good physical comedy? They way your move around during the pyjama day episode was hilarious!
Felicity Ward: I think I know that my body is going to be funnier that I am! I’m more intuitive about my body being funnier than my words to be honest.
I don’t know if she’s like my inspiration, but Julia Louis Dreyfus from VEEP and Seinfeld, to me, is the greatest comedy actor of all time. I remember watching Seinfeld, and she was somehow making her teeth funny. Like, I don’t know how you’re making your teeth funny. She would do this grit of the teeth to deliver a line. Everything she did, all of her physical comedy… I don’t know how much it influences me, but I knew that I adored her in Seinfeld and then VEEP.
But I’ve always been very physical. What I will say is sometimes I’ve looked back at the show, and at a certain scene, and there’ll be five seconds where I’ve done 35 facial expressions! Sometimes, I’m like, chill out! Maybe just do half of them!
Nick: Well, I think that comedy works! And they line up so well with the iconic turn to the camera, something that’s a part of The Office’s genes, right? How much of those moments are improv, and how many are scripted?
Felicity Ward: It’s a bit of both. So, we had a two-week rehearsal period, and Jackie Van Beek [director and developer of this adaptation of The Office] did rehearsals with a camera in the space. And she would encourage us to look down the camera.
You know what? This is something that I don’t think I’ve said in an interview actually! Jackie gave me this great direction in the first episode, the first week of filming. And she’s like, “Hannah is playing to her fans.” When she looks down the camera, she’s imagining that there’s millions of people that are going to watch this documentary.
So, when we would go to film, she would say, “Remember the fans.” I’d be doing a scene, and if my “co-workers” or “staff” looked annoyed, I’d always be able to look to my fans and go, “Don’t worry, I got this!” It was like her personal Truman Show. That was Jackie’s lens for Hannah.
It made so much sense! And it means that I wasn’t ever looking at the camera like I knew something you don’t and that I’m so smart. I’m looking at the camera as if I’m connecting with millions of people that watching me at this little paper company in Parramatta!
Nick: That’s an incredible piece of direction! I’m getting close to my time, Felicity, and I want to close out with pointing out that you are such an advocate for talking about mental health. And for me, film and TV has played a huge role in helping me understand my emotions or events in my life. I’m curious to know whether there’s been moments in your life that helped you find empathy for someone like Hannah? Or vice versa, was there elements about Hannah that helped you understand something emotionally about you?
Felicity Ward: Hannah was both of those things! That’s a very intuitive question. Hannah is all of my most annoying personality traits. The thing Hannah has that I don’t have is a job. And the thing I have that Hannah doesn’t is self-awareness.
I haven’t spoken about this in an interview either, but on the last day, we were wrapping and handing out thank you’s and everything… I might even cry while I’m saying this! I’m a massive pussy! I cry at everything. I’m off the meds [laughs]. So, the tears are ready!
But, as I was saying, when I first started filming, I thought Hannah was so annoying. And I had all these people from the crew come up and go, “I love Hannah so much!” And I thought there was something wrong with them. Then as the series went on, and more and more episodes, people kept telling what they loved about Hannah.
Then I got to the wrap party, and I had the thought, “Oh, I thought everyone else hated those things about me, but I hated those things about me, and other people don’t actually mind them.” It was really emotional, sort of having this realisation.
And I’m not 20, you know? I’ve been around! I’ve done therapy, support groups. So, to have that level of realisation from a TV characters was kind of sad [laughs]!
Nick: I think it speaks to the power of fiction and how it can help us like that! I really appreciate you sharing that with me, Felicity! Thank you so much for your time! I know you have a crazy schedule with the release of this show, so I really appreciate you chatting with me today.
Felicity Ward: Oh, no! Thank you so much, Nick. Have a great day!
Thank you so much to Felicity for her time, and to Prime Video and Kit Communications for organising the interview. All eight episodes of The Office premiere globally (excluding the US) on October 18.
