Ricky Gervais
Michael Doherty meets the award-winning funnyman in London
You hear him before you see him: at unmistakable cackle of a laugh that has become familiar from his chat-show appearances but also from his many blooper reels. Ricky Gervais may be the driving force, showrunner and star of everything he does on lm and TV, from e O ce (2001) to Extras (2005) to Derek (2012), but he’s also the person most likely to hold up production by inadvertently laughing, forcing his co-stars to corpse.
The 48-year-old comic has plenty to laugh about this week with the launch of his new six-part Netflix series, After Life. It’s the story of a local journalist, Tony, played by Gervais, whose wife has just lost her battle with cancer. Embittered and grief-stricken, he spends his days railing against the world and everybody in it. On paper, it sounds like an excuse for Ricky Gervais to tilt his lance at anything that peeves him, but After Life is a show with plenty of heart. at was the whole point, as far as the comic is concerned.
“It had to be heartfelt,” he explains, settling into his seat, dressed in his customary black t-shirt and black jeans ensemble. “ e show came with the concept: imagine a man who’s lost the love of his life so he doesn’t care about himself or the rest of the world. at could only be serious. I mean, I don’t think you’ll see many sitcoms where someone is dying during chemotherapy. But it’s respectful and funny and stoic. You like her straight away; the fact that she’s caring about him lling the washing machine when you know that she knows she’s dying. I think that’s beautiful. I love that. It’s about humanity. I love that people care about what they leave behind. So it’s beautiful and sad at the same time.”
Set in the o ce of a local newspaper that is apt to cover such stories as a schoolboy who can play a tune with two recorders stuck up his nose or a wallpaper stain that looks a bit like Kenneth Branagh, A er Life boasts an impressive cast including Ashley Jensen, Kerry Godliman, Penelope Wilton and Roisin Conaty. e story entirely revolves around Ricky Gervais, however, whose character has to navigate his grief while working in an unfulfilling job and paying daily visits to a care home to visit his father (David Bradley) who is living with dementia. While his situation has led to suicidal thoughts (initially dissipated by the realisation that the dog needs to be fed), Gervais insists that A er Life, as some commentators have observed, is not a story about suicide.
“I don’t think suicide is the topic,” he explains. “I think the topic is grief and grief makes you think lots of things. I don’t think suicide is any more the topic than him getting drunk every night or trying heroin or being nasty to people. It’s just that it’s nal. I think that’s why we think it’s a bigger subject. But again it exists and I treat it respectfully. I’ve heard round-tables on radio shows discussing why Ricky Gervais shouldn’t be making jokes about this subject. I go, ‘But you’re talking about it!’ I’m just doing it in a funny way. O ence is usually taken when people mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target and they’re not necessarily the same thing. Someone will nd every single thing o ensive in some way.”
ere’s nothing you can say that someone, somewhere, won’t misinterpret and find o ensive
e notion of what people are o ended by is one that clearly exercises the comic. It was a topic he covered in his 2018 comedy special, Humanity. “I did a routine about nut allergies,” he recalls, “and I got a complaint on Twitter from someone who said, ‘Oh, this isn’t funny; you should never joke about food allergies’. And I sent back, ‘I make jokes about Aids, famine, cancer and the Holocaust and you’re telling me I shouldn’t joke about food allergies? And she said yes, but the Holocaust didn’t kill children. People always think their thing is the worst. Some people just want to get in the way and you mustn’t worry about it because there’s nothing you can say that someone, somewhere, won’t misinterpret and nd o ensive. You’ll say, ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ Someone will then say, ‘Hey dude, my chicken died yesterday’.
