Ricky Gervais always makes me laugh. Whether it’s hosting the Golden Globes, his amazing work as David Brent on The Office or Andy Millman on Extras, his guest appearances on shows like Louie or Curb Your Enthusiasm, or in his countless other shows and movies, Gervais always finds a way to make me laugh out loud. So when I found out I was going to talk with him for his new Netflix movie Special Correspondents (streaming April 29th) which he wrote and directed, you could say I was kind of excited. But nothing could have prepared me for how awesome the interview was actually going to be.
Before going any further, you need to know how interviews normally work. Generally you go to a local hotel and the person you’re going to talk to spends their day answering the same questions over and over again for six to eight hours. If it’s not at a local hotel, you might land a ten to fifteen minute phone conversation, where it’s sometimes hard to get in a rhythm because it’s a phone call.
But for my Ricky Gervais interview, I somehow managed to talk with him on Skype, and what was supposed to be a short 15-20 minute interview morphed into an hour and fifteen minute conversation about everything from Woody Allen to Christopher Guest. Of course we also talked about making his new movie for Netflix, his editing process, why he shoots with two cameras, who gives him honest feedback, his love of This is Spinal Tap, his next movie, David Brent: Life on the Road, the way Larry David likes to work, his writing process, if he’ll ever work with Karl Pilkington again, and so much more. If you’re a fan of his I promise you’ll enjoy this conversation.
Before getting to the interview, if you’re not familiar with Special Correspondents, it’s a satire of modern news coverage that focuses on a New York based radio journalist (Eric Bana) who fakes front line war reports with his technician (Gervais) from a hideout above a Queens’ restaurant. The film also stars America Ferrara, Benjamin Bratt, Vera Farmiga, Raúl Castillo, and Kelly MacDonald. You can watch the trailer here.
Finally, since the interview covered so many subjects, I broke it up into two parts. Below is part two. If you missed the first part click here.
Collider: One of the things people wanted to know is films that you would recommend. So do you have top five movies or top five things people should seek out, a book, movies?
GERVAIS: I do, but I’d probably have to do two lists. My real list would probably be the most obvious films. They’d probably be in the top 10 of every film buff magazine ever. They would Godfather I & II, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shawshank Redemption, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting. They would be those sort of movies. I suppose if you go more populist, I liked a lot of the things like A Few Good Men and I liked a few good broad rom-coms like Pretty Woman. I suppose I like the best of the genre. I think Dustin Hoffman has been in at least three of my favorite movies of all time with things like Tootsie, Marathon Man, getting a bit more arthouse and darker, The Graduate, incredible, barrier-breaking movie, The Graduate. Just little bits and pieces, I love Hitchcock. I think Spielberg is a master. I think Jaws invented a genre. So, my tastes, I’m not a snob by any means. I suppose, if you ask for films people might not have heard of, I love, this is hard. The Rebel, one of my favorite comedies.
Maybe a film with subtitles, now that you’ve gotten into them.
GERVAIS: Intouchables, [The] Intouchables. City of God. I’m watching, on TV at the moment, Scandinavia is ruling the world. The Bridge, The Killing, I’m just watching a new one recently called Occupied. They’re bringing art to TV and it’s great. It’s great writing, great casting, it’s also a bit quirky and flawed. The strong female characters and role models, not just props for men. It’s just fucking great. Really, really smart, uncompromising TV. What films might people not have heard of? My favorite little films, little gems that no one’s heard of? Oh, that’s tough because I don’t know what people have heard of. Well everyone knows Angels with Dirty Faces only because it’s –
Home Alone.
GERVAIS: It’s 70 years old. Do you know Angels with Dirty Faces? James Cagney.
Yeah.
