Jon Lovitz didn’t need much convincing to join The Paper. In fact, he barely needed convincing at all.
When Greg Daniels came calling, Lovitz’s answer was essentially: Where do I sign?
“I just said yes, yes, yes, whatever. I’m in, I’m in, I’m in, I’m in,” Lovitz recalls with a laugh. “I don’t care what the part is. I knew it’d be fun.”
That part turned out to be Todd Dumph, a disgruntled reporter at the Cincinnati Chronicle in Peacock’s The Paper, the mockumentary spinoff of The Office. And while Lovitz has spent decades making audiences laugh, he found something particularly enjoyable about returning to the workplace-comedy world—especially because the people behind the scenes gave him room to play.
“I really had a lot of fun,” he says. “I didn’t expect to have.”
That enthusiasm is partly thanks to Daniels, whom Lovitz has known since their Saturday Night Live days. Daniels and Conan O’Brien were writing partners who joined the SNL writing staff in the late 1980s, overlapping with Lovitz during his long tenure on the show. Lovitz describes Daniels in characteristically warm terms: “He’s super bright. He’s also one of the nicest people ever.”
For Todd, Lovitz drew inspiration from another beloved SNL connection: writer Herb Sargent. Older than the young performers when SNL launched in 1975, Sargent became something of a father figure to Lovitz.
“He was like that kind of grumpy, but very sarcastic, very dry sense of humor,” Lovitz says. “Really, really funny, great guy.”
So when Todd needed a certain world-weary edge, Lovitz knew where to look.
The result also gave him something every comedian loves: permission to mess around.
“They’d come up with funny lines, and then I could add lines,” he says. “They’d go, ‘Yeah, go ahead. We like that. Keep going.’”
Sometimes the freedom was even more spontaneous. “In the middle of scenes, I could just throw stuff out,” Lovitz says. “And they were like, ‘Great.’”
For a performer who has “always” had ideas for his parts, that collaborative atmosphere was a gift.
“I like to collaborate,” he explains. “You got to be really creative on the show.”
Lovitz also found a terrific scene partner in Chelsea Frei, with whom he shared most of his scenes. The two became friends during production, and Lovitz is effusive about her range.
“She can play anything,” he says. “Go from the comedy to the drama and subtle and big. And she’s really, really talented.”
Then comes the Lovitz-level compliment: “She could be a regular on Saturday Night Live, you know.”
If there is one thing Lovitz understands especially well, it’s the peculiar art of performing for a mockumentary camera. It looks casual. It isn’t.
“You have to be real, but also be entertaining, but not look like you’re doing that,” he explains. “You can’t really perform, you know, be as outgoing as, say, if it was a show with an audience.”
Instead, the comedy lives in the tiny moments.
“It’s more all these little private moments,” he says. “It’s tricky.”
And nobody knows better than Lovitz how difficult it can be to keep those private moments intact when your scene partner is trying desperately to make you laugh.
Asked who has been hardest to keep a straight face around throughout his career, Lovitz immediately names two SNL icons: Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman.
Phil, in particular, had a devastatingly simple weapon: a look.
“I would say something dumb, and Phil would just turn his head and just stare at me, not say a word,” Lovitz remembers. “I’d be crying, laughing, ’cause I knew what he was thinking.”
Then there was Carvey, with whom Lovitz once performed the gloriously absurd SNL sketch “You Mock Me,” written by Al Franken and hosted by John Malkovich.
Franken’s instruction was simple: “I want you guys to be as silly as you can be. Just go nuts.”
They did.
Lovitz and Carvey spent much of the sketch trying to make each other crack. At one point, they raced to the back wall and slammed into shutters. Lovitz hit his. Then Carvey hit his.
“It was so loud that I just started laughing,” Lovitz recalls. “I mean, it was ridiculous. And this was on air, you know.”
For longtime Lovitz fans, that story may explain something essential about Todd Dumph: beneath the deadpan, sarcasm and workplace grumbling is the same guy who has spent decades finding the funny in the moment—and trying not to lose it.
And if Lovitz had the chance to introduce Todd to one of his classic characters? There is only one logical choice.
Master Thespian.
“Master Thespian is like such an arrogant idiot, but likable,” Lovitz says. “He just thinks he’s the greatest ever.”
Todd, naturally, would have a different opinion.
“I’d love to see this guy look at this guy like, ‘God—worst actor I’ve ever seen.’”
The hypothetical exchange practically writes itself.
As for whether Todd might return in a Season 3, Lovitz is open to it—despite the famously grueling hours of single-camera production.
Still, his experience on The Paper seems to have outweighed the exhaustion. The writing was strong, the directors were welcoming, the crew was “first class,” and Lovitz found himself enjoying the process far more than he anticipated.
“They were all great,” he says. “Everybody, the crew, everyone knew what they were doing. It was very pleasant, really fun, and first class.”
Which is perhaps the perfect Lovitz endorsement: after all these years, give the man a good script, a funny cast, a little room to improvise—and let him loose.
Just don’t expect him to keep a straight face.
