HuffPost UK sat down with Ricky Gervais to talk about his motivation for his own favourite character, just how mean he was being at the Golden Globes, what he really thinks of life in Hollywood and what he thinks lies at the roots of kindness.
“I’ve always attempted to be a good person,” he begins. “I think I have. As Derek says, ‘I’m not good because I think I’ll go to heaven – it’s just when I do a good thing, I feel good. When I do a bad thing, I feel bad.”
“We feel because we’re human and then something happens and you either embrace those feelings, and you get addicted to those feelings of kindness, or you’re hurt and you close up, stamp them out and you punish the world. To all extents and purposes, being human is having empathy.
Does he feel more vulnerable now he’s no longer hiding behind the ironic cloak of David Brent'
“Artistically, there’s no difference at all,” he asserts. “You mustn’t do that, when you’re writing something, you can only go… I do it to please me. If I’m writing a scene that’s meant to be sad and I’m crying, it’s in. If I’m writing a scene and I’m laughing, it’s in.
“What I am aware of is that, the bigger you get the more people that love you, but the more people that hate you too. But the people that hate you are irrelevant because they don’t buy your DVDs, anyway. And, what’s more important, they don’t make the people who like you take their DVDs back. So they’re irrelevant, so you only concentrate on you and likeminded people.
Do you find people doubt the kindness behind your ‘Derek’ message, just because it’s coming from you'
“When you pop up out of nowhere, there’s no prejudice towards you. But there’s swings and roundabouts to that as well. Because they go, ‘Oh well, he’s just like David Brent then. I don’t know anything about him, so he’s just like David Brent.’
“But by the time you’ve won awards and come to this, there’s a certain… some people want you to fail, but they have no effect. Pray that I fail all you want. They only have an effect if you let it. They have an effect if you try to please them, or try to prove them wrong.
“If anything, I probably go the other way and annoy them – which is just as bad. I’m only ruining my own project. Ignore them. I didn’t know their opinion when I wrote ‘The Office’ so I don’t want their opinion when I write ‘Extras’ or ‘Derek’. And I’ll also change if I want as well. They can’t have ‘The Office’ again. I’ve changed now. Honestly, you don’t have to buy this, you don’t have to watch it. I’ve done this for me because I really love it, and if you like it, that’s brilliant, great, if you don’t, brilliant as well.
Considering they are indeed his new pals, Ricky remains candid about what he sees in front of him every time he ventures to mix with the glitterati of the Hollywood Hills - if anything, it’s that they aren’t arrogant enough! Or as he puts it…
“They’re a lot more scared than I am. I don’t even know why they’d worry about something I’d say on stage.
“Big stars nervous about what I say about them' Big stars worry about whether they’ve got the bigger trailer' I don’t care.”
“Some have been in it from the beginning and they pick up symptoms from all the people around them, what they should and shouldn’t believe. It’s like you feel they mustn’t see a bad review in case it ruins their day. I see a bad review, and I think, who gives a fuck' They might as well be writing on a toilet wall. Everyone’s a critic.
He could talk about this for a very long time, but our sand’s running out. Ricky Gervais has one final thought…
“I did this film, ‘The Invention of Lying’, and there’s a scene where he tells his dying mum she’s going to go to heaven, even though he doesn’t believe it.
“I think that’s how religion started, it might even have been a good thing, it was a case of, ‘I can’t bear to tell this person…’
