-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy Award-winning
comedian and actor you know from shows such as
"The Office," "Extras," and "After Life."
His latest comedy special, "Supernature,"
begins streaming on Netflix May 24th.
Let's take a look.
-People quiz me on Twitter when they find out I'm an atheist.
They go, "Well, you don't believe in God at all?"
I go, "No." "Do you pray?"
I go, "No."
They go, "Why don't you pray just in case there's a God?"
And I say, "Why don't you put garlic over your door
just in case there's a Dracula," right?
I've got no problem with praying, you know?
I know loads of nice Christians and Muslims and Jews.
And if one of my family is very ill, they always say,
"Oh, I'll pray for them."
And I always say, "Oh, thanks very much,"
'cause it's a nice gesture.
If they said, "Oh, we also canceled the chemotherapy,"
I go, "Don't do that.
Don't do that."
Try -- Fill your boots, son, but let's --
Let's do the praying and the chemotherapy, shall we?
'Cause that's the same result as just the chemotherapy.
So let's definitely keep that one, shall we?
-Please welcome back to the show our good friend Ricky Gervais.
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
Welcome back, Ricky. -Oh!
-It's always lovely to have you here in person,
though you did seem to enjoy --
We spoke a few times via Zoom,
and I always thought it was such a coincidence that
you found your way right in front of all your awards.
-They're not all of them.
[ Laughter ]
Well, I didn't set them up.
I just -- that was my -- -Oh, I don't know.
These Emmys look very set up.
I mean, they're very complimentary.
-That's not even all the BAFTAs. There's three more there.
-So seven BAFTAs. Did you ever win a Golden Globe?
I mean, obviously, you hosted it to great regard.
-I won two.
They're over this side of the room.
-So you can see them.
When you Zoom with me, you can see the Globes.
So, we talked a little backstage about how, you know,
the pandemic, in a way, allowed us to be
a little lazier with ourselves.
Did you take to the laziness?
-Yeah, it suited me just being at home,
no one coming to the house.
I didn't even have to lie to get out of stuff.
-Yeah. -Do you know what I mean?
Like Christenings and funerals and weddings.
They were all canceled. -Yeah.
-So it was like -- I was like,
"Oh, and I was looking forward to that," you know.
But it has ruined me. Now I don't want to do anything.
-Yeah.
-I don't want do anything ever again.
-But that's why I'm so impressed that you not only have
this special, you're out on the road again.
But "Supernature" -- why did you name it this?
-The title comes from two reasons, really.
One, I sort of debunk the supernatural.
I don't believe in anything supernatural.
So I go through all that.
And, also, I say that nature is super enough, you know?
I mean, we don't need --
I don't need unicorns and fairies and that.
And I say, we've got the octopus, you know,
things like that,
and the duckbill platypus is a monotreme, right?
When people first discovered the duckbill platypus,
they thought it was a hoax, right?
They did. And that's true. And it produces eggs and milk.
It could make its own custard. -Yeah.
-It doesn't, but it could.
-It could.
-So, I go into why love nature and why I hate people.
That's the -- that's the main theme. Yeah.
-You've always been not just an atheist,
but sort of proudly an atheist.
That clip is a wonderful example of that.
And as the clip sort of details, people continue to
come at you for this and think that
you're on the wrong side of this position.
-Well, I mean, Twitter is --
I mean, yeah, there's a billion people on Twitter.
And, you know, it's like looking at every toilet wall
in the world at once, isn't it?
You mustn't take it serious.
So with all those people on there,
you know someone's gonna say something stupid.
I mean, I look for them.
I mean, I like --
That's the good thing about Twitter, I guess.
Like 20 years ago, an observational comic
would actually have to go to, like,
homes and prisons to meet the people
that talk to you on Twitter.
So I can do it from the safety of my Hampstead mansion.
I can speak to the worst people
in the world and formulate comedy.
-So, yeah -- So your observational comedy
comes from a place of great comfort for you.
You've managed to observe through your phone.
-Exactly. Yeah, exactly. -Yeah.
-I can talk to the maddest people on the Earth.
-You talk about health.
We were talking backstage.
For all intents and purposes, you feel like people our age
are living on borrowed time.
-I think we're not meant to live this long.
-Yeah. -I'm 60. It's not natural.
When we were hunter-gatherers, we'd make it to about --
I don't know -- 25, if we were lucky.
Then we'd get a scratch -- dead. You know what I mean?
But now we're just kept alive.
They replace everything.
You know, they can't do the head transplant yet,
but that, you know --
-Would you -- -I would, yeah.
Because you are -- I only care about that.
I don't really care about this rubbish.
-Okay.
-This just gets me around to do stuff.
So one day, someone will have their, like, head crushed,
but their body would be alright.
I'll have my body crushed or it will just fall apart.
They'd keep me alive in a jar or something.
And then I'd pay a lot of money. -Yeah.
-Right? I've got a bit of cash now.
I'll go, "I'll have that body,"
and then I'd put my head on the new body.
Statistically, I will get a bigger penis.
[ Laughter ]
So...
It won't be mine. -Yeah.
