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Ricky Gervais is an English comedian, author, actor, director, producer, screenwriter and former pop musician. He achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras,[…]

The comedian talks about communicating with his fans.

Question: How do you approach your blog?

Gervais:    I push the envelope with the blog because I feel that it’s nothing to do with anyone else in a way.  It’s out there.  I put warnings out.  If you find this offensive, don’t read it.  I even put… You know, I sort of do it purposely.  I feel that… It’s almost like I’m acting in private and then seeing what happens.  It’s also a bit therapeutic, really.  You sit down at the end of the day and, you know, watching… watching TV and I’m posting pictures of my friends to annoy them.  Talking about Karl Pilkington and other… we’ve had it… people.  I do it for a laugh, really.  I mean… Yeah.  And it’s nice to control something as well.  I mean, I’m… I’m always attracted to things that, you know, bastion of self-censorship, you know, like stand-up, you know, the podcast, no one to answer to.  I’ve tried to rule out any interference with broadcast, you know.  I’ve had a really good time of it.  You know, the BBC and HBO, they don’t interfere, you know.  I make my thing and I hand over to them.  And this is, like, one step further.  I don’t even have to worry about, you know, any restrictions of censorship on broadcast, when you do the podcast or the blog, outside your own [morally].  I’m not a maniac, you know.  I’m not calling people to alms or… So… Yeah, I do it… I do it for the fun of it. 

Question: Do you function better without an editor?

Gervais:    Well… You know what?  Maybe I do and maybe I don’t.  But I don’t care if I don’t because that’s the fun of it.  You know, when we want to, you know, write and direct and star in “The Office” or “Extras”, it wasn’t we were saying we’re the best people for the job, we were saying where’s the fun if someone else do it.  And Christopher Guest said something that interested me.  He said, “How we know when we lose it?”  And I went, “We won’t but who cares?”  Who cares, you know.  So, yeah.


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