-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy-winning comedian,
writer, and actor you know from such shows
as "The Office" and "Extras."
His latest series, "After Life,"
is currently streaming on Netflix.
Let's take a look.
-Good girl.
-Your dog should be on a lead.
-What? -Dog should be on a lead.
Can't you read? The park's for everyone.
-Oh, sorry. Thank you. Come here, girl. Come here.
[ Gasps ] What?
He is not a fat, hairy, nosy [bleep]sucker.
Bad girl, Brandy. Sorry about that.
-Disgusting. -See ya later.
-Please welcome back to the show Ricky Gervais, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome back!
-Oh, thank you.
-Congratulations on your show.
-Thank you.
Will you bleep the word "[bleep]sucker"?
[ Laughter ]
-What would you like us to do?
You want us to leave it out there?
-Well, just bleep the word [bleep] and leave "sucker"
'cause "sucker" is not offensive, is it?
So just go "beep-sucker."
Will you bleep me saying "[bleep]sucker" now?
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, now you've really put us in a situation.
-Well, If I was talking about my old bird, though,
that would be all right, wouldn't it?
-Like if you said --
-I love [bleep] [ Laughter ]
But I kept chickens.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-I see.
So you're saying, like, you want to use --
and maybe we could steal that [bleep]
and put it in the other one.
[ Laughter ]
And then it was like, "Hey."
We're like, "No, that wasn't from the show.
That was the wrong [bleep] We stole it."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-One you heard was about chickens.
-Exactly. -Yeah.
-Yeah, do it.
-Yeah, we'll check with our standards and practices people.
-Thanks. [ Laughter ]
-Hey, this is a show --
I feel like as though it probably doesn't get established
particularly well in the clip, but this is a show about grief.
-It is about grief.
The reason I'm acting like that in the show --
my wife is dying, and I'm very angry.
She was the love of my life.
I'm genuinely depressed. I'm suicidal.
I nearly kill myself, but the dog is hungry.
So I feed the dog. [ Laughter ]
And that gives me enough to think, "Right, okay,
I'm gonna live for a while,
but I'm gonna punish the world for this."
And I'm not scared of anything
because I've got nothing to lose.
And I treat it like a superpower.
I have one last adventure and say what I want from now on,
and then I can always kill myself.
So that's -- It asks the question,
"Is life worth living
after you've lost the love of your life?"
And that's the premise.
So that's why he's acting like that.
-I feel as though you're always
drawn to bigger themes like that.
Was this an idea that had been kicking around in your head
for a long time or did you just sort of stumble upon it?
-No. It's one of the few things where you have an idea,
and that's the next thing that happens
because you've got a backlog and you try things out.
But the seed of the idea was that.
It was imagine if you had nothing to lose.
You could do what you wanted. You'd have no fear.
And no spoilers, but the mugging scene --
In real life, we hand our money over.
-Yeah.
-Because we're scared of what happens
or we got a baby in a stroller.
But he goes, "Bring it on"
Because he's got nothing to lose.
-Right, right.
It's also a nice balance in the show,
which is obviously these grander themes,
such as our own mortality and the idea of loss,
and then your character, of course, has minor annoyances.
I'm gonna guess they're the same minor annoyances
you feel in your everyday life.
-I'm annoyed by everything.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
It comes across. I want you to know that comes across.
-Does it really? -Yeah.
-But, socially, I bite my tongue.
I can't even, like, send my soup back if it's got a rat in it
because I think the waiter will put me on YouTube.
You know what I mean? [ Laughter ]
-Right, right.
-There was a -- Right, okay.
This is a true story.
There was a -- We were in a restaurant in San Francisco.
And the waiter, every time he came out --
we were eating -- he kept going...
[ Snorts ]
And I was going, "[Bleep] no," like that.
And Jane was going, "You can't."
I just wanted to stab him.
Do you know what I mean? Just oh, my God.
On the plane -- right.
On the plane over, there was a guy --
we were about to take off, and he kept doing this.
[ Yawning ]
And I looked at him, right? Twice.
I checked he didn't have anything wrong with him.
[ Laughter ] Do you know what I mean?
-Yeah, right.
-I was trying to figure that out.
-Sure, of course. -Because that would be terrible.
-That's incredibly polite of you.
-Yeah, yeah. [ Laughter ]
And I made the judgment call.
And after the 15th time --
I went, "Mate, can you do without the noises at the end?"
And then I had to sit next to him for seven hours.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-But honestly, yeah, I can't stand noise.
-You mentioned your girlfriend, Jane.
Now, she must -- when you --
when she hears someone making an annoying noise --
-She doesn't even notice it.
-Really? -Yeah.
I go, "Okay, we got to move." Right?
-Okay. -Yeah, yeah.
-I guess in the end, you would have to
spend your time with someone who is more open to the world.
Because if it was two of you, it would be hard.
-Yeah, she's very laid-back in that.
She goes, "Okay. Do we move restaurants?"
But now I carry ear plugs with me.
-Really?
-Just in case there's someone sniffing or whistling
or just an annoying voice.
Just someone talking with an annoying voice.
Or one person dominating the conversation.
I want to go, "Speak!"
[ Laughter ]
-In a public restaurant, how does Jane feel --
-She says that's sociable.
She lives with it.
She knows it's better than me going, "What the [bleep]?"
[ Laughter ]
Right. So, yes.
So, yes, I am that guy.
-You are -- the role, I should say,
the profession you chose for this character is
he is a reporter for a local newspaper.
-Yeah.
-What made you think this was a perfect job
for a guy going through what he's going through emotionally?
-Everything is a juxtaposition
to how he's feeling in his head.
It's sunny. He's got a nice life, a nice job,
but it's banal.
He has to do these silly stories,
like a guy who gets five birthday cards the same,
and he has to deal with these people
or a potato that looks like Lionel Richie.
Oh, God, it's like the worst --
it's a woman who makes rice pudding out of her breast milk.
And he has to go and interview them,
and then his mate eats one and he vomits, right?
[ Laughter ]
So it's just like the worst -- It's just the worst --
-I like that there was a stain that looks like Kenneth Branagh,
a water stain, and your character points out --
-Any stain.
No, any stain looks like Kenneth Branagh.
[ Laughter ]
He has no discernible features at all.
-That never occurred to me until that moment, yeah.