GERVAIS: Incredible. Just an incredible film. Double Indemnity, one of my favorite films of all time. Billy Wilder is just incredible. The Apartment. That’s up there, that’s in my top ten. Early Woody Allen in my top ten. Is this meant to be a film that no one’s ever heard of and then they go to it and go, “Oh my god, that’s the best film I’ve ever seen?” That’s what I want, isn’t it? I love early Woody Allen, his work in the ‘70s was unbelievable. I’m curious if you – GERVAIS: Unbelievable. He brought modern comedy to the silver screen. That’s what he did. I prefer Bananas to Sleeper, but which do you prefer? GERVAIS: I prefer Sleeper, right, because I like the whole film better, but there’s lines in Bananas that are so funny. Same as Love and Death, especially Love and Death, it’s not as good a film maybe, but there are some lines in there that I just cry. The image of him sitting with his fucking butterfly collection. When his mother goes, “I hope you die.” I just think, you know, there’s little lines that he used to put in that no one ever did. I remember Annie Hall thinking, “That’s the first time I’ve seen somebody laugh at a joke that was meant to be funny.” The comedy was often on top of it, the jokes were funny and somebody didn’t react. Whereas Diane Lane, she was laughing at something he said. It was great. It was great. I think when people say Jewish comedy they mean modern comedy. Normal people complaining about their job, and their life and saying the wrong thing. *Woody Allen impression* She was so beautiful I could hardly keep my eyes on the meter. It’s just, it’s great. In Love and Death, “He came first in the village idiot contest,” and just under his breath, “What did you do, place?” I just think that wisecracking. He invented that – well Groucho, Groucho did the wisecracker where it wasn’t always good to be the cleverest person in the room but then Woody Allen took it on and carried it through. And Lisa Simpson is the most modern. To be an unpopular intellectual and think the world’s wrong.
Woody to me is such a genius on so many levels and the fact that he has continued to produce a film a year and even if every film isn’t a masterpiece, it’s still insane.
GERVAIS: It’s insane.
How do you make a movie a year?
GERVAIS: And he’s had a great year doing it. I want to do that. I think the same as him. When someone says, “The money’s going down, your films are failed, no one likes you anymore.” I go, “Can I keep the camera because I just want to make it for YouTube.” I just want to make my own films. Or TV, or just my own thing, I just want to create. That’s the buzz for me, the creative process. An idea is never as good as when it’s in your head. And then it’s just how little you ruin it.
I am, it does seem to me that we are on the precipice of something amazing. We’ve talked about Netflix, where you don’t have to hit ratings as much as, they just need a segment of their users to be watching. So I’m curious, along the way what ideas maybe have sprouted up that you’ve created and said, “This isn’t the right time,” or you couldn’t get the money because whatever reason, are there sort of… Like, Woody Allen has that desk with little notes, like ideas he has written down and he just pulls one out and then he tries to work on it. I’m curious if you have something like that for the future.
GERVAIS: Um, sort of. Woody Allen sort of, his are always sort of specifically an idea for a film. Whereas I’m a much more scattergun approach. I do the best, most exciting project whatever that might be. And sometimes I can decide, you know, I can start thinking something is a film and then go, “No this would be better as a series.” Sometimes the opposite. Sometimes, “That’s stand up, no I could make that into a sketch. No I should do that as a children’s book.” It’s the best medium for the idea that wins. And I’ve got a backlog of things. I’ve probably forgotten more things than I’ve put into fruition. Because if you think about it, an idea — a series or a film — takes a year or two. You can only do one thing at a time. But your brain is coming up with thousands of ideas all the time. You can’t help what you think. So you have to go, “Okay, let’s do that one.” So I’m faster than the making process.
I think Woody is, as well, that’s why he writes those things down, just puts them in the desk.
