Ricky Gervais Quotes - Page 8

I've always dabbled. I've always nearly written a book, I've always tried painting, I've always tried to make something out of ideas, really. It was never a plan. I never thought, "Right. First I'll get famous, and then I'll do a book.

Our challenge with "The Office" and "Extras" was to get it completely scripted but to find a cast that could make it look like they were saying it for the first time.

I didn't have toys and bikes; I'd go out and pick up rocks. I was into science and nature. It was my first love. I was going to be a vet and a marine biologist. I went to university and studied biology for two weeks and I just thought: "I've been conned!"

That's what life is, it's the small struggles. You walk down the street for half an hour, you see half an hour of drama. You don't need convoluted plot lines. You don't need long-lost brothers. You don't need it's set on the future; it's set on the moon.

Everything you do is autobiographical. Yeah, I grew up in a town called Redding and I had older brothers and sisters so it's all my memories of growing up.

I've got three friends that you'd call famous, but I'm sure after 20 years, most of my friends will be famous or work in television, because that's the nature of what your work is. When I was working in an office, most of my friends worked in offices.

That's what being nervous and sort of out of your comfort zone does. It's the same in "The Office" when a black guy comes to the office and all he thinks is `I better show this guy I'm not a racist.' So what does he do? Only talks about black issues.

For every wacky postcard, there's a million people waiting to buy it, and for every $10 million of those things, there's one Rembrandt. Purposely, I think I want to aim at doing something that a lot of people won't like. I'm just worried that it looks like I've compared my work with Rembrandt. "Gervais says he's better than Rembrandt!".

Just looking at all the faces here reminds me of some of the great work that was done this year . . . by cosmetic surgeons.

The world is not entirely comic and it's not entirely dramatic. You have a laugh and then someone finds a lump and you deal with that. Because that is what life is like.

I see myself much more as a writer/director or at least an aspiring writer/director - not necessarily in film.

I never understood redemption when I was young. Even before I was an atheist, I always thought with the prodigal son, "well, why's he getting the special treatment?"

Even if it's such a lowly art as TV, you've got to get stuff off your chest, because that's what makes something different and original, your particular take on stuff.

There's nothing as perfect as the initial idea. And the only reason I write and direct is to protect the writing, because that's what's most precious.

There are so many films now where you know the story is a supporting role to the visual effects.

Life is so interesting... just every day life. I remember someone once saying: "Drama is real life with the boring bits taken out."

I think the best advice I'd say to any actor when you do comedy is play it straight.

You can just keep getting it worse until you have to pull back and let the audience breathe. But yeah, I really love digging.

If you walked around like David Bowie in 1973 in Reading, you'd get beaten up. The 1970s in a small town was more like the 1950s.. and that's the truth. The backdrop was probably Victorian.

I like my baths really deep and hot. But washing everything only takes a few minutes. So I thought it would be a waste to just flush all that water away. So there was nothing else to do but take pictures of myself trying to look as horrendous as possible. Oh my, what have I started?

Where's our Paul Newmans? Where's our Robert Redfords? We've got Jason Statham, who is great... blue collar and cool, which is fantastic. And we've got Hugh Grant, which is great. But where's this crossover, this blue collar guy who is cool? Where is our James Dean? Where is our John Travolta and Steve McQueen?

Thank you God for making me an atheist.

I was okay with singing. I always sneak a song into everything I do. Dancing, a little awkward. Little embarrassed about that. I don't move well. But I was with a frog, so it doesn't matter. I'll do anything with a frog, that's my motto. He's great with tap-dancing or flap-dancing on my head. So no one's going to be looking at me when we're doing that dance. They're going to be saying, 'There's a frog dancing'.

I had great memories of growing up in a working class estate. I remember it being sunny all the time. So we're putting that on screen. It's not people wallowing in degradation.

I think comedy has to be an intellectual pursuit. It comes down to logic and analysis. As soon as it becomes emotional, it's not comedy anymore.