Q&A With Ricky Gervais on His Comedy Empire -- New York Magazine

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The Laugh Factory

Ricky Gervais and guest star Chris Martin in Extras.

(Photo: Ray Burmiston/HBO/BBC/Everett Collection)

Unlike a lot of comedians, you enjoy talking about making comedy. You seem to take it very seriously.
I do take it seriously. Making people laugh is easy for me. I’m quite proud of that. But I’m prouder of silencing an audience for a minute because they’re thinking about something. I use comedy as a Trojan horse, to deliver other things. And I try and make stories that take characters on an emotional journey. All of my favorite comedies have done that.

Your next film, Cemetery Junction, is more of a drama. Is that harder?
Oh no, it’s a breeze. A much harder dive was The Invention of Lying, where I tried to do a traditional romantic Hollywood comedy but with a very subversive look at life and death, religion, truth. Cemetery Junction is about a group growing up in a small town. It has funny bits, but you wouldn’t say your life is a comedy—your life is a drama. I grew up in Reading, where the film is set, so it’s me trying to talk about my memories. For instance, there’s a line that my mom said to me when I was 18 and I was going to France: “What do you want to go there for? There’s parts of Reading you haven’t seen.” That sort of sums up the film.

You’ve said there are better comics in the U.S. than in Britain. Who?
Louis C.K. does the best stand-up in America. I discovered him on YouTube and immediately cast him in The Invention of Lying. He’s honest and brave, he’s audacious, but he’s fucking bald, so I win. I’ve got hair.

Don’t you have an apartment here?
After I shot Ghost Town, I fell in love with the Upper East Side, so I bought a bit of the set. Have you ever seen them let out cows in the spring from the barn and they roll in the grass like they can’t believe it? That’s like me and New York. There’s something spiritual about it, really, and I’m an atheist. It must be the architecture. No, it’s not, is it? It’s the people, the limitless sense of potential. I love England, but it’s fifty-fifty.

Woody Allen’s been working in Europe for years. You love New York. Can we broker a trade, like the Yankees: Woody for you?
I don’t think anyone could replace the man who brought modern comedy to the cinema, but New York is the greatest city in the world, so I’d happily be your second best. There, I’ve said it. New York is the greatest city in the world.