GERVAIS: I don’t, I’ve got about 38 notebooks that I find, “Oh what was that? That was a good idea.” But I usually try and concentrate on one thing. And sometimes circumstance and situation and timing. Like Extras wasn’t going to be the next thing I did, it was a little sketch show idea I had and I was actually working on something else. But then, The Office won so many awards that I started going to the Emmys and the Golden Globes and all these famous people came up to me and saying it was their favorite show and I thought, “This is good. I can get these people to make fools of themselves.” And that was it, really. So that won. And that happens a lot. You never know. I might have three or four ideas. Like at the moment I don’t know what to do next. I promised myself I would do a stand up tour, I’ve put in two warm ups in May, to make me write something and go along in front of an audience. I’ve made myself do that, which, I want to become a tour and I love doing stand up and I haven’t done it for six years if you don’t count the Golden Globes. I’ve got an idea for a movie, and I’ve got an idea, I’ve got two ideas for two new series. And I don't know what to do first. But I keep telling myself, “You keep promising you’ll do stand up, do stand up. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
…But I don’t know, I’ll probably write them all down. I’ll tell someone an idea and they’ll say, “We’ll take it.” I told Ted Sarandos an idea for a short film I had which was just for fun and he said, “We’ll take it.” So, I’m sort of spoiled for choice and I’m in a position where I can sort of do anything and get anything on. But you don’t want to blow it. You don’t want to put your name on something and that’s when people crash. That’s when restauranteurs open nine restaurants that they don’t go to.
There’s not going to be an avant-garde Ricky Gervais film that’s about a leaf blowing in the wind? With...
GERVAIS: Maybe as a spoof. I’d love to tell you this short story idea, but I won’t. So I’m not gonna do it. It’s so easy to do, so simple, so funny. It’s like a really long ten-minute joke.
That’s what I think what’s amazing about this new model. Is that you don’t have to do a 30-minute show and 22 episodes or even six episodes, with Netflix, you could make these ten-minute short films or do anything and release it.
GERVAIS: I always do a little bit of improv, I did some of The Office, a tiny bit in Extras, a bit more in Derek. But I did quite a lot in the Brent movie, and I got hooked on maybe doing a series of almost all improv, like Christopher Guest does, and then just really be ruthless to get the funniest. I just want to try everything! …I could just do the same thing every night if I wanted. I could just do the same thing every day and have a really good career. But where’s the fun in that?
I agree. But this brings me to something I want to ask which is, are you aware – talking about something like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, all the people involved in that, I know they cite The Office as a huge inspiration and I’d imagine there are so many comedians out there who cite your work as inspirational and helped them get into what they’re doing.
GERVAIS: They don’t tell me that.
[laughs]
GERVAIS: Can you find out more? Can you make a list? A list of everybody who likes me, it might be useful some day.
I can do that, but this leads me to there’s so many improv people who love your work and you bring up an idea like this where you could do an all-improv thing and just be ruthless with it, I’m curious if that’s something you’ve ever thought about. About reaching out to this variety –
GERVAIS: I love improv and I love improvising, and I surround myself with funny people. We’re funny in the pub, but it’s difficult. It’s a very fine line between fun and self-indulgence. People like blooper reels, but imagine a whole film of blooper reels. Just ‘cause you’re having a good time doesn’t mean I am. So, it’s some improv is harder to watch than do. That’s the problem.
I think Larry David does it.
GERVAIS: He’s great, but he’s much more structured than you think.
He has a page outline I think?
GERVAIS: I did an episode, and I interviewed him, as well. When I interviewed him, he has about 19 pages. Now, I do 19 pages for a script knowing there’s going to be stretching and fiddling. There are tram lines that they go down. He’s more structured than Christopher Guest in a way, because Christopher Guest probably puts a lot more work in, but then he films two cameras and he lets you go for seven minutes, which I think that’s traditional because it used to be what a 35mm reel was. And he lets you do it three times. And he might say something like, “Oh, this is the scene where you try and get the director to change the name of the movie.” That’s it, because he knows that he’s got all these nodes between these thousands of things to link. Whereas Larry David is much more “This is where you hit a beat and we argue a bit.” He’s almost more structured and it’s just nonsense in between. It’s difficult to say because they’re more structured in different ways because Christopher Guest is much more involved in the edit. He films for three weeks and edits for nine months.
That’s a crazy number.
GERVAIS: That’s crazy, I don’t get it. I said, “Surely there’s loads of films in there.” He said, “No, there’s one film. There’s just one film.”
What he’s not telling you is that he only edits one hour a day.
