The Stage

Extra helping - Ricky Gervais

Published Monday 25 April 2005 at 11:40 by Liz Thomas

As the American version of The Office is broadcast across the pond, British audiences eager for more of Ricky Gervais’ writing and acting talent can look forward to the forthcoming Extras on BBC2. Its creator explains why his new character is much more like himself and how fame has changed him

For someone who never wanted to be famous, Ricky Gervais must be finding life a little contrary to his gameplan.

This month alone has seen the American version of The Office - his much-loved British sitcom, which won him two Golden Globes - make its eagerly anticipated debut across the Atlantic. Back in Blighty, however, everyone is waiting just as excitedly for his latest home-grown project, BBC2’s Extras, which has attracted cameo perfomances from bona-fide Office fans Samuel L Jackson, Ben Stiller and fellow one-time Reading resident Kate Winslet.

Meanwhile, in his spare time, Gervais has only gone and written a complete episode of The Simpsons, including a role for himself, at the express request of that world-conquering show’s makers.

And if all that wasn’t quite enough, you can currently see (or rather hear) him on a cinema screen near you as a “fat, mouthy and very smelly” pigeon in family animation movie Valiant, the first major computer-generated feature film to be shot in the UK.

Gervais, best known to millions as David Brent, slimeball boss of a Slough paper merchants, easily delivers the movie’s biggest laughs with his instantly recogniseable, deadpan voice.

Yet with such a successful career at present, it is a surprise to hear 43-year-old Gervais claim that he is “always mildly embarrassed being an actor”. Why should that be?

“Loads of reasons, really,” he says with a typical David Brent-style grimace. “The word ‘celebrity’ for a start, or being associated with it. I want to be famous for something I’ve achieved, as opposed to turning up to premieres that I’m not in, or going on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Back on Telly.”

The basic truth of the matter is that Gervais is, alongside the devastatingly dry wit, an extremely private person. He and long-term girlfriend, TV producer Jane Fallon, shun the red-carpet set and live very quietly in their top floor flat in London’s sedate Bloomsbury.

“Being recognised is the worst bit about all this,” he says. “I love the work, I love the creative process, I love the freedom, I quite like the awards and the money’s good but it’s in that order. Being recognised for buying pants is bottom of the list.”

At least he won’t be recognised in America’s version of The Office, which premiered on March 24 - he is not in it. But Gervais reckons our US cousins have done the series proud.

“I’ve had very little involvement, apart from some preliminary advice,” he says. “It’s aimed at the 250 million Americans who never saw The Office, which got a million viewers on a tiny channel. They’ve not used a laugh track and the humour translates - it’s more a case of changing ‘tap’ to ‘faucet’. The only thing I’ve become aware of is that in the American workplace, they couldn’t get away with doing as little work as our British characters.”

All Gervais’ energies at present are into putting the finishing touches to his new comedy series Extras, co-written by his Office writing partner Stephen Merchant, to be shown on BBC2 later this spring. Gervais plays Andy Millman, a lowly yet rather pretentious actor who finds he just can’t get the big parts - in fact, he’s usually stuck in a green room with other extras, envying the A-list stars, who will include Jackson, Winslet, Jude Law and Vinnie Jones.

“Andy Millman is the kind of actor who reckons the world owes him a living,” says Gervais. “In many respects, though, I suspect I’m much more like Andy Millman than I am David Brent. Brent is actually quite a nice bloke who tries to please people. Whereas Andy Millman is annoyed at the world and we’ve shot a scene that’s just like me, complaining in a restaurant.

“And the frustrating thing is, I can’t do that now because I’m famous. So fame has turned me into a shyer and nicer person.”

But there must surely be a genuinely more gratifying upside to fame and recognition?

“Yes. It’s that my heroes like what I do,” says Gervais. “That’s the biggest buzz, when you find out that Ben Stiller’s a fan, or David Bowie, or Matt Groening.”

Ah yes, Matt Groening. The lauded American animator and creator of The Simpsons is such a full-on enthusiast of The Office that he has invited Gervais to write a forthcoming episode about everyone’s favourite yellow-skinned dysfunctional family.

“And just like The Office, I wrote myself a part in it,” beams Gervais, who has already guest-starred in US action-thriller series Alias.

“I’ll be voicing The Simpsons episode in May in Los Angeles - I can’t do it until I finish Extras. They’ve been very patient. Think of that - The Simpsons waiting for me.” He adopts the perfect Hollywood accent: “We’d better not start, guys, not without Rick. We’re only the greatest TV show in the world…”

As for that turn in Alias, Gervais cringes. He can’t quite bring himself to watch it.

“I can’t because it’s me trying to be cool. I can watch me being a fat, smelly pigeon or a buffoon dancing like a gibbon but I can’t do me being an international terrorist!”