The Ricky Gervais Show video exclusive

23 March 2011

 

The Ricky Gervais Show. Tuesdays at 10.30pm on E4

Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington talk to Channel 4 about if they like their animated characters from the show, the state of Karl's hair, or lack of it and future career aspirations.

 

The following interview is available free for reproduction in full or in part.  Please use the credit at the end of the interview.

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Interview with Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant & Karl Pilkington

Sometimes, when you are given time to interview celebrities, you are allowed to ask two questions, before being discretely ushered away by their minders after 30 seconds so the celebrities are not too sullied by contact with ‘civilians'.  With Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant, and Karl Pilkington, we were only able to ask two questions.  Not because we were ushered away after 30 seconds, but because once they start, it's impossible to get them to stop.  Mind you, when they're this funny, why would you want to?

Here, the trio discuss their characters in The Ricky Gervais Show, haircuts, and Karl's great ambition...to work in B&Q.

 

How much do you like your characters?

Ricky Gervais (RG): I like what I look like.  I like that little round, sort of Flintstone-esque chubby little guy but I don't like the character I play because...

Karl Pilkington (KP): He didn't say that though, did you?  He said: ‘How much are we like...'

RG: I thought you said ‘How much do we like....' 

[Interviewer: I said how much do you like...]

RG: So not only have you interrupted my flow, you've made a fool of yourself...

Stephen Merchant (SM): And a fool of Channel 4.

RG: Yeah.

KP: I think mine is a better question.

RG: I think Channel 4 make a fool of themselves without Karl...

SM: Same here.

RG: We're bringing a bit of quality to Channel 4.

KP: Go on, start again.

RG: No let's not start again.  Leave that in and maybe next time you'll think first before you start again... I play this professorial bully, I know everything and Karl's an idiot.  Now, I have to work on that a little bit, whereas Karl plays the idiot without even trying, and Steve is more of a mediator.  Which is true.  So I suppose, damn, I suppose we are exactly like that.  Oh no.

SM: You are like Fred Flintstone.  You do look a bit like him.

RG: Yeah, I do.  I lost a bit of weight and they said ‘Shall we make the cartoon a bit thinner?' and I went ‘No, definitely not. Leave it, that's lovely.'

SM: You'll notice I also have quite a rugged amount of stubble, which I don't think has been incorporated.  Has it?

RG: No, not in the cartoon.  I think they should be timeless.  I think that's funny.  I think we should always exist in that bubble.

KP: Well, I'm not going to change.  There's nothing I'm going to do with my hair.

RG: No, no.

SM: When was the last time you changed your look?

KP: Me?

SM: When did you settle on this as the Karl vibe?

RG: Well we went out to dinner, me and Jane and Karl and Suzanne the other night.  He turned up and he was all clean shaven.  Apparently he shaved and his girlfriend said ‘I don't like it, you look a bit eggish.'

[Steven Merchant laughs]

KP: There's nothing, I've got nothing.

SM: What do you mean you've got nothing?

KP: It could be the cartoon.  There's nothing to it.

SM: If you don't have the beard there's no sense of...

RG: He's got less features than Morph.  Really, he's just...'

SM: Yeah I agree with that.

RG: You can do Karl with just a little like that [gestures] two dots and the eyebrows down and it's done and it's just... you know... that's all you need isn't it.  I mean he's not a very expressive person.  He doesn't move his face a lot when he talks.  He doesn't move anything... I mean, his bottom lip moves a little bit.

KP: But when I had hair, I didn't do anything with it. You sort of styled yours a bit. You do a bit with yours.

RG: No.  I haven't changed mine for 15 years.  I wash mine and comb it back and that's what happens.

SM: What did your hair used to be like?  Was it sort of long?

RG: Well, you know.  He used to have the hair of a Chinaman, that's what he said.

KP: The barber said, when he was cutting my hair, I said ‘What can you do?' He said ‘There's nothing.  You've got the hair of a Chinaman.'

RG: [laughing] There is no way a barber told you that...

SM: I mean I've not heard the word ‘Chinaman' before.

RG: Yes, that's a nice antiquated phrase that I like.