GERVAIS: Well, I was teasing him. I was saying, “You edit all the time, are you just mainly eating cakes?” I was talking to him the other day, he’s in the edit still, but he’s got it down, and I said, “Are you just – do you just like being in the edit?”
I think Larry is amazing. My favorite part of Curb and what Larry does is when you can see that an improv joke has hit in the room and you can see everyone laughing, sort of breaking character, but not ruining the take.
GERVAIS: Well, he’s the first person I’ve met who nearly ruins as many takes as me.
[laughs]
GERVAIS: I still win, I think, but he’s a close second. And when we had to do the staredown, it was fucking amazing. And he goes like this, I say something and he goes, “Bah!” Like that. I love doing his things, he’s so funny. He’s so funny. After the Globes, I went to a restaurant, I was with my girlfriend and Chris Guest and Kevin Pollack, and in the restaurant, Larry David was that side and Martin Short was there. It was surreal, it was absolutely surreal. But yeah, they’re incredible. They’re all aiming for the same thing, they want to make people laugh.
But it’s the same thing with dramatic directors, you look at a Fincher and he’ll shoot something fifty times, and then you’ll look at other great directors and they’ll shoot it four times, but there’s no right answer it’s just how you do the work.
GERVAIS: No. And the reason I work faster than most and not improv is that I’ve worked on the script for a year. I’ve planned everything before I get there. I leave no stone unturned with the admin, I make sure everything is done. And then the day is a joy, every day is a joy. Everyone turns up on time, they’ve learnt their lines, we play, there’s two cameras, we finished at four. Episodes of The Office came in at 48 minutes, we needed 29. Same with Extras, Derek came in at 40 minutes, I needed 23. And each episode took about four days to film, five days to film. Once you know where you are and you’ve got everything set up, that’s why the second series should be better than the first, and easier and more fun. Because not only do you hit the ground running and people know the characters, as a writer you know what actor you’re writing for now. So I can bring in their physicality, I can work to their strengths. I can say, “They don’t like improv so I better write that for him, whereas this guy likes to walk into a room and he’s funny, I just let him sit down.” You know? It depends, it just depends. And I love doing things a different way just for fun. I love what happens. I’ve always done that. I had a chemistry set, I used to find out what chemicals did. Just fun, see what happens.
This leads me to another thing people wanted to know, which is when’s the next time you’re teaming up with Karl [Pilkington]?
GERVAIS: Oh, he’s given up. Honestly. He did the first series of Derek, then he went, “I can’t do it, I hate acting.” And I said, “Let me write you out of the second one,” and he went, “Alright.” Like that. Trauma, trauma. He couldn’t do it. He’s done his documentaries. I think he’s just given up. I mean, it took me all my time to get him to do something in the first place. But I don’t know. I don’t know what he’s thinking.
A lot of people wanted to know.
GERVAIS: I think he’s got brighter. In the early days, it’s remarkable, I’m just laughing all the time. When I first learned that he didn’t go to school, I was like, “You didn’t go to school? What did you do?” And he just said, “Just mucked about, went along with it. My dad had a caravan.” “So that’s why you didn’t go to school?” “Yeah.” And I just think, it’s such remarkable radio. It’s like two idiots that don’t know they’re being recorded. It’s odd and I thought I’d tapped into it and I thought, “I’ve got to show the world this thing.” I felt like I’d discovered a new species.
I think you did.
GERVAIS: I treated that more as a scientific experiment than a comedy experiment.
Right and it showed. I am curious though, so when it comes to the writing process for you, a lot of writers that I’ve spoken to, they wake up and then for two to four hours, they’re very creative and then that’s it. Or, and then some are 9 - 5, they’re very structured. For you, what is it?
