our next guest uh created in star is on the very funny british comedy series the office
its second season premiere is october 12th on the bbc america cable network ladies and gentlemen
say hello to ricky gervais thank you so much for being on the program oh my pleasure my pleasure
you're enjoying your time in new york do you get over here often uh no but i'm i really love it i
love new york and uh strange place really in what sense well i only got here yesterday and
the two big sort of news stories on the tv and in the papers on the radio were two separate
incidents unrelated um people whose pet tigers had moored them that's right one there's sea
freedom roy one and then one here is uh tiger bit him see in england we don't keep tigers as pets
we keep we keep cats but they're much smaller you know are these domesticated
see the clue domestic cats tiger ah domestic cat yeah fine they're tired so it it's it's
the damage see that target's so big it can do so much damage right well it's a domestic
cat by hugo is that will i lose the arm the doctor goes forget it yeah tiger that's gone
the thing is with the domestic cat um is that it sort of treats you as like a mom or a dad
the tiger treats you more is lunch that's right so you have to always be on your guard that's my
advice as an outsider well thank you very much but sometimes it takes the viewpoint of an outsider
to know where you're going wrong exactly apart from that i think it's brilliant but it's the
pet thing it's mad it's really mad now uh do me a favor tell us a little bit about your
your background and uh what what you've done with yourself here to four and uh and how you came up
with the idea for the character and the show and so forth wow um uh my background uh i suppose i
just had a normal sort of working-class upbringing in a in a town just outside london my dad was a
labour and mum was a a housewife and uh i got what you'd call a scholarship to go to university so
sort of uh and it's funny actually because um i went to university to do uh biology and uh i
changed after a couple of weeks because they were nine o'clock lectures yeah and so i did
philosophy seven hours a week so uh and my mum was very proud though that i got to university
and uh when i was there in my third year i actually got into music and um i got a record deal
and a publishing content as a singer-songwriter and i went home one day and i broke it to my mum
that i wasn't going to follow the academic route and she was she was disappointed and
she said why i said because i want to be a pop star she said pop star is another word for junky
and i actually said that well it's the really good deal that the record deal is worth about a hundred
thousand pounds and she didn't drop a beat she said mick jagger bought his mum a house in wales
did the music part of it work out for you of course not yeah
no that was over as quickly as it began right um so then i got a normal job a loud musician
got a normal job and that's i mean that's where the office comes from i was actually
um i worked my way up i thought i started off as a receptionist and i got an assistant manager's
job and i did some training and i became a middle manager and i was a middle manager in an office
for seven years which is which is the office you know and that's is like like you say that's
how you develop that absolutely absolutely i mean and then even the office was based on
the old office here we even built it to look a bit like it and um and and tell tell people who maybe
have not seen the show about your character how do you describe him i described him you
heard how i described him but that yeah that i mean he is a before uh some people um when
england were saying he's the boss from hell and i don't think he's that bad i think he's
just a bit of a shadow you know he wants to be loved like we all do and he's a bit of a life
and soul of the party and um he's just he's just confused sort of popularity with respect
and he's just he's free-falling and he's sort of clutching at straws and you know and he thinks
he's going to get a game show out of it because there was a spite of these reality games and he
just thinks he's you know he's the office clown and he wants to he wants to get on tv like us
yeah like the interesting the thing that you notice early on about watching the show is there's
absolutely no work being done in the office there is no productive activity in the office whatsoever
and that's just fine with everyone well i remember learning when i did the thing that's the thing
about um uh brits because uh we try and avoid work and let's see in america no no you're told
that you can become the president of the united states and we're told you don't want to do that
so like you know i i remember i remember i spent all my time trying to avoid work it's so much
harder now i really work hard now i want to get it done because you know i'm doing something i enjoy
but then i remember working out that if you walked around with a couple of bits of paper you could be
either on the way to the photocopier or the way back but i walked about nine miles a day it's
ridiculous let me talk about the uh you did the sixth the first season you're going to do six uh
you've already produced for the second so yeah and then that's more or less it is that right yeah i
think that's a fantastic idea because each one of them are are so good and i think if you were to do
year after year after year maybe the product so you think it's integrity it's laziness
i i have to have a lie down after six yeah well 12 i really really struggled
i'm actually the people want me to do sort of more live dates but the term stand up scares me
right you know it's nice that i'm sort of lounging yeah you know so uh
now 12's enough now will there be an american version of this show yeah we hope so yeah that's
that is happening and you will be involved in that you will not appear on that no no yeah um
i suppose they're giving me some sort of executive producer credit right what does that mean yeah um
now are you worried that the american version will be as good as your version
um i want it to be as good it'd be different you know uh it's not my baby it's not like you
know the the office i'm glad it's out in america that you know the english one because you know
i did that and it's exactly how we wanted it to be the american one will be good but
different it has to be different and that's not just a case of changing tap to force it and
things like that you know i'm sure that i want there to be relevant observations
i want the people of america to say the same things about this is brit said about ours like
i know a man like david brent or that's like my office and i imagine it's it's going to
be difficult to cast somebody as good in that role as you are overall you know oh thank you
i think the problem will be casting someone as attractive
they've said they've said brad pitt i said he's 40. yeah um
johnny depp i don't you know someone said a journalist asked me um i said what do you think
the main difference will be between the english and the american version and i said better teeth
well perhaps
and um and are you surprised at the the great reaction to the show in this country
uh yeah well i i i hasn't sunk in i don't really know i've got a few sort of reports here and there
but um you know it's what's what people have sent me and stuff but uh uh i don't know i don't know
how big it is it's it's a huge success in the great britain of course isn't it uh yeah well
yeah it's happening it's only that big though isn't it if you came there you could own it
you could you could be the mayor of great britain within a week the mayor
yeah uh and how did that change your life all of a sudden you you go from a guy nobody knows
to a guy everybody knows and everybody um yeah well it was strange people because i came from
nowhere because i've done a normal job so i suppose the first the strangest things were
the journalists the first time around asking me sort of questions and i sort of i did everything
because i was flattered and not i didn't want to sort of appear aloof and some of them were just
banal questions what kind of stuff well there was there was one i did um and it was like those fluff
pieces and they asked you it's like my london and what you like and then and it was stuff like uh
i remember one journalist said um uh if your house was on fire and you could only say three things
what would they be and this was towards the end of the evening i was just it was just so
and i went um my cat i've got a cat uh i said my salamander i've got a pets in
her mouth and i was thinking so and i went three she went yeah i said one of the twins
yeah and uh she she said okay and then and then a couple of months later i had an interview
with another journalist and she said what are your twins names and i said why does that say
well you said i said what do you think that i'd save a cat i said amanda then one of the twins
so you've got to be so careful i learned you've got you know they just take your
word for it the uh the the second season here in the united states premieres october 12th on
bbc america and and uh it is all available on dvd the first season is available on dvd
i believe now on this yeah i think that's out today so if you've not seen any of them
you can you can catch up and watch them and watch them in any order it really doesn't
make any difference they're all just great and standalone is very entertaining pieces of work
pleasure to meet you thank you very much good luck to you and i hope you come back