ere’s no doubt that launching his new series on Net ix rather than his previous home at the BBC has allowed him more licence to o end. But freedom was only one of three reasons that Gervais took the streaming route. “ e freedom was one aspect,” he says, “but it still doesn’t give you carte blanche to go crazy. I mean, I wasn’t trying to break the record for the most o ensive language and most sensitive subject matter ever. Everything is justi ed and I deal with everything sensitively. I think about stu . It’s not like I just blurt it out. People think, with the Golden Globes that I just go out there and think to myself, ‘What’s the worst thing I can say to everyone?’ Every joke is honed and it’s bulletproof so in a week’s time I can justify it and I can say, ‘I know you’ve mistaken the subject for the target: this is the target.’ I’ve had to compromise to get nal edit, which I’ve been lucky to have my whole career. So it was BBC Two not BBC One; Channel 4 not ITV; HBO not NBC. But then Net ix come along with zero interference and the most nal edit ever. Plus, the sky’s the limit: 140 million subscribers. And they’ve got deep pockets. at’s three reasons!”
For a man who admits he hasn’t watched terrestrial TV for two years, preferring Net ix and Scandi noir (“wherever I can nd it”), Gervais has been responsible for some indelible small-screen moments and characters. None is more enduring than David Brent, the cringeworthy o ce manager who rst appeared on our screens as the general manager of the Slough branch of Wernham-Hogg paper merchants. ough it has been more than 18 years since e O ce rst aired, David Brent, like Steve Coogan and Alan Partridge, is the character with which Gervais will forever be associated. Like Coogan, Gervais remains fond of his iconic creation. “People have stopped asking me to do Brent’s dance from e O ce,” he laughs, “but the rst year was hairy! at said, that clip pops up as a gif all the time. It looks good but I don’t even think it is me when I see it. I mean, it’s like some sort of demented orang-utan! I don’t know how I did it. I know how I threw those shapes. e joke was that that this guy thought he was a great dancer. I remember the day we shot it. Someone laughed and I stopped so what you see is three takes edited together to look like one. I look back and I laugh because I couldn’t do that now. I don’t know how it happened! I’m blessed with those little short legs so the kick is spectacular!”
In addition to being the gif that keeps on giving, the concept of David Brent, a character with no lter who makes you sink behind your sofa, became a staple of reality TV. “Love Island always has a David Brent character, and there are two or three Brents on each season of e Apprentice,” he laughs. “Some of the Brent-isms in the Bros documentary [ A er e Screaming Stops] are fantastic. ere are so many favourite bits, but there’s one bit that is spectacular; when he says, ‘Our only toy was a dart!’ And when he’s showing the picture of his bulldog as well, he says, ‘I had him painted with a pint’. Yeah, we can see that! But then it was really sweet as well. at bit when they were crying really got me. I genuinely loved it as well as ironically loved it.”
As for future plans, don’t expect a mainstream TV series from Ricky Gervais any time soon. “It’s too safe,” he contends, “People are too scared to o end now. e BBC doesn’t want certain papers on their back and shareholders don’t want hassle and letters of complaint. Because sometimes it’s easier to go, let’s not put a show out, than to put it out and take the stick. Also, it’s not about getting a complaint. It’s about getting a complaint upheld. I have never had a complaint upheld because I know what I’m doing.”
Gervais also knows what he’s doing with A er Life and that’s shaping up to be a second series. “ is series does come to a natural conclusion,” he says, “but I always do that just in case I die! Now I’ve thought about it, I really would like to do a second series. I fell in love with the characters. I’ve got an idea where it can go and the second series is always better because you know the actors. ere’s a little clue in the rst series where he says, ‘I’m gonna use my superpower for good.’ He can still be an arsehole but just enjoy it more!”
While a second series of A er Life is de nitely on the cards, a hosting job at the Oscars is not. Gervais didn’t watch the recent ceremony and he’s happy to admit that he doesn’t watch many such ceremonies. “I don’t think I’ve ever watched an award show that I wasn’t presenting,” he says. “ ey’re all tedious and terrible! It’s not a spectator sport, seeing people mutually hug and tell everyone how wonderful
they are. I tried to make it a spectator sport by throwing a spanner in the works. I would host the Oscars if they said I could do whatever I wanted and they never would. I would do it the same as I did at the Golden Globes and they know that and they’ll never ask me, because they take it too seriously. Even though no one really cares about the Oscars any more, they would never let me bring the tone down!”