Oscar Nuñez Was a ‘Mentor’ on ‘The Paper’ Set, Says Alex Edelman (Exclusive)

Alex Edelman has nothing but praise for his The Paper costar Oscar Nuñez!

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of the series’ premiere on Sept. 4, Edelman says Nuñez brought a lot of wisdom and experience to set from his days on The Office.

“It was really amazing to be on set with him all the time,” says Edelman, who plays Adam Cooper on The Paper. “Oscar did a really good job of being a mentor to us and a really great role model for everybody on set without ever being like, ‘Well, this is how we did it on The Office.'”

“He just sort of modeled the behavior really beautifully, and I think a lot of people sort of followed his lead,” Edelman adds.

The Paper is a spinoff of the beloved The Office and takes on the same mockumentary style. The new show follows a dying Midwestern newspaper, The Truth Teller. It stars Nuñez, Edelman, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Domhnall Gleeson and Sabrina Imappaciatore.

Nuñez is the only cast member of The Office to return as a main character on the spinoff, reprising his role as accountant Oscar Martinez.

When asked what it was like to return as Oscar, Nuñez tells PEOPLE, “A little reminiscent but then shaking it off quite quickly and just saying it’s something and it was easy to do because there’s Greg [Daniels], and there’s Michael [Koman] and there’s Paul Lieberson and we’re all agreeing.”

At NBC’s Upfront in New York City in May, Nuñez said, “I told Mr. Greg Daniels that if Oscar came back, he would probably be living in a more bustling, cosmopolitan city. Greg heard me and he moved Oscar to Toledo, Ohio — which has three times the population of Scranton. So it was nice to be heard.”

Daniels, who created The Office and co-created The Paper with Koman, told PEOPLE that Oscar had a story worth revisiting beyond the walls of Dunder Mifflin.

“Of all of the different characters from The Office, I feel like his character didn’t have as much arc to it,” he explained. “So I didn’t feel bad about involving him because most of the other characters, I feel like they had a really good ending at the finale and I didn’t want to open that up and risk messing up the original show.”

“I think he had that ability to have more juice and more stories about him that you were curious about without harming things,” he added.

Edelman says he also didn’t feel any pressure when it came to the spinoff, despite how beloved The Office is by fans.

“It’s so funny. I felt no pressure. Genuinely I’m not being funny. I felt like, no pressure,” he says. “Every show is hard. Every television show lives and dies on its merits. A lot of that stuff feels like it comes from people who don’t really make comedy. Everyone who makes comedy seems to know that it’s really hard on its own.”

“It’s not like you don’t feel pressure. You feel lots of interior pressure, not lots of exterior pressure,” he explains. “It’s really hard to make a cast of characters, an ensemble show that has a visual language, that has a unique formula, that has comedy from really unexpected places that you haven’t seen before.”

“And I said yes because of Greg Daniels and Michael Koman initially,” he adds. “I thought what an amazing opportunity to sort of follow in the footsteps of the writer-performers that they’ve had. What a joy that could be. And then everything else on top of that is just a cherry after cherry after cherry on top.”

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The Paper premieres Thursday, Sept. 4 on Peacock.