DEAD FAMOUS

[A profile on comedian Ricky Gervais. Sunday Magazine, June 28]



To be honest, I doubt it’s even him. The voice on the phone sounds like someone doing an impression of Ricky Gervais doing an impression of David Brent. It’s possible he employs a team of sound-alikes for lesser gigs, like a comedy Saddam Hussein. I picture the real Gervais reclining on a crimson chaise in his Hampstead apartment—the one he shares with a woman named Jane, a cat named Ollie, and a salamander named Tel —in a loose, flowing pyjama outfit similar to the one David Brent wore for his cover of If You Don’t Know Me By Now, and laughing, laughing at the world that made him famous. But it probably is the real Ricky Dean Gervais, he knows so many fine details.

RG: “Yeah. Ricky Dene. D-E-N-E. The rumour goes my dad was drunk, my mum gave him the form, and he spelled it like that.”

Ricky Dene would be perfect if you were a northern comic.

RG: “Or a country singer.”

The beginning of the life of Ricky Dene Gervais sounds, suitably, like the beginning of a joke. A French Canadian soldier meets a Church of England dinner-lady in London, during a blackout. They hit it off, and there in the darkness of a converted tube-station, amid the thud of bombs and hiss of falling dust, love blooms. That’s lovely. Is it true?

RG: “Weeeeelllll, no, I don’t know if that’s literally true. They met in the war so there was obviously a lot of …”

Darkness.

RG: “Yeah, but no, they met during the Second World War.”

In comedy, what’s true is less important than what’s sweet and funny. They met, the soldier and the dinner-lady, and they made a cosy post-war family. Pre-fame Ricky lives in Reading. As a child he writes speculative scripts for cartoons he sees on the telly. At 8, a stray comment from his brother magically turns him into an atheist.

You were a believer?

RG: “Yeah. I loved Jesus and I used to go to Sunday school, and I was in our kitchen drawing a picture from the Bible, and my older brother came in and said, ‘Why do you believe in God?’ and my Mum went bonkers. And I knew.”

Cos your mum was …

RG: “… Protecting me, yeah. A typical working class mum.”

Boy Ricky grows to become a fine young man, attends University College London where he studies philosophy. Student Ricky is so poor that he nurses single pints through long evenings. Shares them, even, with new girlfriend Jane. At last our Ricky gets a lick at stardom, a fleeting pop career which sees him crack the top 200. The main use for his group’s two music videos now, it seems, is to embarrass him on chat shows.

RG: “See, they assume I’ll be embarrassed by seeing myself back then, but I’m not. I look at myself then, and I see how much I’ve let myself go. It would be more embarrassing if they held up a mirror.”

Then, a turning point. Pre-fame Ricky meets a gangly gent called Stephen Merchant. They make a pilot for a show set in the offices of a London paper firm. The Office wins every award possible: Emmys, Grammys, Pulitzers, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Gervais’s fame now exceeds his wildest fantasies. He appears in movies, on talk shows, and eventually nails the golden three, the trio of gigs that prove you’ve absolutely made it: a guest-spot on The Simpsons, an invitation to appear on Inside the Actors Studio, and the chance to go on Sesame Street and sing to a Muppet.

RG: “Oooohhhhhh, yeah, that’s … I’d go along with that. As a failed pop-star I always try to sing, I did it in the office, I sang to Marge [Simpson] and now I’m singing to Elmo. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

How can it get better than that? Most comedians would be paralysed by his success. Gervais counters by remaining an enigma, a phantom. A comedian-slash-writer-slash-director-slash-author-slash-activist. A rebel and an establishment figure, a massively famous regular guy, a chronically lazy hyper-achiever. What’s a normal day, Ricky?

RG: “Well, I try to only do a few hours. I’m not one of these guys who does 16 hour days. I like to spread it out.”

See? And yet he’s always busy, always slung with several major projects. His last movie, Ghost Town, saw him tackle the kind of role normally tossed to the likes of Hugh Grant. Being British, and having a slightly unusual middle name, is where similarities between Ricky Dene Gervais and Hugh John Mungo Grant end.

RG: “No, exactly, I think people were a bit confused at first, going, why would they give a romantic lead to the fat bloke from England? Well, it’s not really a romantic lead in that sense.”

In Ghost Town, Gervais plays Dr. Bertram Pincus, a misanthropic dentist who wakes after a simple medical procedure to find that he can see the dead. One of these dead people is the spirit of a cheating husband (Greg Kinnear) who recruits Pincus to break up the engagement of his widow (Téa Leoni.) The movie surprised many. It isn’t edgy, it doesn’t have those classic Gervais moments that make you squirm in agony. It’s a gentle movie, with the sensibilities of a golden-era picture.

