"Ricky Gervais"

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Hey there, Will Arnett here from SmartList. It's the podcast where Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and I interview somebody.

Two of us don't know who that person is because one of us has brought on a surprise guest.

That's the whole conceit.

I wish I could describe it better, but I'm not that smart.

So it's SmartList, and it's starting now. Smart.
Lys. Smart.
Lys. Smart.
Lys. You never did a guest spot over on the Mork & Mindy, huh? No, but I would have.
What was your best guest spot

when you were a kid? Knight Rider.

Yeah, of course. Knight Rider

just made my year.

I was 15, and so I couldn't

drive yet, so this was an opportunity

not only to guest on

the best show in the world,

but also drive

a Trans Am owned by

the Hoff

and see how they do all the tricks over there.

They had a little guy sitting by the Hoff and see how they do all the tricks over there.

They had like a little guy sitting behind the seat

that was like looking through this mesh sort of headpiece in the seat.

Sure.

I loved all the movie magic.

I was going to say you would have made a good computer.

You would have been a good, I would have cast you as a computer.

I'd still cast you as a computer.

Wait, because I know that about you. It was on the other day, not your episode, but Knight Rider.
And Scotty and I turned it on, and they did this super fancy interior shot of the car. And I'm telling you right now, it was disgusting in there.
It was like, there was dust and wrappers all around it and like all the scratches on it like it was not pristine at all wow the on-set dresser was not great on 35 years later you're taking shots at uh you know transpo and picture cards great great we'll have the uh local on your ass by monday hey guys i'm so glad that we're here today because we have a guest on our show. And we say this a lot, you know, deserves no introduction.
But this is just another example of that. This is a person who has won almost every award it's possible to win in.
Well, you know what? I'll let him tell you about it. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Ricky Gervais. Oh! Oh! It's a nice shot of the awards in the back.
Look at all the awards. Guys, it's not all of them.
It's half of them. There's lots of walls.
Wow. I nearly laughed a couple of times when I was waiting with you.
What did you win the guitar for? I didn't win that. That's just something for the ladies.
When they're looking at your awards, let me play a little tune for you. Oh, God.
Oh, my word. What a joy.

What a joy this is.

Yeah, it's so nice to meet you.

I've never met you.

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan.

Thank you.

How's it going, man?

Good, man.

You guys don't know each other.

No.

No.

You know, there's one time I saw you standing outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Creepy.

And there was nobody else.

And I was like, oh, my God, that's Ricky.

I'm a huge fan. Should I say something? And then I fast forward in my head if i just go hey hey ricky i'm sean and if i didn't know if you know who i was and then you'd be like hey and then it would just end and so i was like maybe i should skip that it's kind of how it's going now it's kind of what's happening well you know oh god one time i was at uh christmas party at meg ryan's house this is decades ago and steven spielberg was in there and i'm talking and i've never met him he's like oh my god and i couldn't believe he knew who i was we're talking and talking talking for like two hours it was awesome and then i made this huge goodbye i was like bye steven nice to meet you i go out to the valet in front of the house and nobody's there right and i'm waiting for my car waiting for my car and then steven spielberg walks up and it's just us two and we already had a massive goodbye so then i was like hey how are you and it was just awful it would have been better if he just said hi how are you i'm steven if in that moment or if he just said bye benjamin bye Benjamin.
Ricky, do you remember a few years ago you were walking across the street here in L.A. and I saw you and Jane walking across and I pulled up and I rolled my window down and I sort of said, hey, can I get a picture? And you were at first, you were like, oh, fuck, who's, yeah, how you doing? And then he realized.
And you went, don't give me the fucking wave. It's Will.
And you actually got out. We're going to let the guests talk here in a second.
But how many times have you guys been in the car and you like honk at somebody and then you pull up alongside them and you know that person? Oh, yeah. Oh, you mean angrily honk? Yeah.
Yeah, sorry. Americans honk just anything.
If an English person honks, it's like an affront. It's like people get out.
What the fuck? But in America, it's just like you honk for anything. Right, yeah.
It's like you've really devalued the honk. Especially in New York.
You devalued the honk to nothing. I think you're right.
We should take it back. I think that you're right.
Take it right back. So a honk is like, it's like the finger or something.
What the fuck are you doing? We should should take them out of hunk. Hold on, hold on a second.
What about time differences? So you're in England. I'm in L.A., so I'm drinking coffee.
Was that ale I just saw? Ale. Is that what you people call it? Yes, forsooth.
It was a mead, sire. Look at that.
God, that looks good. It's a beer.
As opposed to a lager. Well, it's an IPA, an Indian pale ale.
Yes. And what is that, by the way? That came in after I stopped.
So what is IPA? Oh, am I the only drinker here now? Well, Sean. No, no, no.
Sean is a big drinker. Sean's still up from last night.
Yeah, good. What is, so the Indian pale ale, do you know what that is? I can't be more specific.
I mean, there's a three-word description. And I don't know of any other drink that's got three words already to really specify what it is.
But wait a second, though. But wait a second.
Indians were not known for making beer when I was last drinking beer. So where did that come from? Sorry, are you saying Indian in the real term, the subcontinent of India in Asia, or what you call Indians, which are Native Americans.

Just what you arrogantly called

Indians. Yeah.

I just want to say, Ricky, just give

Jason enough rope. He's about to hang himself.

Go ahead, Jason. I'm about to hang my career.

Leave some slack on it.

But I'm assuming

the Indian of Indian pale ale

means people from India.

Yes? Yes, I think so. I think it was probably something equally racist in that sort of British colonial history.
Yeah. So we said, we're having that.
This is Indian pale ale, it's ours now. Honestly, we've gone into rounds beyond my knowledge of what I'm drinking.

All I know is it's 5% alcohol.

It's 6 p.m.

That's all I need to know.

And is this a daily thing about this time that you have an Indian pale ale?

Yes, it is.

Are you only good for about 20 minutes?

Is this an intervention?

Yeah, this is the intervention of the podcast.

I don't know if you knew about that.