GERVAIS: I get up, I hate the fact that I’ve got loads of admin to do, loads of emails. All the admin, I want to get that out of the way. I have a letter to open, I hate that. I eat breakfast, I want to play. I want to play, I’ve got a good day ahead, I’m in the studio, I’m writing a song I want to get to that. And then I play all day, and then I’ve had a great day and then I’ve played and I’m buzzing and I come home and I have to go for a run because I’m buzzing I’ve had a great day, creating. And then when I’m running because I haven’t got anything else to do, I get an idea. And I go, “Oh, that’s a great idea. I’ve got a minute of stand up.” I come home, I say to Jane, “I’ve got a great idea, what do you think of this?” She says, “Please don’t say that in public.” I know I’ve got something, I go in the bath, I might make a note of it, if it’s a song I might sing it into my phone. Six o’clock, I’m on the coach in my pajamas opening a bottle of wine or doing this.
So this is like literally a rinse and repeat every day.
GERVAIS: No, but whatever the creative thing is, I get up about 8:30, 9:00. I do what I have to do in that time and then I’m sitting on the couch at six o’clock with a glass of wine watching TV. But I’m always working. I’ve got the computer next to me. I’ll be watching a series and I think of something and I sneakily just make a note and I think of that. I’m doing ten things at once. I’ve got a brain that I do three things at once, but I hate admin. I don’t mind doing three creative things at once. But I hate someone saying, “Oh they’ve moved the meeting to Tuesday – Oh, that screws up everything!” A letter comes through the door, it could be a check from the syndication office, I go, “Augh, what’s that!” [laughs]
When you’re writing a series or you’re writing a movie or you’re actually sitting down to write – let’s talk about the David Brent film. Are you writing for x number of hours in a row?
No. I’m doubling and I know I’ve got three things on. When I was writing the David Brent film, I was writing Special Correspondents, and when I had sort of written the back of that, I was working on the Brent film. When I was filming it, I was finishing the Brent script, when I was editing it, I was in pre-production. I was also writing jokes for the Golden Globes and stand up. So there’s always, there’s a painting. There’s five paintings drying at once. One I’m just starting, one I’ve done the background, one I’ve done the mountain, one I’m on the trees, one I’m telling people, “I’ve just finished a painting.” So always. Literally, there’s two of my paintings. Two of my first paintings. That’s the first paintings I ever did. It’s meant to be New York. (He walks me around his London flat on Skype and shows me his first paintings)
That’s very impressionistic.
GERVAIS: It is, isn’t it?
I was just going to say I’m a big fan of Van Gogh, so impressionistic, that’s really my style.
GERVAIS: My favorite’s Turner. I like the drama.
Really?
GERVAIS: He was a bit of an outsider when he started. They sneered at him at the royal academy when he started, but I like the fact that he painted from the heart but then invented stuff and made things happen, I like. I like the colors, as well.
I was just going to say that the Golden Globes, I love watching you host because I feel like you understand that the whole celebrity thing is ridiculous. And you lampoon it and just have fun with it. So when you’re writing the jokes that you want to say, do you ever reach the point where you say to yourself, “No, that really is too far”?
GERVAIS: Yeah, of course. Of course. “I can’t do that. Oh that’s not fair, oh that’s not true. Oh, they can’t help that. Oh, there’s collateral damage. Oh, his wife wasn’t to blame. Oh, I mustn't bring that up. Oh, that’s too soon.” Of course I do. Everything is considered. There are rules. A lot of offense is when people mistake the target of a joke with the subject of a joke. You can joke about anything, it depends on what the joke is. Comedy comes from a good or a bad place. I don’t platform, I don’t use it to my own ends, I make sure I’m the butt of the joke too, I only take the mickey out of people’s behavior, but that’s out there. I don’t take the piss out of things people can’t help. Their race. Their sex. But I think if someone’s done something in public, and we all know about it, I don’t out people, I don’t do insider information. It’s things we all knew, and let’s joke about it. And I think nothing’s nasty, I can justify everything I do. I don’t want to ruin people’s night. But they’re just jokes, they’re nothing that bad, they’re on network television at peak time they can’t be that bad. And I can justify every joke. And some people get it wrong. Like the joke about Sex and the City, they thought that was –
Yes.
GERVAIS: But, yeah. I just think it took a while for people to get, “Oh, he’s not really nasty trying to undermine the moral fabric of America and ruin our night, he’s making jokes.” And I think also that’s a British thing that we tease each other all the time. It’s because we like each other. We tease each other. We play fight.