RG: “Yes, it’s like Jimmy Stewart, It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a bit of an antidote to 14-year-old boys laughing at erection jokes. It’s about this guy who’s lonely, and he meets someone; it’s much more real and low-key. But I can see on paper why they wouldn’t go, well, why haven’t they cast Hugh Jackman?”

The fact that they didn’t cast Jackman means that we can actually appreciate the downfall and redemption of Pincus. It’s a common theme in Gervais’s work: the idea that every idiot gets a second chance.

RG: “I agree. There’s no greater feeling than redemption, and I’ve always done that. We made David Brent get better, we made Andy Millman [Extras] see the error of his ways. And with Pincus, he realises that he’s missing out on the best thing in life, which is human contact.”

As far as human/non human contact goes, Gervais is a staunch non-believer.

You don’t even believe in ghosts.

RG: “No. Or ghouls, or ESP.”

You went off at Karl Pilkington for his belief in telekenetic babies.

RG: “Yeah!”

Another Gervais achievement was to create the most successful podcast series in history. At the heart of these podcasts is a round-headed, high-functioning moron called Karl Pilkington.

RG: “Yeah, the next one we’re doing is philosophy, and if you think Karl doesn’t know anything about natural history, or art, I mean, the stuff he doesn’t know about philosophy is staggering. I was trying to explain to him the mind/body problem, you know …”

Descartes …

RG: “… Yeah, and the problem of existence, and I said, ‘How do you know this isn’t all a dream?’ And he said, ‘Because I haven’t been sleeping much lately.’”

[We break here for a bout of childish giggling.]

Of all your many projects, I was most disappointed not to see more of Ricky Gervais Meets …

RG: “[Sustained laughter] Ooohhhh, oh god, I can only assume you’re being sarcastic, which is fine by me.”

No, I’m serious. For those who haven’t seen it, Ricky made a series in which he talked to other influential comedians about their work. He visited comedian Gary Shandling, and, through various methods, managed to make him angry. Most notably, by comparing him to … what was the cartoon character you said he looked like?

RG: “Ooooohhhh, why did I do that? It was, um … Bingo, from The Banana Splits. And then he didn’t know who it was, so I got someone to print it out and show him.”

You can hear the pain as he recounts the story. For a brief time Gervais was in a scene that could have been written for David Brent.

RG: “And it was so funny ‘cos he went, ‘No, why would I be insulted?’ And I could see he was thinking, ‘Jesus Christ.’”

But comedy is pain, someone has to get hurt, and Gervais is the master of the art. How many people watched parts of The Office through the cracks between their fingers? How many people wanted to run from the room as David Brent did his robot dance? Watching modern comedy, and Gervais’s comedy in particular, is like watching a horror film: we suffer, but in a way that delights us.

Shandling was painful, but your meeting with [Seinfeld creator] Larry David was like the reuniting of long-lost twins.

RG: “Ha. Yeah.”

You both decided that you’d like to be more like his character, Larry [David plays an exaggerated version of himself in his cult show, Curb Your Enthusiasm,] and be able to say what you really thought.

RG: “Well, that’s a very good point, I mean, you make these heroes and villains, and that way no one gets hurt, because you can’t just go around saying exactly what you want in real life. So that’s what’s fun about Bertram Pincus: he goes around saying exactly what’s on his mind, and it’s funny, because what comes later is redemption.”

But I also remember you saying that when you become famous you’re no longer able to complain about anything.

RG: [Laughter] “Yeah, they go, ‘Oooohhh, he’s changed.’”

Gervais came in the other day and complained about how long he had to wait for his panini.

RG: “Exactly!”

You and Larry reminded me of what happens when you get two slightly racist people in a room, and they start testing the waters, and by the end they’re planning the next Reich.

RG: “That’s so funny, I’m just working on a new stand-up act, and there’s a bit in there where I talk about pretending to be racist to offend your girlfriend. And then she gets wise to it, so you have to up the ante, saying worse and worse things to get a reaction, and the punchline is, ‘Do you think Hitler started out like that?’”

How is Jane?

RG: “Speaking of Hitler?”

No! Girlfriends.

RG: “Very well. She’s busy writing books and stuff.”

Jane Fallon is a British television producer and writer whose work includes the comedy-drama, Teachers. She wrote the bestselling Getting Rid of Matthew, and her second novel, Got You Back, reached number 5 in the bestseller list

RG: “Yeah, they’re making a film of her first book and they’re looking at the second. But she’s definitely more concerned with the novel now, that’s pretty important.”