Come on in, Jane. Jane, come on in.
I'm going to jack up in a minute. Is that all right? Oh, that's fine.
It's just drinking. We don't mind.
Yeah, exactly. So did you just, you know, you're rewarding yourself because you've just probably just popped out of the gym.
You're probably in and out. Yeah, have you? Oh, of course.
Yeah, look at that. He's showing us his guns.
And that's all natural. People say to me, hey, you on the juice.
I go, fuck you. Fuck you.
That's why they think. Your rage is outrageous.
You know, you do have a build, Rick. You always have.
Was there a time in your life when you were a gym rat and you just loved to just blast bys and back? No. Blast.
Listen. Blast.
You must have, because you're not born with pipes like that, are you? No. No.
It's a shame this is only audio, because they can't see me. They can imagine.
But I'm posing at the moment, and I've got terrible, my fake tan is dripping off me. With a guitar and an IPA.
Exactly, yeah. I do, I work out every day.
I try to. It's getting harder and harder.
And I probably shouldn't be because everything is absolutely fucked on me now. I've got two sprained ankles, which is terrible.

I still run on.

No, terrible knees.

I can't bend without I'm cricking.

I've got a bad back.

My shoulders are fucked.

I've got tennis elbow.

Yeah, I'm absolutely, but I refuse to stop doing anything.

Mostly from street fighting.

Is that right?

Because I heard you just must.

I'm like, yeah. Hand to hand.
Yeah, I'm punch drunk. But how old are you? 59.
Yeah, I'm about to be 52 and everything hurts a little bit. Fuck off, you're older than me.
How dare you? This hair is real. Look at this.
I've had no work. I don't have two body waxes a day.
Wait a second. Fucking Botox, you twat.
I'm on swim team. I can't have any hair on my body.
You're only, he's only 52. Is he telling the truth, Will? No, I won't be 52 till January.
Christ. He won't turn to the side because then you'll see the scotch tape and all the rubber bands and stuff.
But from the front, he looks amazing. From the front.
Ricky, do you have a place in L.A. or do you only live in England? I've got a place in New York.
I've had it for a while, actually. But especially this year, I've spent most of my time in Leafy Hampstead.
Will's been here. It's beautiful.
It's a great spot, and you live next to the Vicar um i do yeah yeah who's that yeah who is that it's just a vicar he said the vicar but it's a vicar there's there's thousands that i live next to one of them what's a vicar a vicar yeah you don't know what a vicar is uh-oh allow ricky to relieve you of your ignorance go ahead ricky a vicar you might it's a deep list like a preacher like a preacher like a local priest yeah yeah yeah so you live next to a priest a vicar yeah it's true you live next to a priest's house listen this podcast is that i mean it's like it's like i'm teaching you lot english i say a sentence but I have to explain it. I mean, we spent three minutes on what's Indian pale ale.
It's not that important. What's a vicar? Fucking hell.
Quick. Listen, you've spent time with Bateman before, for Christ's sake.
You know what you're getting into. I have.
I couldn't believe my luck. I was a huge fan of Teen Wolf.
Sure. Two.
Two? Oh, I haven't seen two. No.
You're not. Ah.
Can I, so can I tell you, so the first time, Ricky, that I became aware of you was from watching The Office, and Janine Garofalo had videotapes at the time of The Office, and she brought them back, and she gave them to Amy and me. And we watched them.
We were about to start Arrested Development. And Jason and I started watching both obsessively.
And we were just absolutely obsessed with The Office. And we just thought we'd never seen anything like it.
It was just brilliant. And I remember about you were coming to – you had come to L.A.
for maybe the Golden Globes or something. And we met we met briefly and we exchanged numbers and you were going to come to the set of Arrested Development.
You remember? And I remember saying to the, uh, the set PA, I said, can I get a drive on at the lot? And she said, yeah, give me the name. And I said, Ricky Gervais.
And you weren't yet a household name in this country. Still not.
And she said, well, and she said, what is it? I said, Ricky, can you spell it for me? And I actually stopped her and I said, I want you to remember this moment of you not knowing this name because you're going to be really embarrassed when you look back at it. And she was like, okay, whatever.
And you came. And that was our first experience.

And we were just, Jason, do you remember how blown away we were?

We couldn't.

I couldn't get enough of that show.

And I still, it's uncomfortable for me to even talk to Ricky.

I'm a little starstruck.

Oh, I ended up getting enough of it.

I ended up getting enough of it.

That was at the very beginning of the show.

That and Jeffrey Tambor shaped, at least for me me the whole comedic tone of arrested development like i i kind of knew that there was that kind of funny but i'd never seen it executed so consistently and that was just sort of my north star what i was trying to you know point towards it was it was a weird way to say this but it was liberating to watch you in that

show it really was it opened up a whole other for me anyway it felt like it opened up a whole other way like okay this this is a possibility to go if he's not acting well we can all get away with it then i can do yeah i mean if he's just mumbling and not looking yeah he makes me look like a genius i mean a comedy of discomfort and and uh and awkward pauses and and loss of dignity with just sort of a look or a moment as opposed to jokes or anything like that and and that the length of those episodes allowed for that kind of that editorial pace too is something that we sort of tried for i don't think we could with with our format but uh well i think it was lucky the format allowed me to do that with a fake documentary because I was emulating something. I was trying to emulate a very ordinary man who wanted to be famous.
So it was sort of... It was easy to not be a trained actor doing that.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. But what was the genesis? We've never really...
I'm sure you've had to explain it before it was an impression i used to do of like uh bosses and stuff i worked in an office for like 10 years so it was like a frankenstein of people i'd met growing up and you suddenly and i was always i was always the idiot i was always trying to make people laugh and you know i was that guy i was sort of that guy without ambition or rather without, without nerve. I think I'd lost my nerve.
I'd just been a failed musician after like five years of trying. I got a normal job and then I worked my way up to sort of middle management in an office like that.
In fact, the little pre-pilot that we shot, I went back to the office I used to work in and I used mates as extras. And I just, I just ad-libbed around this character showing off to the camera.
And the seed of that was, we had 10 years of these quaint docu-soaps in the 90s on British TV. The new big thing was docu-soap.
We had one called Airport. We had one called Hotel.
We had one called Liner. And it was just normal people filmed and they'd become sort of stars for 10 minutes.

And of course, nowadays,

they become stars forever and make millions.

But then it was, that was their 15 minutes of fame.

And, you know, you wheel them out.

So it was ordinary people wanting to be famous.

And was it the same type of format?

Would they address camera?

Would there be testimonials and things like that?

Yeah, there was usually a narration as well.

But we didn't do that.

But there was often, it was things like,

the cement for the swimming pool is late

and they have to open in an hour.

