Our first guest is the creator, star, and executive producer
of the hit Netflix series--
and I love it so much.
It's called After Life.
Please welcome the very funny Ricky Gervais.
Hi, Ricky.
Hi.
Just waving to the crowd.
The people are up there.
Wow, we have people in the balcony, suddenly.
I've never known that we had people in balconies.
I do that to the paparazzi when there's only two or three.
I do that, like, there's 1,000 people at my place.
So that it looks great.
That's a good idea because they're only seeing you.
You don't know there's not many people behind them.
I found a bank of cameras.
This is a bit weird.
Very smart.
This is like a horror film, where I'm shouting,
there's a man in your garden.
Yeah, I know.
Normally, I would appreciate someone telling me that.
But I do know he's back there.
Right.
It would be weird if I didn't, yeah.
Hey, listen--
Yeah.
Yeah, I would have to warn you.
Ricky?
Yeah?
You really are showing off with all the awards, just
coincidentally sitting, just you happened
to be sitting in front of all of the awards.
I'm in my study, as I call it.
It's got a desk and a chair.
It's the smallest room in the house.
So I thought there'd be less echo.
This is my real--
I haven't hired these, like they do on Cribs.
This is my real place.
I live here.
There's-- oh, look, and they're surrounding all around me.
You couldn't tell, I'm just waving at all my awards now.
There's thousands of them, all around.
I bet.
And you deserve each and every one of them.
So it's not so bad if you're being quarantined
in your castle like this, surrounded
by your achievements.
Exactly.
And the moat with all the alligators
keeps me safe anyway.
So, yeah.
You won an award I was at.
You won-- what was your award?
Was it the Carol Burnett Award at the Globes?
That's the last time I saw you.
Yes, when you were hosting.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, when times, when times were different.
I know.
But, you know, I'm pretty much a homebody, I think, as you are.
So to me-- and I get to do the show from my house.
That is my dream job.
I've tried to work it out when I've done films and series,
could I do it all from my house?
And it would look a bit weird, you know,
I couldn't play an ordinary guy with all these awards,
for example.
Yeah, right.
It wouldn't make sense, would it?
No.
Honestly, I never went out much.
I didn't like people coming to the house.
So that's good.
This house was an eight-bedroom house when we bought it.
But I had it all knocked into one bedroom
so family couldn't stay.
I've always got enough booze for a nuclear winter.
And by 6:00 PM I'm always on the couch with a bottle of wine
watching Netflix.
So evenings literally haven't changed for me.
And, also, on a serious note, you
won't hear me complaining, not when there are
nurses doing 14-hour shifts.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like they're asking us to stay at home and watch telly.
I can handle that.
Right.
Yeah, I totally agree.
So you're enjoying it.
How is Jane enjoying you being home?
Well, you'd think that she'd absolutely love it,
wouldn't you?
You'd think, you know, you get to spend a lot more time
with Ricky Gervais.
I mean, who-- but, no, funnily enough.
She's a novelist.
And she usually has the house to herself
because I've got an office down the road,
where I go for meetings and I write and do all that.
But I'm home all the time now.
And I've never heard this so much, she keeps going, shush,
let me just finish the sentence.
I'll play with you later.
Because I found an old badminton set.
I put that up in the garden.
We've even got the chalk.
We got the chalk off Amazon.
I've got a badminton court.
So I try and make her play at least four or five times a day.
So, no, she's not enjoying it as much as me.
Oh, that's a shame.
Well, you know, she's a writer.
So she needs the quiet.
I understand.
But, yeah, a lot of Ricky Gervais, to me,
would be a fun thing to have around.
You'd think that.
For at least an hour.
I think that's the cutoff.
But when people go, oh, I thought
you'd be more fun than this for longer.
But no.
An hour is about as much--
Yeah.
That's why I make my monologues, like, four minutes long.
That's about as much as the world can take at one time.
And then it goes into a different kind of energy.
It's not as much fun as we thought.
Yeah.
I'm good for a good hour.
That's good.
I understand.
I mean, there's so much output.
And then you need the input, right?
Exactly.
I have to have a, I have to have a--
I have a nap.
I get up.
I play.
Then I have a little, I have soup, lentil soup.
I have a little nap, like a toddler.
And then I'm ready to go again for the afternoon.
So, yeah.
But I should be writing--
Is that every day?
Sorry, go on.
Is that every day?
You have lentil soup every day?
Yeah.
Again, you know, you think that would be a pleasure.
But no.
I do.
I love lentil soup.
It's got all the ingredients you need.
It's got all your vitamins and protein and fiber
and it's, yeah.
I have a little-- because I know that by 6 o'clock
I'm going to start gorging.
I'm really going to start putting away the calories.
When the wine's open-- and I just
had a barbecue with two big veggie burgers in a bun.
So I try and sort of, not so much fast,
as just have two meals, breakfast and lunch, which
is sort of fasting for me.
And then from 6 o'clock I can eat till I fall asleep.
About half ten.
Like a snake, I do a lot my eating in one go.
And then I have to sleep.
I see.
So can I.
Let's take a break.
All right.
I like that image, though, of, like a snake.
So you see, like, a large amount.
And then it just goes away somehow.
Like when you see, like, a Python, when it's eating a pig.
And then it can't move for about a week.
So that's me after a meal.
We've got to take a break.
Although-- I know we have to take a break.
Well, then take it.
Although, you're a vegan, so you're never going to eat--
I told you.
It's as much as you can take.
That's Ricky Gervais.
We need a break.
OK, let's take a break, everyone.
That's what he said.
I don't want to take a break from you.
But we're taking a break.
More with Ricky after this.