A month ago, I watched Ricky Gervais obliterate Hollywood from behind a podium. Right there in front of me, the man took a needle to the giant inflated collective ego that is the A-List and boom! The occasion was the Britannia Awards – LA’s ‘British Oscars’ – and Gervais was awarded the Charlie Chaplin Award for Comedy. “I knew I’d won and I still didn’t prepare a speech,” he deadpanned.
“That shows you the contempt I have for this award, and this town.” The Brits laughed; many of the Toon Towners didn’t. And things only got tenser – Golden Globes style – as the 55 year-old made it clear just how self-indulgent he found both actors and award shows, and the camera zoomed in on the likes of Jodie Foster and Samuel L. Jackson’s stony faces.
“But they’ve chosen to be the target of that joke, haven’t they?” grins Gervais today, from a corner of the deserted Kensal Rise bar where we meet. “It’s like with the Golden Globes: I didn’t really hate anyone in that room; these are jokes. And I can defend everything I’ve said, so I don’t feel guilty. When they first got me to do the Globes, I asked myself: ‘Do I pander to the 200 egos in the room, or the 200 million people watching at home?’ Only those people watching at home are not winning an award. They’re not millionaires. There is nothing in this for them unless I make them laugh, so I try to make it a spectator sport.”
Like everything the Reading-born comedian
has turned his hand to over the years – whether it’s writing,
producing, directing or penning children’s books – Gervais does this
only too well. The Office, Extras, Derek, The Invention of Lying,
Special Correspondents, Cemetery Junction and the Flanimals: aside an
ill-fated early foray into 80s pop, he always seems to pull it off. Even
the Golden Globes organisers asked him back – and all three times he
refused to tone it down. “I own my own labour,” he shrugs.
“So I’m not beholden to anyone. I don’t care what a director or producer thinks of me. Having said that,” he smiles, bearing those familiarly sharp incisors, “I never go out to ruin their day – it’s too easy.” And he does sometimes feel sorry for actors at award ceremonies, “because they have to go out there and promote their film which means reading from an auto-cue. Whereas I can go out there and say: ‘Shut up you disgusting, deviant, pill popping scum’. It’s lovely,” he smiles. “And I can say that I’m only joking, but I sort of mean it.”
That, in a sentence, is the staple of Gervais’s humour. But it’s David Brent – The Office’s hapless antihero – that is the gift that keeps on giving. And twelve years on, the Brentmeister General is in a particularly generous mood as he embarks on a self-financed tour of the UK with his rock band in Gervais’s new mockumentary, Life on the Road.
Only there’s poignancy now to this ageing clown, being confronted, as we all are eventually, by himself. “Brent was the advent of ordinary people becoming famous, wasn’t he? But now there’s a new breed out there and they’re better at narcissism. People are taking selfies at Auschwitz.”
“So I’m not beholden to anyone. I don’t care what a director or producer thinks of me. Having said that,” he smiles, bearing those familiarly sharp incisors, “I never go out to ruin their day – it’s too easy.” And he does sometimes feel sorry for actors at award ceremonies, “because they have to go out there and promote their film which means reading from an auto-cue. Whereas I can go out there and say: ‘Shut up you disgusting, deviant, pill popping scum’. It’s lovely,” he smiles. “And I can say that I’m only joking, but I sort of mean it.”
That, in a sentence, is the staple of Gervais’s humour. But it’s David Brent – The Office’s hapless antihero – that is the gift that keeps on giving. And twelve years on, the Brentmeister General is in a particularly generous mood as he embarks on a self-financed tour of the UK with his rock band in Gervais’s new mockumentary, Life on the Road.
Only there’s poignancy now to this ageing clown, being confronted, as we all are eventually, by himself. “Brent was the advent of ordinary people becoming famous, wasn’t he? But now there’s a new breed out there and they’re better at narcissism. People are taking selfies at Auschwitz.”
Touch on either micro-celebrity, misogyny or Donald Trump
and Gervais goes from jovial and laid-back to a kind of frenzied
fast-talking anguish. “People live their life like an open wound now,”
he’s telling me, wide-eyed. “And they’re rewarded for bad behaviour.
Professional trolls have their own newspaper columns and chat shows.
We’ve got people being unbelievably misogynistic on Twitter, because men
are threatened by strong, intelligent, capable women. Reality stars
will say to TV companies: ‘Get me on Big Brother and I will behave
awfully’.
"After fifteen years of the Apprentice,” and here he suddenly bows his head and moans, stricken by the memory of Trump, “we have this new culture where people say: ‘I will destroy anything that stands in my way’ – and that’s acceptable? We’re going to have ‘Celebrity Enema’ soon.” When I tell him I think that’s still a long way off he looks incensed, panicked. “But we’ve done it now, haven’t we? A reality game show host has become President of the United States. That’s it. Isn’t it?”
Watching Gervais’s brain operate – like a magnet picking up on every form of human idiocy, however far removed, as it goes – is an extraordinary thing. And I wonder how early on his father – a Franco-Ontarian émigré who worked as a labourer – and mother – “a lioness” and “miracle-worker”, realised that the youngest of their four children wasn’t like other boys. Maybe when he was seven and sitting in their coalbunker “breaking up the coal with my fingers and worrying about accidentally splitting an atom. I knew ‘sorry’ wouldn’t be enough if I destroyed Reading.”