KP: Honestly, on my mum's life, that's what he said, ‘You can do nothing with this hair, you might as well be bald' and in a way, that's what's happened now. And I don't miss it and also I think ‘the good old days when I had hair'.  It just grew.  It was like playdough.  It just came out and did whatever it did, and then I'd cut it and it'd do the same.  I tried gel, I wanted to have it like Suggs out of Madness.

RG: Well you have now.  He's just got a skinhead, ain't he?

KP: No, he's sort of...

SM: What was Suggs' hair-do?

KP: It was just good at the time, and I tried Adam Ant, tried to have a little ponytail at the front.

 

Who would you have played in The Office? [to Karl Pilkington]

KP: Well, me mam thought I was in it.  There was a bloke with a bald head messing with a computer in one of the shots and she said ‘Wow, I saw you in The Office'.  I said 'What do you mean?' She said: ‘Yeah, we saw you, in that scene.'  I said ‘It's not me' and me dad got on and went ‘Yeah, it's not you, just a bloke with a bald head.'

RG: What would you have done?  Well he's a bit like Big Keith in many ways, sometimes when he's very sort of laconic.

SM: I think you'd be the sort of bloke who would come in and fill up a vending machine or... maybe fix a photocopier.  I mean you wouldn't be on the shop floor, as it were, would you?

RG: You might be down in the warehouse.

SM: Could be in the warehouse.

RG: I reckon you'd be down in the warehouse and they'd be making him dance, do robotics.

SM: A forklift driver, I could imagine.

RG: But, I mean, you'd like that in real life.  You know what his ambition is?  With all this; the downloads, we've done about 300 million downloads now of the audio books and podcasts, a second series, third on it's way - Karl's looking forward to working in B&Q in a couple of years, he said that.

KP: No...

RG: Homebase?

KP: No, it was B&Q but you exaggerate.  You make it like that's my wish.  I said I'd be quite happy doing that.  I spend a lot of time there anyway.  I know the way out.  When I see an old person struggling I say ‘what you after love?' and they'll go ‘raw plugs,' 'Aisle three'.  I'm happy with that, if that's what I have to do to pay the rent...

RG: [interrupts] Do they do wall brackets?

KP: They do it all. 

RG: Do they?

KP: What sort of wall bracket?

RG: Just a sort of black, about four inches by four inches, black metal. 

KP: At an angle?

RG: At a right angle, just a shelf unit really.

KP: Yeah they do them.

RG: Where is that? What aisle is that?

KP: That's near the shelving

SM: OK. Where's the shelving?

KP: Just up the back, next to the doors.

RG: Alright, cheers mate.

KP: I'll take you if you want?

RG: Are you Karl Pilkington off that Idiot Abroad show?

KP: Yeah, I did that ages ago.

RG: Right, you didn't you fancy staying with ....

KP: I moved on.

RG: ... because you used to be mates with Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant...

KP: Yeah, but he was a pain in the arse so I knocked that on the head and got a job here - quite happy.

RG: Really?

KP: Yeah, I get bonus loyalty points and stuff.

RG: Oh right.

KP: Oh right?

RG: You sound like a bit of a mug?

KP: No.

RG: No really, because I'd love to be friends with them...

KP: No, because everyone thinks ‘You must have been on a fortune with them' but not really no, I'm better off here at B&Q, so, quite happy.  Anything else you want to hear?

RG: No, I'm just saying that they look like fun...

KP: No they're not.  They're a pain in the arse.

RG: Really?  But who's the most fun though?

KP: Well...you probably think it's the one that looks like Fonze

[Ricky Gervais laughing]

[Ricky discovers the interview is going on Channel4's new press website.]

RG: Good. Well that's Channel 4's new website.  They've launched their new website.  We're part of that; I know what it means re-launching a website.

SM: Have they changed the website?

RG: Yeah, it's a re-launch.

SM: Oh, because I was sick of the old one.

RG: Yeah.  Oh let's re-launch it.  What does that mean?  ‘We've re-launched it', ‘Have you?', ‘Yeah'.  Hello, I'm re-launching me.  Hello, I'm Ricky Gervais, I'm re-launching me.  Hello, I'm Ricky Gervais again, I just re-launched me.  It's very similar to the other one.

KP: Is it re-launched?

RG: Yeah