Do you get to see each other?

RG: “Well I’m home every day. And when I go to America she comes with me. But otherwise I’m home by 6pm in my pyjamas most nights.”

The pyjamas, the cat, the chaise. A boring life.

RG: “See I don’t think it’s boring, I think being out is boring. I’d rather be home at night, watching what I want on telly, with a bottle of wine, with the cat quacking like a duck [Long story.] That to me is … that’s great.”

And that’s the opposite of what fame is perceived to be about?

RG: “Oh God, I hope so. I hope I’m the opposite of what fame is about.”

So you wouldn’t recommend fame?

RG: “No. Not in the slightest. Someone said there must be advantages, and I suppose, meeting David Bowie, but I met David through my work. I assume he meets other writers and directors. The only, ONLY advantage I can think of is that you get to jump the queue at airports.”

Recently, though, Gervais has been leveraging his ample fame and boundless free time to pen letters to world leaders. He wrote to Gordon Brown, complaining about the fact that the hats worn by British Foot Guards are still made from bear fur.

RG: “Yeah. He said it was a problem because they couldn’t get the synthetic fur to act the same as real fur. So I sent back another one saying, ‘So? It’s a hat.’”

What about Barack, has he written back?

RG: “Noooooo he has not.”

Gervais wrote an open letter to the US President about Paris Hilton's decision to buy a house in North London, proposing a simple exchange: Hilton sent back to Beverly Hills in return for Victoria Beckham. What a great initiative.

RG: [Laughs] “Yeah, you think I’m busy but I must have too much time on my hands.”

Are you worried one of your pranks will backfire, like it did for Ross/Brand? (Fellow British comedians Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross caused outrage this year when they made a prank phone-call to Andrew Sachs, the man who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers.)

RG: “People are gonna be annoyed if you say anything interesting. It’s the way of the world. The important thing is: is it funny? That’s the only thing. And my blog is a fortress, I’ll put anything I want on there. I count it almost as my private life.”

Yeah, a few weeks ago it was nonce c---s wasn’t it?

RG: [Shrieks] “Yeah, I’m just like Oscar Wilde!”

Well you both lived in Reading.

RG: “Exactly! I mean, do Aussies and kiwis use that word?”

MS: “Yes. Mostly in the South Island.”

RG: “I mean it’s lovely, it’s almost Chaucerian, or Shakespearean.”

MS: Yeah, you mean like the “O thing.”

RG: “Exactly! It’s literary.”

We’re very literary.

RG: “I just love Flight of the Conchords, by the way. They’re so funny, so engaging, and so sweet as well. I told them when I met them that the first time I saw their David Bowie spoof was when David emailed it to me.”

Actually, I was thinking the other day that the real pleasure I get from both the Conchords, and your work, is how invisible the material is. I don’t know if you know what I mean.

RG: “I’m intrigued though.”

Well, the musical numbers aside, when you watch their stuff, and especially yours, you’re given the rare opportunity to forget that it’s material you’re watching.

RG: “Oh that’s nice. I like that.”

Well, it’s just that so many sitcoms today sound like comedy writers talking to each other.

RG: “Oh, yes, definitely. Me and Steve [Merchant] go, “No, that’s a writer’s joke.’ As soon as you write something and think of two nerds in a room looking smug, lose the line. We definitely had to do that a lot in The Office, particularly with the character Tim.”

And at the start there wasn’t even a script anyway.

RG: “That’s right, we did a little video. And that was shot in my office, the one I worked in.”

And it would be hard to imagine that if you had handed in a script for The Office …

RG: “It would never have happened, it’d still be in someone’s drawer.”

Because there’s no jokes!

RG: “No, it’s just a man who isn’t very funny, makes a bad joke, and touches his tie. They’d go, ‘Well what the fuck’s that?’”

You could spend hours talking to Ricky Dene Gervais and still be confused about what he is, and what, if anything, he represents: the profane intellectual philosophy major and lover of nob jokes; the mega-famous despiser of fame; the rebel establishment figure; the extraordinary regular guy; the comedian-slash-writer-slash-director-slash-author-slash-activist; the enigma, the phantom; the ghost in the machine.

Bit pretentious?

RG: “A bit.”

What is your job, then?

RG: “When someone says, ‘What’s your job?’ I say, comedian, and when someone says, ‘What’s your job in film and television?’ I say writer/director. But some things come along, some things you can’t say no to, the Simpsons, Sesame Street. I’ve never really planned a career. I’ve sort of done what I want, and then you look back and go, oh well, that was good.”