It was stuff like that.

Right.

Was it sort of a Michael Apted?

Was it inspired by the Up series at all, do you think? Well, that was, that's the greatest. That's incredible.
I mean, that's still going. Yeah.
But that really is beautiful social commentary. Sure.
These got watered down, you know, and then people would be doing them because they think, well, I can be famous. Everyone says, I'm a lass.
I'll go on there. And it's like there was suddenly too much.
So then it was people trying to be famous. And so that's what I picked up on with Brent.
That he was a bit sad. He was forgotten.
And he thought, now's my chance. And if it wasn't a fake documentary, it wouldn't work.
Because once you know why Davidid brent is acting like that it's it's it's so tangible it's it's so great that he just wants to be loved and famous and it's heartbreaking in a hilarious way yeah guys we all need to drink water every day i mean we have to drink water to stay alive right why so why should it be boring like i like sparkling water because it didn't have all the sugar and the added, you know, chemicals and everything like that, that soda has. So sparkling water, it gives you the bite that you're looking for.
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Hey guys, everybody should have a support system, right? Who's your my support system as you well know talk about all the time is scotty and of course my two besties will and jason whenever i have a problem an issue i talk to them about it and if they're not available i will talk to a therapist and i've been going to therapy for a long time and it's always great so think about your favorite leaders mentors idols. They don't have all the answers, but they do know when to ask questions or seek support from their community.
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That's betterhelp.com slash smartless. While Hilton is always expected to have top-notch service, you'd be surprised at the unexpected places they're offering it now.
They've partnered with AutoCamp, which offers insanely cool airstreams in iconic outdoor destinations. Hilton also has an exclusive partnership with small luxury hotels of the world, providing Hilton Honors members access to luxury boutique hotels across the globe.

And they've added romantic and refined nomad hotels and graduate hotels in your favorite college towns to their portfolio. Explore all the new ways to stay with those Hilton Honors points you've been saving at Hilton.com.
Hilton, for the stay. I think that one of the things that I certainly I personally really connect with with what you do is, is it that desperation? So many of your characters have this sort of misplaced or they just they're so desperate for whatever it is.
It's so funny. It's so funny and sad at the same time.
I think the funniest characters, and obviously in real life, the documentary aspect of it, we like real life is the most dramatic and the funniest. Comedy and fiction can only try to emulate all those things in real life.
But someone trying to be funny and is successful isn't as funny as someone who doesn't want to be funny and wants to be taken seriously. So my favourite characters were those people that demanded being taken seriously.
So it undermines everything. Someone being pretentious and then slipping on a banana skin is funnier than a clown slipping on a banana skin because we know the clown doesn't care.
He wants to slip a little. So I think when someone wants to be taken seriously or says things like, I am a comedian, that's funny.
I remember getting a letter soon after the office, right, by someone writing to get a part, and the letter started, dear Mr. Gervais, I am a brilliant actor.
And I thought it was... Signed, Sean.
Oh, so you got it. You got it.
Because I didn't, I still haven't heard. So I don't know if you got it.
Yeah, desperation's funny. Anger's funny.
People with no sense of humor is funny. People with no sense of humor is funny.
The best. One of the things I think is so admirable about you, and there's no question here, so don't feel the need to respond because I know your humility will keep you from doing that.
But all the vulnerability that you put into David Brent and many other characters that you play is really the root of the comedy the comedy you the man is so broken and and a mess inside that that is what i find so heartbreakingly hilarious about it yet on your your stand-up it is almost the polar opposite of that in that there's so much confidence and judgment is sort of the the character that you play and you can still get equal laughs with that so the fact that you're able to make people you know well that's very interesting because um i don't think you need stand up slightly different stand up is slightly different to fiction in the sense that when you do a sitcom or a film whatever you do your best and you try and you try and make the plot work and the characters work and the art and you do all that and then you put it out there and there's nothing you can do about it with stand-up you do it every night and the audience it's more like um evolution by natural selection because they choose the bits for you it's more like a science because it either works or it doesn't and by the end you've got a perfect thing that works every night to everyone around the world because it's tried and tested. It's, you know, they've chosen it for you.
So that's slightly different. So what you don't want with stand up is an audience to feel sorry for you because you haven't got time.
You don't want that. No, you don't want that.
No, because it's the purest, because it's the purest, because jokes are more of an intellectual pursuit. You don't really need a context for jokes, again, because they work or they don't.
A joke can sort of work on the page. You can read a joke and it still works.
You don't need someone telling it. Obviously you add to that.
I think my favorite stand-ups do add to that. They've got a context.
They build character. They've got props.
Yeah. Props in a bag.
Sure. Those are your favorite stand-ups.
You love you love a prop comic be honest you are being humble here what what i'm trying to say is that you're the comedic flavor uh right your comedy comes from vulnerability let's say in david brent but with the stand-up it comes from sort of this feigned brash arrogance um and and that you're able to do both so well i find just incredible well that's just because it's another character and you commit to it and that evolves as well but you can't just write a bunch of jokes and anybody can say them and they're going to get the same laugh no but you can because like um by the time humanity came around i'd sort of hit that sweet spot where the audience had known me for 15 years so they knew knew what I was doing. They knew the irony.
They understood the nuance without me having to explain it so I could come out and hit the ground running. The important thing is this.
Behind the scenes, right, I think with particularly stand-up, is traditionally it's a low-status thing. We're a court jester.
We go out there with the other peasants and we tease the king. Okay.
And everyone knows what comedians earn these days. So I can't really go out there and pretend to be struggling.
Right. I think that would be, that would be nauseating and, and dishonest.
I would like to see you try though. Yeah.
So I keep my low status in two ways. One, I invite them behind the curtain.
I say, what you think it's, plain sailing, do you, being rich? Well, look what happened to me when I met so-and-so, or first time I took a private jet, they thought I was the cook. So I do all that, right? And the other way I do it is I talk about things where I'm worse off than them.
I talk about being fat and old and in pain and going bald and do you know what I mean? And being hated by the press. I don't know what you mean.
I don't know what you mean. But let me, do you think, I mean, Ricky, you started as a stand, you were doing stand-up before, right? You'd been doing stand-up off and on, yeah, for years.
No, I started before The Office, but I only started in about 1999, I'd say, was my first try. And then you started doing that in 99, then The Office hits.
And then over the last 10 years or 15 years, as you've grown and done more and more stand up, you kind of you build that currency, right with your audience like that. That's the thing you build the momentum of that sort of relationship that you have.
Yeah, I have to go out there. And I want be the one that says the wrong thing.
Whatever the current regime is, I have to say the wrong thing. I have to go against the grain, which is why it was hard for the last sort of few years.
You know, I didn't realize half the people would agree with those things on face value. So irony was put in danger recently.
Yeah, I remember going to that small little theater. were working stuff out remember like a couple years ago i came up there yeah and you were working out jokes in the audience and i remember you first of all the relationship was they knew you they came because they were huge fans you had a limited number of seats it was basically free but you were working stuff out and the relationship was hey i'm trying stuff and some stuff was you know over the line for them or whatever but you were yeah figuring out well that's the thing you know um you do have to find the funny but you have to go for it and you have to be able to play and that's the problem again with today as well because i've done shows that i'm trying stuff out and it's been reviewed and i'm gonna going to go, well, that's mad.
You can't do that. You can't do someone who's just started a painting going, it's rubbish.
I haven't done it yet. I've just done the back.
You know, it's crazy. So you have to fight against that.
And I try and keep politics, explicit politics out of comedy, because I think if you're relying on the audience agreeing with you and getting a round of applause it loses something comedically I want my jokes to be liked I don't care whether they're right wing or or left wing or whatever right because the joke either works or it doesn't and it actually shouldn't matter it's meaningless anyway nowadays left and right wing it's a meaningless term but I think it's important that you evolve but not with reasons. You don't evolve because it might be taken the wrong way.
You don't evolve because you might be bullied by a reviewer. You don't evolve because you want everyone to like it.
That gets you nowhere. When did that happen for you? Because that's a certain fearlessness that I think you have to achieve.
You can't, I'm sure there was part of you when you were much younger that you didn't have that, right? I've probably got more fear now, but you have to fight it. You have to know that art is being brave.
It is being brave and putting it out there. Because you've got more to lose now, right? Well, it just makes me angry.
It makes me angry if people don't get something. So that makes me work harder to still get the same joke out there and everyone like it and be able to defend it and sleep at night, which I always have done.
There's this myth that I go out there and I say what I want and I don't care about what people think of me. That's just not true.
It's a hell of a challenge. I do love it what you do say at the end of it i don't care you know yeah of course i love that and that's that's marketing right and you have to be militant about it you have to act like you don't care right um but actually you know it annoys me when uh you know any sort of um someone thinks that you've you've done this or you've gone too far, or I want to go,