"After fifteen years of the Apprentice,” and here he suddenly bows his head and moans, stricken by the memory of Trump, “we have this new culture where people say: ‘I will destroy anything that stands in my way’ – and that’s acceptable? We’re going to have ‘Celebrity Enema’ soon.” When I tell him I think that’s still a long way off he looks incensed, panicked. “But we’ve done it now, haven’t we? A reality game show host has become President of the United States. That’s it. Isn’t it?”
Watching Gervais’s brain operate – like a magnet picking up on every form of human idiocy, however far removed, as it goes – is an extraordinary thing. And I wonder how early on his father – a Franco-Ontarian émigré who worked as a labourer – and mother – “a lioness” and “miracle-worker”, realised that the youngest of their four children wasn’t like other boys. Maybe when he was seven and sitting in their coalbunker “breaking up the coal with my fingers and worrying about accidentally splitting an atom. I knew ‘sorry’ wouldn’t be enough if I destroyed Reading.”
Science was, and still
is, a passion (he studied biology before switching to philosophy at
university) and it was at UCL in 1982 that he met his TV producer
partner, Jane Fallon – sometimes to be spotted chuckling her way through
award ceremonies. The pair have never married and Gervais doesn’t seem
to be sure whether this has anything to do with his atheism or not. “I
don’t know... I mean we are married ‘except in the eyes of God’, really.
I didn’t need to placate anyone. So actually it was more of a societal pressure we were [rejecting].” The same goes for children. “We didn’t fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives,” he has said of their decision to go without. “And there are too many children, of course.”
I didn’t need to placate anyone. So actually it was more of a societal pressure we were [rejecting].” The same goes for children. “We didn’t fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives,” he has said of their decision to go without. “And there are too many children, of course.”
Gervais has kept “the same friends and the same values.” Only now he has a house in Hampstead,
and a pad in New York. “But basically all that has changed is cash
flow.” Has fame made him even a tiny bit happier? “No. I was happy when
I wasn’t famous.” Is he any less happy then? “No,” he replies, drawing
out the vowel. “But there was the potential of that, because I feared
fame. I feared being lumped in with people who would do anything to be
famous.”
And maybe it’s in a bid to escape any further resemblances with a breed he so derides that Gervais finds himself incapable of saying no to fans. “I’m terrified that I’ll be running for a train and someone will ask for a selfie and I would miss the train, just as I won’t now send the soup back even if it’s cold, because I don’t want a single person out there to say: ‘Ricky Gervais was horrible’. I just think that would be so unfair. Because I am a nice guy.”
I’m genuinely astonished that he cares. Yes, he seems a good guy (‘nice’ is too bland) and there’s zero evidence of the trickiness I’ve heard about, but certainly in his stand up, Gervais doesn’t hold back.
And maybe it’s in a bid to escape any further resemblances with a breed he so derides that Gervais finds himself incapable of saying no to fans. “I’m terrified that I’ll be running for a train and someone will ask for a selfie and I would miss the train, just as I won’t now send the soup back even if it’s cold, because I don’t want a single person out there to say: ‘Ricky Gervais was horrible’. I just think that would be so unfair. Because I am a nice guy.”
I’m genuinely astonished that he cares. Yes, he seems a good guy (‘nice’ is too bland) and there’s zero evidence of the trickiness I’ve heard about, but certainly in his stand up, Gervais doesn’t hold back.
“I’m not one of these comedians who goes out there thinking
anything is allowed, and that comedy is my conscience taking the day
off. I do have rules.” Is there anything he wouldn’t joke about, for
example? “No. There’s nothing you shouldn’t joke about. It just depends
what the target of the joke is.
Because I think offence often comes from people taking the subject of the joke for the target. You can joke about racism without being racist and sex without being sexist.” And the Holocaust? “It depends what the joke is. That’s like me saying to you ‘is there anything you wouldn’t write about?’ When, of course, it depends what you say. The basic rule of thumb is: make sure the target isn’t something that person can’t help.”
As long as Gervais keeps aiming those zingers at celebrities (celebrity, if not fame, being something they can help), I’m happy. “And one day I think I would like to do another Globes,” he muses. “When I get that little itch, you know?” But before then he’s got his new ‘Humanity’ tour to complete, “a couple of animated films and seven and a half ideas in nine different notebooks lying around the house. So I just need to decide on one…”
David Brent: Life on the Road is out now on DVD. The David Brent Songbook, published by Blink, is out now.
Because I think offence often comes from people taking the subject of the joke for the target. You can joke about racism without being racist and sex without being sexist.” And the Holocaust? “It depends what the joke is. That’s like me saying to you ‘is there anything you wouldn’t write about?’ When, of course, it depends what you say. The basic rule of thumb is: make sure the target isn’t something that person can’t help.”
As long as Gervais keeps aiming those zingers at celebrities (celebrity, if not fame, being something they can help), I’m happy. “And one day I think I would like to do another Globes,” he muses. “When I get that little itch, you know?” But before then he’s got his new ‘Humanity’ tour to complete, “a couple of animated films and seven and a half ideas in nine different notebooks lying around the house. So I just need to decide on one…”
David Brent: Life on the Road is out now on DVD. The David Brent Songbook, published by Blink, is out now.
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