As if to prove just how many ways one can overcome the mound of expectations created by success, comedian Ricky Gervais has tackled a podcast (The Ricky Gervais Show), a series of children's books (Flanimals), two British stand-up specials, and his new series, Extras (whose second season begins airing Jan. 14 on HBO), since he broke through with The Office's original British incarnation. Each of his projects has been more unexpectedly successful than the last. With Extras, Gervais has abandoned The Office's wildly obnoxious David Brent for the merely flawed actor Andy Millman, leaving much of the onscreen goofing to writing partner and co-star Stephen Merchant, plus a rotating array of guest stars. The A.V. Club recently caught up with Gervais during a lull after what looks to be yet another short-running series.
The A.V. Club: You've had a pretty varied career so far. Did you always intend not to focus on one thing?
Ricky Gervais: I didn't even intend to do what I'm doing now. I think doing something creative is the most important thing to me, and I think it's probably just good for the soul for anyone, whatever it is. You don't have to be a film director—you can do gardening or something—but I think everyone needs to create something. I've always dabbled. I've always nearly written a book, I've always tried painting, I've always tried to make something out of ideas, really. It was never a plan. I never thought, "Right. First I'll get famous, and then I'll do a book. Then I'll do a podcast." I hadn't heard of the word "podcast" a year ago. What I do next is never strategic. It's never, "If I did this, then I'll get that demographic, and then they'll like me for this, and then I can do that." I go, "I want to do this next. This is the thing that interests me most." I've got the attention span of a 5-year-old, so that's why I don't hang around doing one thing for very long. I have to be excited, I have to have an adrenaline rush about doing something, or it bores me, I feel trapped. I've never regretted saying no to anything, or finishing something. When I'm in the middle of doing something I love, I can have a better idea, and I'll go, "Oh God, I can't finish this." Maybe I've got some sort of disorder.
AVC: You initially talked about Extras as the tough or disappointing follow-up to The Office. Do you still think of it that way?
RG: I tried to get it in before the press. I never did think of it as a follow-up, or anything either disappointing or surprisingly good. I'd never compare it to The Office. We never let pressure get to us. We purposely made it not like The Office. I purposely took the straight role instead of the comedy role. We didn't want to go too much for the emotional heart like we did in The Office. We didn't want it to be so steeped in realism, but we fell into old ways straightaway. We still can't stand the surreal or the convoluted plot. I'm very fond of it.
In fact, the second season—I shouldn't say this, because it'll come back to haunt me—but I think it's the funniest thing I've done. Out-and-out laughs per minute, it's probably got a better hit-rate than The Office. But what it hasn't got, probably, is that mood of The Office. It's more traditional than The Office, it's less situations. They're very much observational situations with results. There's an observation, we meander through it and take it to its logical conclusion. The Office wasn't like that. The Office was sort of cobbled together. We tried to make it as close as possible to what you'd get if you'd done a documentary, whereas Extras, we can cut to the chase a lot easier. The only way you can avoid the difficult-second-album syndrome is not make your first album very good, and if people think I did it the wrong way round, that's not my problem. Also, what's slightly unfair is, why is Extras compared to The Office, but not to other comedy programs? I want to be compared to other things that are out there now. If you asked me what I liked about The Office and Extras, I'd say everything, because I did it, nothing goes in that I don't like. Why would I put something in there that I'm not quite sure about or didn't like? I couldn't be more pleased with either of them, really.
AVC: How do you establish that kind of creative control?
RG: I just demand it. I just simply wouldn't do anything that I wasn't terribly in charge of. I don't let anything go. I worry about the font on the back of the DVD, and I'll do this as long as that continues. Even if it does continue, I could still get bored with that, but I certainly wouldn't compromise anything. I think we got away with it initially [on The Office] because we were low-risk. We'd done our own demo so they could see what it looked like, so they let us do a pilot. It didn't cost much, it went out during summer, so what's the worst that could happen? But then when it picked up and went off, luckily they remembered history correctly and they said, "Well, they did it all themselves with no interference. Why would we interfere now?" And they never have since. Nor have HBO. HBO get the same cut we hand in to the BBC. As long as I'm working with people like BBC2 and Channel 4 and HBO and they're taking exactly what they're handed, I've got nothing to complain about. I don't know why other people don't get that sort of luxury. Maybe some do, I don't know. I wouldn't have it any other way. That's really one of the themes in Extras, is that Andy didn't get that freedom, and he took the compromise, and now he's got to live with it, because he learns that success without respect is nothing.