well, I've worked that joke for a year

with like hundreds of thousands of people.

You've thought about it for three seconds

and you've got it wrong.

I think because reviews now are so fast

and people don't think there's no nuance on social media.

Like 10 years ago, like 20 years ago,

if someone complained about something,

it would make me think I'd go, oh God, you know, really. Now someone says I'm offended.
I go, yeah, of course you are. Everyone is.
It doesn't matter. Yeah.
I brought this up before that you have that great tweet that's been shared millions of times. I think now would you say just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right.
I know people even understand that and they still fall for it. They still think, no, this is different.
I did a tweet when I was doing the warm-up for this new show i said um guys are there any things i should never joke about and of course everything people said was funny everything people said was funny they have this disease and things like one person said um losing two children which i thought was just an amazing thing to tweet. Just an amazing thing.
As opposed to one? Yeah. I think so specific.
So specific. It's sadder than one, but funnier than three.
I mean, that's a definite for sure. I remember I said something similar years ago on Twitter, but something along the lines, like, apropos of nothing, like, I hope you're not offended.
And all these people immediately got on me. A few people sort of saying, like, well, what is it you're talking about? They were pre-offended.
Yeah. And I hadn't even said anything.
Yeah. Yeah.
Of course. Yeah.
So you're right. It's watered it down.
Who gives a shit? Because it amplifies it. You know, Twitter is like reading every toilet wall in the world okay and when you look at it like that you shouldn't ever be offended by anything on twitter but it also depends on the messenger like i think you are a messenger of that like you said like it's all branding and marketing that's who you are it's kind of like don rickles who i thought was always hilarious he was so offensive to everybody he met but because it was don it was almost okay but if it's somebody else trying it's not going to work well that's the other thing as well it's like um i'm offended when a comedian says sorry right yeah because i it usually means they've got a film coming out or something the last uh the last big venue uh stand-up i went to was at the Hollywood Highland.
I don't know how many years ago. That business of big venue for stand-ups.
Ricky would text me from time to time on his way to an arena and just like, oh God, 18,000 tonight. I don't even know.
I don't even know if it's a big number. Sorry, I've got to go.
Lost perspective waiting sorry i've got a dash wait ricky can i ask you something because i don't know if i'm i hope i get to see you again i i just so far it's not looking great it's not looking good uh it's i think you're brilliant but um you know i always wanted to ask you like i always find it interesting you and i share several things in common like i started out really early wanting to be a pop star like you, but you kind of succeeded with an album and everything, and we're both gay, right? Sure. I don't think he was ready for that.
I don't think he was ready for that. That's not this podcast.
This episode is about to go huge. We've both slept with Bankman.
With guys. And lived to tell about it.
Not this podcast. No, but.
Can I go and get a beer? Oh. Yeah, go get a beer.
Hang on. Let him go and get a beer.
Okay, good. Hi, guys.
Hi. JB, what happened to your hand? Oh, I was pulling my golf bag out of the backseat of my Tesla.
Oh, God. Is that weird? Is all of that true so far? And I sprained the tip of my ring finger yes well i'm glad you got your ale so maybe we can get back to my question about music so listen jesus sean i keep us on the rails sean i'm actually i'm actually interested just because i find it interesting that you were also very seriously like i've seen those music videos and i just thought it was interesting that you pursued that and were you all in on that and then it didn't work out or were you pursuing that and acting at the same time whatever made you famous you know and then you had all in yeah all in but but in retrospect did it all wrong um i i was in a band because i loved those songs by the way thank you um it was it was very fast it was it came and went very very quickly and i think you only know about it now because i'm famous for something else and those pictures and videos pop up on jimmy fallon so like anyone else in every generation um i think it was yeah i found it fascinating because i was pursuing the same thing and i also then went into comedy well okay so it started at college and we did a demo tape and we got signed and we did two singles and then we were dropped and it was like it started and finished within a year and that was it wow you know i think even if it had been a success then in 1984 whatever it was it would still have been over.
But there are some bands that were good back then that are still around. And would you and Rick Astley have done a duet? Do you think you and Rick would have wham or? It would have certainly been, you know, we started with the sort of the hair and makeup and synth pop.
But this is the mistake I made. The mistake I made was I wanted to be a pop star and I should have wanted to be a musician.
And when I started doing this, I realised that, you know, I consciously and militantly called myself a writer director. So people didn't think that I just wanted to be on telly because I didn't.
And I came to it very wary. I came to this very, very wary, not because of the music thing, but because of, I think, the press in England.
And I never revered fame. I've never asked for an autograph.
I've never been impressed by seeing a famous performer. And I thought that of myself.
I thought the people I admire, I admire because they've done something absolutely brilliant. But my heroes are like scientists and things like that.
And Andrew Ridgely. Yeah, exactly.
So I feared fame. I didn't sign that deal with the devil, make me famous and you can go through my bins.
In fact, I probably feared it too much. I was probably too many, but now I'm sort of chilled and it's fine, you know.
But don't you think people that have fame wanted it? To a certain degree, yeah. But the other thing is, it's a bit ambiguous when you're an actor, isn't it? Because I think you're allowed to really want to be an actor because it's fun and it's great and it's interesting and it's better than most jobs.
Without saying, I want to be famous. I think it can be, because if you're a successful actor, you're probably a famous actor.
Right. Thank you.
And certainly there was easier routes to being an actor than actually writing and directing a sitcom for three years. There's easier routes.
In fact, it annoyed me once when the office broke and it seemed like I was just famous overnight

