Friends in high places

Stars Steve Carell and Lisa Kudrow on how Donald Trump inspired their new workplace comedy...

- BENJI WILSON

SPACE FORCE

NETFLIX Available: Friday 29 May

Season: 1 Episodes: 10

NEW COMEDY

Some ideas are so fantastical that they could only be real… Space Force, a new Netflix comedy about a galactic division of the US military, came from a speech in 2018 by Donald Trump.

In a surprise move, the US President announced, ‘We must have American dominance in space… and establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.’

Those two words, ‘Space Force’, set brains whirring at Netflix. They had been looking for a project that would suit award-winning American film and TV star Steve Carell and his friend from the US version of The Office, writer Greg Daniels.

‘Netflix asked, “Do you want to do a show called Space Force?’” says Steve, 57. ‘And I pretty much immediately said, “Well, yeah, sure. That sounds great.” Then I called Greg, and he loved the title, too. So it was really based on nothing, except this name that made everybody laugh.’