One of the things that I found, I have a lot of friends that live in London, and one of the things I’ve found is that the British press and the American press are so different in terms of the way they elevate people and rip them down, especially in Britain. GERVAIS: Yeah. I’ve seen some crazy shit over there. They want to elevate you just so they can pull you as hard as they can down.
GERVAIS: That’s exactly right. They do it quite subtly and quite cleverly sometimes. And I think my instincts, from being from Britain, when I feared fame, I didn’t want to be one of those people that said, “Make me famous and in return you can go through my bins.” I didn’t play that game. You can’t go through my bins, I don’t need you to make me famous. I’ll talk about my movie, I won’t do anything to be famous. And I think people sort of get that. I think some people ask for it.
Oh, without a doubt.
GERVAIS: If you call the press in the early days and you’ve got your window down, you can’t complain when they — It swings in roundabouts. But some intrusions are unacceptable. There are people that wait for women to get out of cars, in the gutter. Literally in the gutter, taking pictures up someone’s skirt. No one asked for that. So, some people ask for it, some people don’t. Some press are good, some press are bad. Some people are good, some people are bad. You have to take every example on its own merit, really.
I agree, because I’ve met people in my profession that are complete scumbags and I’ve also met some people that are just wonderful people.
GERVAIS: Absolutely, there are some journalists that I absolutely trust as my friend and, yeah. Same with, well, everyone. It depends, you’re either a nice person or you’re not. But yeah, it’s an odd world. And people pick up symptoms. People are told, “If you do this, you’ll get this.” So you’ve gotta know why you’re in it. I think I was lucky that I came to it late in life, I came to it at 39 and I already knew who I was so fame didn’t define me. And I always knew that fame was an upshot of what I might do because I’m an actor or a writer or a director. So that’s never been the driving force. If I’d have been famous at 16, things might have been different.
I’ve spoken to some people who have said the same thing, they’ve said they’re incredibly thankful they got into the limelight after age 30, when they knew who they were.
GERVAIS: Absolutely.
Because you know what I mean, at 18 you can’t handle it.
GERVAIS: No, you can’t and it does define you and you’re a different person. And you’ve already changed the person you are forever, probably. And you can’t take it back, you can’t take it back. I feel sorry for kids now growing up in the age of Facebook and Twitter. Think of the stupid things we said when we were 12, 13. And now it’s there forever. And they’re all going, all the terrible, stupid things we said and did, they don’t exist. But a kid growing up now, somebody’s Facebook page when they go for a job, it’s just terrifying.
It’s absolutely insane. You’ve given me so much time, but I want to ask you one more thing. I could ask a million things, but I want to ask one more. One of the byproducts of the things you’ve been able to do in the past few years since The Office, is you’ve gotten to do some really cool things and you’ve gotten to meet childhood heroes and gotten to be part of things that were just amazing. When you think back on the last decade or two, are there certain points that you just always remember? For example, interviewing Garry Shandling. Are there things you’ve done that still hits you from a fan perspective?
GERVAIS: Yeah. Knowing David Bowie, winning the first Golden Globe, those, yeah. Being friends with people like Christopher Guest and Larry David. It’s access, actually. It’s not the achievement. That’s the greatest thing about, I suppose, my fame, that I got to know people like David Bowie. Incredible. And write a song with him and appear in The Simpsons. Crazy, just crazy.
So, I know you’ve probably been asked this before already but what’s on the bucket list at this point in terms of things that you've always wanted to do but haven’t yet done?
GERVAIS: Well, I’d like to carry on having my own way like Woody Allen for years. Just carry on what I’m doing, enjoying every minute of my day. Weird things on my bucket list, I’d like to run an animal sanctuary, maybe. Own a castle like a Disney movie. Come out and all these, I dunno, injured and unwanted animals come up to me and I feed them. And there’s a song going on. That’s my bucket list.
So you’ve watched a lot of Disney cartoons.
GERVAIS: Yeah, exactly. That’s my fantasy, yeah.