without all the work.

Someone on the red carpet said to me,

what advice would you give anyone else

who wants to be famous like you?

And I said, go out and kill a prostitute.

And they looked at me like I was mental.

It just really annoyed me. Like that, Like there's such easier ways to be famous than actually writing a sitcom from scratch.
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Do offers come to you and you kind of flirt with that or do you only create your own things things and only want to create your own? I think the offers have dried up because it's been no for like 10 years that I've usually been busy. And you start off in your flat.
I remember, I think the second episode of The Office had gone out in like 2001. And my agent got a call from a studio making this movie.
And they sent me the script. And I said, what part am I? And they said, the lead.
And I said, it says here he's 26, right? And I was 39 at the time, I was sort of 40. And they went, we can change that.
And I thought, okay. And I said, I think you need, I said, who's going to go and see this? No one knows me.
And they went quiet and I went, you need John Cusack for this. they sort of went okay well thanks for the call and in my head i was oozing integrity and they were going what a guy but actually they probably went what a fucking idiot who do you think he is turning down a lead movie he's not gonna get away that's interesting and so i'm sorry it was no because i was busy it was no all the way the first one that i said yes to because i read it the first one i read actually um jane would read them and say no no no or you might and the first one i did that i i thought if i don't do this i'll never do one was ghost town um and it just i was reading it and i was laughing i thought this is me yeah i loved it this.
This is written for me. And so I did it and I loved it, but it still doesn't feel like mine.
I've done loads of things. I've popped up in things.
I've done the Golden Globes. I've done this and that.
But if I was to say, what have you done? I'd list, you know, three or four sitcoms, a couple of movies and my standup. That's what I'd say was mine right right do you know what i mean is jane uh your filter of pretty much like is she your go-to barometer of of everything yeah now i don't even i say no to everything because i'm sort of busy but when i'm working stuff out yeah i uh i run things by um uh if i go for a run and I've got an idea for a routine,

I come back and I say,

what do you think of this?

And she says,

please don't do that.

And I know it's,

I know it's good.

I know.

I love how many times we've been fucking around

or having dinner or whatever

and how many times Jane has said,

you guys have to keep your voice down.

Shut the window.

Shut the window.

I have one more question about the office. So it was an incredible success on its own.
And then when it got brought here to America, another incredible success in Feathering Your Cap with that. Was it comfortable or uncomfortable to watch it take its, I don't know, necessary or unnecessary, slight comedic tone shift to an American pacing and whatnot.
You've got to think that it's not your baby. You think that, you know, Ricky, just including that, because I was sort of going off what Jason's saying, it was such a huge shift.
When you see it changed the way, certainly in this country, people started making comed making comedies for sure there was such a direct effect i remember watching somebody on a very famous who created a very famous successful sitcom here saying you know and then we decided in the pilot why not have the characters talk to the camera and i thought shut up well the thing is i didn't invent the genre in fact my think, writing it, there was someone else's work, was Spinal Tap, which is a fake documentary. That's just, I mean, no one owns fake documentary.
I suppose what was different, slightly different about it was that it was, we left the boring bits in. Like, David Brent made bad jokes and no one laughed.
I wanted that, I want to explore that gap, that social, because that's the worst thing for me. I don't get embarrassed, but I get embarrassed for other people.
If we're in a group and someone makes a bad joke and no one laughs, I just want to go back in time and go, right, do it like this. Let's do this again.
And Ricky, what you guys did so well on the show, and I remember this kind of reminds me of when Mitch Hurwitz was putting together the pilot of Arrested. What you've done so well is...
Anyone listening, Arrested is short for Arrested Development. It's a TV show.
He just... He leaves off the last word.
It's just... We haven't got...
There's limited time. If we...
I worked out that if we said Arrested Development every time, it'd be three months of our life. Great.
Now we've got to go cut that out. But you...
By the way, Ricky has called me on that out loud in Arrested Development. But what you did such a great job is when you put that show together, you recognized you'd have David Brent do the worst joke or do something super embarrassing.
And then you always made sure to anchor that by looking at the reactions of the people around him. You whip hand or whatever.
And that's what happened. I remember with arrested, hang on development, but that Mitch said that when he's putting the pilot together of arrested development, that he had, uh, doing, he was like, it's not working.
And he realized that he needed to have all these crazy characters do stuff. And he needed to see Jason's reaction to it because that put it in the context.
Well, that to me is the comedy. Someone doing something weird is one part of it.
But it's how does it fall? What's the fallout of it? That's what's always interesting to me. And again, I learned that from Laurel and Hardy.
So Stan doing something stupid was funny, but it affecting Ollie was the joke for me. That's what comedy, some comedy didn't have before that.
There was no fallout. No one got hurt in the wake of someone doing something ridiculous.
Like people would be acting and they'd be saying stupid, but they'd be acting like he'd said something normal. And so you have to react to that.
People. Yeah.
There's nothing weird about Martians on Mars. You put a Martian on earth.
That's, that's, that's interesting. Well, that's another good, very good point because that's why, again, David Brent was the boss.
Yeah. And so he shouldn't have been acting like that.
He should have been the grownup, but he was acting like the child so again he was the big thing there was you know men as boys and women as adults which again i think is reflective but again laurel and hardy did that the laurel and hardy they were children and their wives had to catch them doing naughty things who was it said steal from the best and i certainly have in um you know laurel Lauren Hardy and Chris Guest and those guys. So, Ricky, what do you, because I'm like, this is going to be over and then...
And he'll never talk to you again. And we're going to go there.
And in my mind, you go off and you start writing and creating and doing all of these things. But what is the reality? Like, what does your days consist of? What do you do? Like, what will you do tonight? I'll go and watch Arrested.
A Scandi Noir serial killer or spy thriller on Netflix or Amazon Prime or Walter Presents or BBC Four. I want European or Middle Eastern or South American drama.
I've just found now that with all these scripts,