AVC: What made you want to tell that story?
RG: Lots of things, really. The Office was basically me getting things off my chest. That's what you do as an artist, really, even if it's such a lowly art as TV, you've got to get stuff off your chest, because that's what makes something different and original, your particular take on stuff. There's no point in having a committee meeting. One of my favorite phrases is, "A camel is a horse designed by committee." All the same ingredients go into a TV show. It's just the proportions that are different, and that's what makes something different from something that's gone before it. There's loads of things, really, that we want to say. It's a dig at easy comedy, it's a dig at compromise, it's a dig at fame, it's a dig at the press—it's a dig. [Laughs.] It's a big dig.
But I think it's funny as well. I hope it doesn't come across as me whingeing, because I haven't had that life that Andy's got. I suppose it's a bit of "There but for the grace of God go I"—what would have happened if the BBC said, "No, you're not directing it, my mate is. No, you're not gonna be in it, we've got someone from EastEnders to be in it"? Would I have said, "Forget it"? I think I would have, but who knows? If I had walked away, where would I be now? These things go through your head when you're at a crossroads, and I didn't have to make that decision, and Andy did. That's it, really.
AVC: When you're working on something, do you ever have to struggle to tell the difference between comedy that can succeed commercially and what you think is good?
RG: Never. It doesn't come into it. We only do what we think is good and what we're happy with. I do that in stand-up, I even do it with my children's books. I don't do market research, I don't have focus groups, I don't care. I don't care if it fails, honestly. I'd rather have something that's completely mine fail than something succeed that I'm not proud of.
AVC: Do you think people sometimes laugh at things for the wrong reasons?
RG: I just don't think there's any pleasure in getting an easy laugh. There can be no reward. You stand at the back of a chain comedy club, and those guys come out and they're going, "Ha! What's going on with Scooby-Doo? A talking dog!" And I want to shout, "It's a kids' program!" What vein of comedy gold have they really hit upon there? Then some other guy goes, "Ugh, the '70s, haircuts were different, weren't they?" I want to go, "Well, yeah, but I don't know what you've done there." I don't get observational comedy. It's observational, but they've just left out the comedy bit. And these people are cracking up! They couldn't laugh any more. So you think, "Why would I try and make those people laugh? I don't need to make them laugh. They're happy enough. I'd probably just spoil it for them." I'm aiming at someone else. I'm not uptight about it. I don't want to close those comedy clubs down, I just don't want to play them.
AVC: Is Andy's disastrous sitcom, When The Whistle Blows, your nightmare show?
RG: I just wouldn't do it, and I know that I wouldn't be happy doing it, because it's too easy. There's nothing wrong with it. Those shows still exist in England, they have for 30 years, there's no change there, but you know what? On one side, there's people wearing wigs and doing smutty innuendo and shouting a catchphrase, and on the other side, there's Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development and Larry Sanders and Christopher Guest. I don't sit through shows and go, "Damn them, why do they put that on?" I just don't watch them. It's not a crusade. It's a source of comedy for me. That those shows exist is better for me, I think. That's great. Long live them!
Unfortunately, I'm compared with The Office. I can't win. That's what's unfair. I want Extras to be compared to When The Whistle Blows. For every wacky postcard, there's a million people waiting to buy it, and for every $10 million of those things, there's one Rembrandt. Purposely, I think I want to aim at doing something that a lot of people won't like. You want a door policy on your club. It's as simple as that. I'm just worried that it looks like I've compared my work with Rembrandt. "Gervais says he's better than Rembrandt!"
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