This was good. Time to let you go.

RG: “Well that was a pleasure.”

For me too.

RG: “Let’s do this again, when I’ve got something else to plug mercilessly.”

Sounds good to me.

I’m still not entirely convinced it was him.

Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town

[From the series, 'Know Your Popular Country-Themed Songs']


Written in 1969 during a bout of alcoholism and despair, Kenny Roger’s classic song juxtaposes an up-tempo backing with the tragic story of a crippled war veteran, unnamed, and his only companion, Ruby. The lyrics tell us little about Ruby, her physical dimensions, her nature and temperament, though most leading critics agree that the name Ruby would suggest either an elderly lady or a rescued circus chimp. Given her behaviour, I think it’s easy to deduce which one is accurate. Let’s begin.

You've painted up your lips
And rolled and curled your tinted hair
Ruby are you contemplating
Going out somewhere?

We are thrown right amongst the action with a startling image: an adult female chimpanzee sitting primly at an ornate civil-war armoire, adorning herself in makeup and curling her shining tresses, holding a pearl drop-earring loosely, perhaps, between her lengthy, painted fingers, and admiring herself in the reflected golden light of the falling sun. It’s a tragic, yet poignant image, and the narrators choice of word, “Contemplating,” (In the song pronounced “Contemplatin’” only serves to make it sweeter, and more bitter. We can almost see her lurid red lips, the dark roots of her peroxidised hair. The narrator’s question, inquiring, yet fearful of the answer, hangs in the air like the lingering odour of Chanel.

The shadow on the wall
Tells me the sun is going down
Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

A simple shack, maybe, with few adornments, besides her treasured armoire. Not even a clock on the wall with which our desperate narrator can tell the hour. He starts to plead with his companion, don’t do it, don’t take your love there, of all places. That town doesn’t understand you like I do. Here we have the exposition of the source of conflict in this very modern, but very classic, relationship. On the one hand this lonely man wants his only companion to be there for him. But how can he expect the monkey to abandon its primal urges? Would he ask of the rooster not to crow? The songbird not to sing? And would he expect the chimpanzee not to paint her face and seek the love of strangers? She’s only human … and yet … she’s not. Let’s continue.

It wasn't me
That started that old crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go
And do my patriotic chore

It is unclear which war our narrator is talking about. The war between Guangwu and Wan Yi during the Xia Dynasty, 2100–1600 BC, is widely thought by historians to be the “Crazy Asian War.” Yi’s forces dressed as ladies to lure Guangwu’s forces towards a trans-dimensional gateway. When they appeared again in 1912 they had not aged. And yet it’s unlikely that the narrator is talking about that war. It’s more likely he’s talking about a modern conflict, such as Vietnam, or the consumer electronics war of the 1980’s.

And yes, it's true that
I am not the man I used to be
Oh Ruby, I still need some company

This man has given up something of himself to be with this lusty chimp. Theirs is a relationship that is unconventional—illegal, perhaps—and he has had to change his identity. Whatever his sketchy past, he’s a man, and he needs “company.”

It’s hard to love a man
Whose legs are bent and paralysed
And the wants and the needs of a woman your age
Ruby I realize.

Ok, he’s disabled. This is an interesting development. He’s disabled, and this chimp was once, perhaps, his helper, bringing him his absinth, his pipe, his chicory. Over the years he has grown to love his chimp, some would say a little too much. He has come to love her so, so much that he now even thinks of her as a woman. What pathos. So he’s been paralysed, this man, possibly in the war, or from trying to perform some kind of difficult stunt.

But it won't be long I've heard them say ‘til I am not around

It is unclear who’s saying such things. Perhaps a jealous suitor is plotting against him. This man, though crippled, no doubt still has friends in the community.

Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

That refrain again.

She's leaving now cause
I just heard the slamming of the door
The way I know I've heard it slam
100 times before
And if I could move I'd get my gun
And put her in the ground

Murderous thoughts assail his mind. And why wouldn’t they? If you’d been in a crazy Asian war, had your legs busted up, and been cuckolded by an adult female chimpanzee, you might also feel aggrieved. If this woman keeps making a monkey out of me, he seems to say, I might just have to have her euthanized. And she better stop slamming that door, also.

Oh Ruby
Don't take your love to town

Oh Ruby for God's sake turn around

Turn around, Ruby. Just one more time, so that you can look into my eyes and see the love that’s still there for you, and so that I can look into yours and confirm for myself what I’ve so long expected: that the love I know still burns like a prairie blaze on a hot July night.

Don’t go, Ruby, don’t go to town.

Now that’s country music.