I can find the best dramas in the world.

Why don't you be in one?

Because I can't speak any languages.

And also...

What about English?

I see my favorite thing, right?

This Scandi drama is like series three

and suddenly an Englishman or an American pops up

and I go, oh, fucking hell.

They just ruin it. Yeah.
They just fucking ruin it. Have you watched L'Engrenage, otherwise known as Spiral, that French cop show? It might be one of the best programs ever.
Me too. It's amazing.
Another one as well. There's only one thing that might even be better than that, and that's The Bureau.
Have you seen it? Of course. It's incredible.

It's incredible.

There's a great Belgian show as well

called The Break.

Have you seen about this?

Amazing.

Have you seen...

Oh, The Twelve.

Another Belgian thing.

The Twelfth.

The Twelfth.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Wait, have you guys seen Quincy?

Yeah, and what about Chicago Fire, guys?

These guys...

Jason spends all his time trying to figure out how IPA is made, so he doesn't have time to watch. Well, that's – so, okay, to quickly answer, I get up.
I have a coffee, breakfast. We go for a long walk, which is habit now.
We get that where we used to do that when we were allowed to go out one hour. With dogs, cats? I know you have pickle.
You don't walk a cat, you stupid ass. Well, our cat died at the beginning of lockdown.
We just got a new one. Oh, you see what you've done, Sean? Where'd it go, Sean, you fucking dick? Go on, sorry.
So you're walking the cats. No, we go for a walk.
I go for a walk, an hour's walk. I scruffle dogs.
Ricky, why don't you and Jane have a dog? Because I know you love dogs. But why are you guys more, are you consider yourself cat people? Or why don't you have a dog? No, I absolutely love dogs.
I love all animals. I think to me, all animals are unconditionally perfect and beautiful.
I agree. The only animal that I think you can ethically keep is a pet, a domesticated animal.
But I love all animals. But the reason I don't have a dog is we travel too much.
And a cat, you can have a cat's ear. It doesn't care, okay? A dog, I can't stand the dog.
The dog doesn't understand. They have an emotional intelligence beyond some people.
I can't bear that I have to travel so often with a dog. So wait, then what happens with the cat? The cat just stays home, you leave out a big, big bowl of milk and come back? No, we have people look after it, don't we, you fool? Like the Flintstones.
Yeah. So your guess is that cats are so emotionally stable and secure that you can go travel around doing all your shows for a couple of weeks and they're good, a dog your guess is that they're just emotional basket cases they need you there a little bit more often than once every couple of weeks well it's it's it's it's based on them it's based on knowledge no science because because of all the interviews they've done with the cats and the dogs yeah so is jane is jane a dog or a cat jane's a woman oh no i'm kidding is she is she like the independent like you can go away and i don't i don't need to see you or is she a dog like where she's like i i'm gonna miss you i need you back oh i see oh um uh oh i see yeah i was trying to elevate jane's got some sexy ind like a cat, right? It's like she doesn't really need you.
She's all fine by herself, you know, right? No, Jane, Jane, Jane. She needs you.
I'd like to think Jane needs me. Wait, wait, wait.
Can you get through that one more time without laughing? That would be great. We're still rolling.
She needs you and then don't laugh. She need you and and you could bring the dog you know because you you uh you're only gone a couple a night here a night there because you've got to go and do these arenas and and god god bless you and i feel the same way i need to do arenas too but um so let me ask you this so what do you what do you think um you've been at home you've been working.
I know you're working on Series 3. I'm working on my body now.
Yeah. That's why you can't see my hands.
Oh, he's doing leg lifts. He's doing leg lifts under the table.
But you've written Series 3, yeah, of Afterlife. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I did that quite quickly.
Yeah. And Series 3 is season three.
Season three, yeah. Sorry, we're European.
And that's ready before sort of workshopping and, you know, and all that. And I've basically cast it in my head and that's ready to go.
We're filming in April. So I feel like I've got to fill the gap.
I can't do gigs at the moment. Again, that's ready to go.
In fact, all my gigs this year have been postponed until next year. So I do that after I film.
So that's ready to go. What about the jokes in that that might be topical that are not going to work next year? Are you just going to update those? Well, luckily, when you're still doing stuff about, you know, Hitler and famine, AIDS, it's pretty fucking timeless.
Evergreens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah good for you we're always luckily we're always have killer diseases and fascism yeah so uh keep this going how do you think that looks so you're ready to go back on the road you've been working on your stand-up uh sort of non-stop and refining it i will have to change it slightly i will have to i think depending on what what happens because i think if a vaccine comes in and i think people don't want to forget it and so it it wouldn't be it wouldn't be timeless and uh if i was doing it now i'd start with it i in fact i did a couple of um little warm-ups when we were doing social distance gigs and i started off again it's great to be gigging i haven't i haven't gigged this year the last normal time was christmas wasn't it was the last time with friends and family and uh we don't have we didn't have a traditional christmas you've got to move with the time through multicultural um we had bats we had a load of bats oh you you ate bats so i started off and got it shit we should talk ricky uh who who makes you laugh i know you get asked a lot.
It is like one of those standard questions, but fuck it. Who makes you laugh? Well, you do.
You know that. You do.
Well done, well. Present company excluded.
Present company. We got what we wanted.
Print. Print.
Oh, you have to categorize it. You have to categorize.
I mean, who makes me laugh? I mean me laugh? Are there people who the way that they... Larry David.
Yeah. I think Larry David is underrated.
I know he did the biggest sitcom of our generation, but I think Curb Enthusiasm, 10 series of Curb Enthusiasm, and the quality just hasn't changed. And he's remarkable and he's brave and he's funny

and he's a great performer.