How long do you think -- Be honest.
How long it would take -- -Sorry, sorry.
[ Laughter ]
-Let me tell you, that's wishful thinking.
I don't know who you think's getting crushed by a bus.
But how long do you think it would take
to get used to a different penis?
-I wouldn't be comfortable. -Yeah.
-Although, it wouldn't be my hand either.
-That's a good point.
That would be the trickier part.
-So, I'd just close my eyes.
I'd just get all the feelings, right?
[ Laughter ]
-So, I think we've worked through that.
I think if that -- Hopefully, if that's the last --
If that's the last hurdle for science, I hope they watch this.
-Exactly, yeah.
-You go out of your way to explain irony in your special.
I mean, I feel like the British are very proud about
the fact that they, I feel like, have the best sense of irony.
Did you feel the need to explain irony for
Americans specifically or just comedy audiences?
-No, no, no, no. And I sort of do it as a joke.
That is the joke that I'm explaining,
and I still get it wrong.
So I explain -- I say -- I come out and I say
something awful and then I say, "That was irony.
There's gonna be a bit of that throughout the show.
See if you can spot it."
That's when I say something
I don't really mean for comic effect,
and you, as an audience, you laugh at the "wrong thing,"
'cause you don't know what the right thing is.
So I sort of do it as a joke to challenge them,
and then I carry on saying terrible things
and hopefully they get it.
-And it does seem fun, because in a weird way, like --
Not a weird way, very on purpose.
But you then involve them in what the game is gonna be.
-And I challenge them.
-Yeah, and you keep catching them off guard with it.
-Exactly. And I've challenged them to be offended
or I told them it's a joke.
And I think that's the big thing now that people are, you know --
It's always been the same.
People have always been offended by comedians or things they say,
but we didn't used to hear about it.
You know, we didn't used to have Twitter.
To write a complaint 20 years ago, you'd go,
"Dear BBC, I'm -- Oh, I can't be bothered," you know?
But now someone tweets something,
and the papers pick that up and go, "People are furious.
ZX143 said this."
And it becomes a thing, and it isn't.
You should ignore it. You should just ignore it.
-I think that that is very good advice,
because I do think -- Especially when there's
craft to the joke -- Like, for example,
look at -- Because you do in the beginning of the special.
You set up like, "Here's the game," to some degree,
and each time, there's never any laziness
to the joke, because the joke is always --
There's a construction to it.
-And I explain that, you know, a joke isn't
a window to the comedian's true soul, you know?
It's a joke. I'll pretend to take a view.
I'll pretend to be right wing.
I'll pretend to be left wing. I'll pretend to be clever.
I'll pretend to be stupid.
Whatever makes the joke -- You know, it's all about the joke.
And I think people often get offended
when they mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target.
And if you look at it, you know, often, the target's me.
It's my stupidity or me getting something wrong or --
And I think that that's where it comes from,
because -- And I deal in taboo subjects on purpose,
because I want to take the audience
to a place it hasn't been before.
But I also think they're good to crunch.
They're good -- There is a tension,
and it's always okay in the end.
And I think that's what --
They're only taboo because people want them to be taboo.
People say, "Oh, that's controversial"
'cause they want you to shut up.
That's why they say -- You know, they want you to shut up.
So don't shut up.
-Your next special is called "Armageddon."
-Yes.
-And, now, that seems very in-line with the way you think.
-Yeah. Yeah.
-What are you setting out to do here?
-Again, it's me pondering how the humanity will be wiped out.
And I can't wait.
-Yeah.
-Do you think you'll be here to see it?
-I'll see some of it.
I'll see the beginning of it. -Yeah.
-You know, but I think -- You know, I think young people
now will have a very different middle age to me.
And it's my fault, my generation,
and the generation of all the Boomers
with the fossil fuels and the global warming.
So some of these 29 -- 40 years' time,
they will be in their apartments with masks on, crying,
like they do now over jokes.
-Now, I will say this.
I'm very happy to hear, because we were
talking about health, and you are --
Because you're not giving up.
You're out. You're walking.
You're very -- You try to be ambulatory
a good amount of the time.
-This is how you talk about someone in a chair in a home.
-Give a round -- Look, Ricky went for a walk.
-Yeah. [ Laughs ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Listen, I don't care.
I'll -- As I say, as long as I can sort of
still talk and drink, I don't care if I end up in a bucket.
-Yeah.
-I'm just being pushed around in a bucket of
my own urine and feces by a nurse,
with a drip and that --
-What if they say, "We have bad news.
We don't have a body for you.
We have a lovely bucket."
-That'd be fine. -Just your head in a bucket.
-And then, when it gets too much, I'll just take the pill.
Hopefully, that's what I'm looking forward to.
-I'll just go into CVS and go, "Give me the pill,"
and they go, "Are you sure?"
I'll go, "Of course I'm sure. [Bleep] look at me."
-They go, "Here.
Here's one and here's one for free."
Hey, thanks for being here. Congrats again on the special.
-Cheers. Thank you. -Ricky Gervais.
"Supernature" begins streaming on Netflix May 24th.