Ricky Gervais personally approved casting a female equivalent of David Brent in the Australian remake of The Office, actress Felicity Ward has said.

Ward stars as the franchise’s first-ever female lead, playing Hannah Howard, the managing director of the Flinley Craddick packaging company. The series will arrive on Amazon Prime on October 18.

It is the 13th version of The Office around the world to date, after the huge success of the US version, starring Steve Carell as Michael Scott, which ran for nine seasons from 2005 to 2013.

“Ricky Gervais has approved a female lead, he’s very excited about a female lead — just in case anyone is angry,” Ward said during the Prime Video Presents: Trailblazers event on Tuesday in London, where she debuted a trailer from the series.”

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“I did zero preparation, because I read the script and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is every annoying part of my personality.’ I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” she added.

“It was just all in the script. And I don’t know if it’s [showrunner] Julie De Fina… I don’t know how much she had seen of me before, but it was as if she just, like, got the tapes and then edited out the charm and the bits that people liked and then just wrote a character, so it’s just there.”

Ward’s character is not the only character in the remake whose original counterpart was male – Edith Poor plays receptionist, front desk executive and productivity manager Lizzie, the equivalent of Dwight/Gareth’s role. The show also features sales rep Nick (Steen Raskopoulos as Tim/Jim role) and Greta (Shari Sebbens as Pam/Dawn).

Fans of the original The Office seemed unconvinced by the Australian version when it was announced, with some pointing out that it’s potentially redundant given the existence of Utopia, an Australian comedy series that has been running for five seasons and is set in the working life of the office of a government infrastructure organisation.

In other news, Gervais recently announced the first set of UK dates for his new stand-up show ‘Mortality’ which will also become a Netflix special.