He's fearless.

You guys are very similar that way.

Yeah, self-effacing too.

Yeah, I think he's the all-round comedic creator

of the past 25 years.

And Chris Guest, it sounds like Chris Guest you like a lot too, yeah?

Chris Guest, probably the biggest single influence on me is both his style, a friend and a mentor because I knew no one in the industry. And when the office went out, Chris Guest called me.
He said his wife had seen it and said, you've got to watch this and he loved it. And I could see why.
He must have seen his influence in it. But he called me up and just said, I don't want to say it.
And I was blown away, of course. And then we became friends.
And then I'd call him when I wanted advice. I remember an early film I did, they wanted to do one of those screenings where 40 people give you notes.
And I said, I don't want to do it. And he said, why would you? He said, if you're letting them edit it next time, why don't you write it with them? And I just thought that was such a lovely, wow.

And then he told me a story that the director of Rain Man

did one of those things.

And his favourite comment was, I enjoyed the film,

but I was disappointed that the little guy didn't snap out of it by the end.

And so he'd given me that those those little nuggets to fear to fear tv by committee and he's he's just lovely and he's still funny i remember he asked me once he said um we'd just be mucking around like you know idiots like kids and uh he said uh if we're not suddenly not funny and no one finds us funny, how will we know? And I said, who cares? Yeah. Who cares? We're laughing.
Yeah, for sure. Now, Ricky, I have a semi-serious question here.
I don't want you to cry when you answer it. But with all of the information we've heard about how you started and what you thought you were going to be and the music and whatnot, you're in your mid-50s.
Have you exceeded your expectations? I'm fucking out. Of course I'm fucking out.
Well, but I mean, I'm assuming there is a higher place. We always sort of reset our goals as we start to approach them, right? Yeah.
Where are you at right now? Are you satisfied and yet still want more? Or have you hit, ah, I'm past where I ever wanted to be and I could get happy with retirement even and know that I've done it? Yeah, yeah. Before you answer that, Ricky, just know how great it is to hear how Bateman's brain works.
Go ahead. I think you hone it and hone it.
You keep folding the samurai. You keep honing it and what you like.
And what I like is no interference and only doing things I absolutely love. So I want to do less and less and just more of the thing that I absolutely love.
And that's come down to, I suppose, if I'm doing sitcom, it's just doing the- No compromise. With no compromise, yeah.
And stand-up is already there, really. There's already no compromise for stand-up.
I think stand-up is like just about the purest art form outside the novel where what you think is what you can say and it's what they hear. And that's pure.
Because even with something like Afterlife, you know, I get final edit, I do it all, but there's still 60 people involved. You still have to go, they have to give it to someone and they still have to go, we put it out on this day.
Whereas stand-up, I say, I want to do this venue on this day, sell the ticket, the tickets are top, I go up, I'm doing this, this is it, goodnight. And I and I did and every single step of the way is absolutely as I wanted it so it's more and more how do I get to that and I've always known that the most important thing is being sort of happy really I've always tried to cut out the middle man just wanted to be I'll show you a story that sums it up I think we're It have been like 1971, I was like 10 in school.
And there was a big, there was a big thing in the early 70s where a lot of unskilled or semi-skilled workers were getting money to go on oil rigs. So you had carpenters that they were suddenly going to oil rigs.
And where they were earning like 50 quid a week, they were earning like, you know, 500 quid a day rigs it was a big thing it was a big thing in the paper and I remember the teacher doing a thing to the class saying okay kids what would you do with the money if you could earn 500 pounds a day and it went round and the kids were saying I'd buy my mum a house I'd buy a car I'd buy a horse and it came to me and I said I'd work one day a week and I remember just thinking I that that would be amazing because I could have the other six days yeah yeah yeah I'm with you man I I I really admire first of all I'm you know you know I'm a huge fan of your stand-up and I think it's so I watch it in awe because I think it's so scary to you know I've never done it it just seems like the scariest it's like you say it is so raw it's just you and your relationship with the audience and everything that's coming out and man but it's not scary it's the thing that you do it I think I think driving a car Gary because I can't do it but when you realize that you've got that safety net for the first,

you go out there and you try stuff out, and if it's not working,

you don't put the tickets on sale.

I've done 50 gigs before I set out a real gig,

and I know what it's going to be like.

It's going to be the same as the, you know.

