RICKY GERVAIS: On After Life series two — After After Life.
Ricky Gervais on the challenge of going deeper into his After Life for season two
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THE PHRASE “TURN on the tears” has never felt so appropriate. At Pinewood Studios one summer afternoon, Pilot TV watches Ricky Gervais breezily direct a fairly knockabout scene for the second series of After Life, set in the office of the Tambury Gazette, the local paper where his character Tony still works. Gervais, the director, has been quietly chuckling at what his cast is doing. He’s got what he wants, cuts the scene there, and all the actors leave, except Mandeep Dhillon (who plays his reporter colleague Sandy). Gervais jumps into the seat opposite her, the camera moves in for a close-up, and he’s suddenly playing Tony in a raw moment of vulnerability, reminiscing about his late wife. Within seconds he’s crying real tears. Dhillon also wells up. Gervais says, “Cut there”, and the emotional moment is done. We’ve witnessed a tonal shift which perfectly encompasses the confidence of this unique comedy about grief.
When we sit down to talk to Gervais later, he explains the new territory he’s exploring in this second series, reveals the surprising inspiration for the mood of the show, and considers its future. But we have to begin with the weeping…
We just watched you messing around, laughing with your cast one minute, then in the blink of an eye you’re crying proper tears. Does that come easy to you?
I can’t cry at shite. But if it feels real and I mean it, I can cry pretty easily, yeah, but only once. I can only do one take. People ask, ‘Are you really crying or are you just acting? To which the obvious answer is “Both.” I’m really crying, but it is also acting.
The tonal shifts in After Life season two feel even more radical than in series one. Did you set out to go bigger and bolder?
When I was writing series one I did worry about having Tony’s wife dealing with cancer and chemotherapy one minute, then Tony calling a kid a ginger cunt the next. I wondered if the audience would go along with it. But then you realise life is like that. We’re all coping and finding things funny at the same time. So with series two, I think I was more confident. Mood is very important to this show. It feels more like a drama because for the last five years I haven’t watched a sitcom. I’ve just watched Scandi noirs on Walter Presents or crime dramas on Netflix, and those have influenced me. Now I think about the visual landscape more, and even the moments of silence and quiet. In this show we can take a breather, which you wouldn’t in a traditional sitcom.
It does have the form of a traditional sitcom, though.
Yes, I’ve kept the half-hour format because I think it’s very presumptuous to expect someone to watch an hour of comedy. I still think 26 minutes is perfect for an episode of a comedy. But the look, the pacing and the cinematography of After Life are all more like a drama than a sitcom. There are still lots of sitcom elements to it. There’s lots of ‘sit’ in the ‘com’. Each episode is like a day in the life. I like the palindromic structure of starting with Tony waking up and watching a video of his wife and then ending with him going to bed drunk, still thinking about her. I also realised halfway through series two that this is a love story. If the tagline for E.T. was ‘The Greatest Love Story Ever Told Between A Boy And His Alien’, this is the greatest love story ever told between a man and his dead wife.
With series one, you said you didn’t set out to write something about grief, but now with series two it feels like you really have…
Yes, and that’s because of the reaction to this show from people contacting me and telling me how they’ve gone through the same experience as Tony. I also realised I had written about Tony going through the seven stages of grief — so in series one he’s been through shock, denial and anger, and now in this series he’s at the bargaining stage. He’s thinking, “What can I do to make myself feel better?” Because that’s all we’re trying to do — to feel happy in our own body. I also wanted to make sure the grief doesn’t just disappear. There’s a scene this series when he’s having a bad day and drinking and he says, “This is me all the time. People think I’m coping, but I remember what it was to be normal so I do an impression of that” — I think we all do that. We don’t want to be a bore or a burden to anyone, so we act normal.
In series one Tony is lashing out at everyone, which seemed obviously comedic territory, but now he’s trying to be nicer. Is that harder to make funny?
Well, in series one, the comedy comes from us living vicariously through his candour, but now we’re also laughing at a man who is trying to do something he’s not equipped to do, which is a sitcom staple, from Captain Mainwaring to David Brent. So in this series, all he’s trying to do is be a nice person, but he can’t do it because he still keeps getting wound up by other people.
Was it always in your mind for this to be a continuing series?
I made sure season one was a self-contained story, in case I got run over by a bus, or in case no one liked it. But it went well, and I knew I wanted to do a second series, and Netflix wanted one. Now I’ve fallen in love with the characters and the world of the show and I feel I could do a third series, which I’ve never done before.
Has your writing process changed?
The more confident I am in the actors, the easier and more fun it is. I write for these actors. I actually thought of who should play each role before I even wrote the scripts. Apart from that my writing routine is similar to how it’s always been. I’m not one of these writers who has a rigid six-hour day, but I’ll work in 20-minute bursts and jot things down. I don’t really start structuring it until I have a big bag of observations and I know where the story is going.
Would you ever try making your own crime drama like the ones you enjoy watching?
I don’t know. They’re great to watch but I think it would be harder to make. I think it would be less fun for me. I like to enjoy each moment of filming. And
I don’t think I’d enjoy shooting six months at night in Finland watching a policewoman chasing a serial killer. I don’t think that process is for me. I know where I am with After Life. I love this world more than any other world I’ve created.
AFTER LIFE SEASON 2 IS ON NETFLIX FROM FRIDAY 24 APRIL