I mean, the scary thing is, you know, recently the scary thing is,

you know, this cancel thing, being canceled if you say the wrong thing

and suddenly, you know, Netflix can take you off their platform or, you know. So that's the scary thing.
But how do you vet that then? How do you really go through your stuff and who's going to be the arbiter? Well, you can't. You can't because you don't know.
You could be the most woke politically correct stand up in the world at the moment, but you don't know what it's going to be like in 10 years time. You can get canceled for things you said 10 years ago because you don't know what it's going to be like in 10 years time.
And it also seems like the people that try to use specifically, because I remember that the Golden Globes were all of them. They're so fucking funny, but you were so great.
But I remember the same people, it seems that try to cancel you are also your fans, are also the people that hire you and also the people that still want to work with you. The thing is about this, I think the misunderstanding about cancel culture is, you know, some people think that you should be able to say anything you want without consequences.
And that's not true because we're members of society and people are allowed to criticize you. They're allowed to not buy your things.
They're allowed to burn your DVDs and they're allowed to turn the telly off what they're not allowed to do is to bully other people into not going to see you or there's some people that are that are doctors who are great doctors they're getting fired from a hospital because of a bad joke they made on twitter and i go well that that's not relevant to what they do so So I don't think what's being cancelled. It's having no platform, isn't it? And what can they do to me? Because I've got this now.
Who's going to cancel me? Twitter? YouTube? If I have to, I'll go to Hyde Park and stand up on a bench and shout shit. I got in a lot of shit.
They almost cancelled me because I killed a hobo. And I thought that's nothing to do with my job.
No. That's something that I did on a weekend.
Well, that's the other thing as well. If you don't break the law, people just cannot buy your material.
Whereas some people get cancelled because they've actually broken the law. I talk about this in my new stand-up about, you know, what is being cancelled.
And I suppose that's a scary thing because it's a real consequence. No one looks at the argument anymore.
They look at who's saying it and they make their decision. There's no nuance.
And some of it's down to politics, some of it's down to social media, because it's too fast. It's way too fast.
As I say, 20 years ago years ago if you were offended by someone on television you got out a pen and paper you went dear bbc oh fuck i can't be bothered now you fire off a tweet and that tweet goes on the fucking news because someone else argued with it so it's it's this road rage it's things happening too fast that you can't take back and um people dig in and people want to be heard people want to feel that they had an effect it's why people heckle a comedian they want to feel they were there i was here and so now people are heard and the microphone is the same volume everybody has equal access to it yes an idiot stands next to a genius on twitter and it looks the same it's the same font and exactly yeah and that's what's what's so dangerous. And the genius has earned it and the idiot has it.
And yet people don't, they don't make that distinction at all anymore. Well, exactly.
And it comes back to what we said at the beginning, just because you're offended, it doesn't mean you're right. And in recent years, we've had this thing where people would say, my opinion is worth as much as the next person's.
And that's true. But recently we had my opinion is worth as much as your fact.
And that's simply not true. Now people are offended by facts.
People now know that when I do happy birthday, earth, 4.6 billion years old, I'm having a go at fundamentalists. And they know, they go, why are you? Because they take facts personally.
People take facts personally. I could talk to you about all that stuff for like nine hours straight.
I loved that. I loved everything.
Oh, man, I bet he's looking forward to that. Listen.
And I mean straight. No interruptions, no sleep.
Ricky, what was that joke that you talked about? You said that sort of that idea of people being offended or online or on social media was the equivalent of running down to the town square and oh when people that yeah i i do it in uh humanity when there's that woman's um uh arguing with me getting offended by a tweet like i was tweeting them like i'm just tweeting i don't know who's following me that's like going into a town square and seeing a a message says um guitar lessons and you go i don't fucking want guitar lessons um people it wasn't to you people jump in the way of a bullet and say why are you shouting at me i love that and people have done that on purpose they've tried to give ideas a human right. That's why.
So if you criticise Christianity, people say, well, why are you criticising Christians? And I go, I'm not. I criticise the idea.
Or, you know, I'm discussing an idea. It's like me getting offended where someone hates maths.
And it's not mine. Maths isn't mine.
It's a concept. It's an idea.
So, but anyway, this is for our nine-hour podcast. Oh, man, that's going to be a real hit.
I tell you what. Part two through 12.
When are you coming to Los Angeles? Or when can... Will always gets to see you, always gets to hang out.
I want to... I won't bring Sean.
I see, I do actually see four people when I'm in LA, don't I? I can be small, have a four and a half. Will and Mitch, we always invite you, but you're always having a body wax or something.
Yeah. Hurry out here, please, or I'll come see you there.
Don't make like you don't know me when I call you. You'll never come to England.
I want to go, what did you call it, Leaf it leafy where do you live will's been here will will calls me up and goes i mean i'm around the corner i go what he calls me up he's here all the time back and forth between samaritz and yeah hopping off yachts and shit i never go to samaritz i only gustat so listen i'm not i didn't even say it right no you didn't didn't. Well, listen, yeah, I do miss hanging out,

and I do miss going over there.

I love spending time in the UK,

and I love spending time with you.

All right, goodbye.

We love you.

Goodbye, Ricky.

We love you.

Ricky, thank you so much, man.

Guys, and remember, well, you tell the other guys,

if anyone asks, is he in the SAS?

No, he's just a comedian.

Right.

Okay, got it.

Great. Got it.
Okay. Wait, play us off real quick with something.
Grab that guitar, play us off with something. Just a quick little, just a single chord.
Oh, we didn't have to twist those. Here we go.
Here we go. Pretty girl on the hood of a Cadillac, yeah.
She broken down on Freeway 9 I take a look and get her engine started Leave her purring and her roll on by, bye-bye Free love on the free love freeway The love is free, the freeway's long I got some hot love on the hot love highway love highway Going home Cause my baby's gone She's gone Ricky Gervais, everybody. Wow.
That was awesome. Incredible, Ricky Gervais.
Thank you, Ricky. You're beautiful, mate.
Ricky, you're gorgeous. Hey, listen, it's getting late.
You're gonna have to get those prop awards back to the prop house. Okay, buddy.
Whoa, look at that. IPA, dead.
Love you, Ricky. Bye, pal.
Bye, pal. Thanks, buddy.
Bye, pal. Thank you.
Bye, bye, bye. It's great fun.
Oh, what a man. How great was that? Well, I love that you guys knew him.
I've never met him. And I was serious about the influence he had over me, over the show, over...
I just, I think he's it. Have you guys ever seen him debate religion with Stephen Colbert? No, I would...
I mean, I've seen him debate religion with lots of people. He does it online.
He does it in person. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Wait, does Colbert, Colbert is Catholic. And Ricky's saying, he's an atheist, yeah.
Really? Yeah, it's really fascinating. He's incredible.
Anyway, I'm a huge fan of his. I think he is, has a brilliant mind.
He's an incredible guy. He's so, so funny and he's such a sweet, which is funny because like Jason, you were saying, you know, some of his characters, he can be very confident.
Even though he can be self-evasing, he can also be very confident. And he is confident.
He's just a smart guy. He's a very level-headed and sweet, sweet guy.
And super smart, which is why it was good to have him on our show, because he was able to help us. Yeah, I love that thing at the beginning where he's like, wow, are you guys just idiots? Yeah.
It's called SmartL called smartless yeah we go ahead and give you a big hint right at the time i mean the the bar is low and and it's and it's and it's advertised you know it's like i want to meet jane i want to hang out oh i have met i've met her but i want to hang out with her i i'm i'm fascinated to see what we'll include you guys i'll include you in the dinner. Yes, please.
I would love that. One of these times.
The one thing he didn't say though as he was signing off was mmmm... Bye! Smart.
Nice. Smart.
Nice. Hey, friends.
Jason here. We're so excited the Smart List has officially joined the SiriusXM family.
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