Ricky Gervais

[On turning down the chance to appear in Ocean’s Twelve] Why say a couple of lines opposite Brad Pitt when I could be playing lead back home?

I’m a lot taller than I look on television and younger, and for the role of David Brent I wore a fat suit under my shirt and trousers. Really I’m about 25 and about 6′ 1 tall. So that’s probably why you don’t recognize me in the street.

I have plenty of pet hates. I can’t stand people scraping their plate or slurping their soup. I can’t stand waiting in lines. I hate people talking inanely about the Lord Of The Rings. I hate people whistling. But I’m not like this because I’m famous. I’ve always been a grumpy bastard.

I remember when we were talking to one of the executives at the BBC. And he said, ‘Now hold on, this man (David Brent) is so incompetent why wouldn’t he be fired?’ and I said ‘Go and take a look around this building. Just go and knock on a few doors.’

Apparently, I don’t know if this is true but I hope it is, I’ve heard it from a few reports, when we went up to get our awards apparently Clint Eastwood turned to someone that he was with and went, (Clint impression) ‘Who the f**k are they?’

[on turning down a role in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’] I didn’t really fancy sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles for nine weeks for two minutes on screen, to be honest. I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to write and direct. I’ve been offered about ten British films. Obviously all shit. I was offered one with Johnny Depp, but again, it was a small character part, and I thought, ‘What’s the point?’ No one’s ever watched someone in seven films for one minute and said, ‘Yeah, give him his own film’…it doesn’t happen.”

When it comes down to the music, it’s just you and the microphone. It’s not you and the record execs.

I took piano lessons when I was younger and I’ve been trying to learn how to play the guitar recently. I’d realy like to learn how to play the drums. They’re alot of fun and they require a lot of focus.

We had to do this scene looking like heroes diving into the lake. they had a stand-in doing perfect dives on the first take. Then Stan, Clemence, And I tried, but none of us could dive in right, and we all looked really stupid.

I’m quite sarcastic, and I’m funny, but not kind of funny. It’s a weird funny, and some people don’t get me, and some people do.

Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war –for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I’d say we deserve ours more.

I wanted to be a secretary, I love paper clips and staplers

I have to tell you, and I don’t mean this as sour grapes or anything, but it is hard to play for fans who see you all the time, makes it much harder.

We had this bonding week at the begining and I did a lot of improvising with Rupert and he’s really, like hes incredibly funny, but just as a real person, because hes funny in the film obviously, but he can do – he’s like really versatile doing acting, and Emma as well, she can just, she just does it, shes an actress, she always has been and she’s just incredibly intelligent young person.

There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

Who on Barbie D? Who on Barbie D?

I have to work with IKEA… Yo, IKEA, let Kanye create! I want a bed that he makes! I want a chair that he makes! I want more products from Ye!

I love connecting with people, playing games, music and finding ways to help or give back to communities/organizations…Having my own talk show where I get to do all of these things is pretty much a dream job!

I’m really afraid of getting hit by cars, like terrified of it. I’m terrified of crossing streets. I’m also very accident-prone…I think people aim for me.

I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.

When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company the Spielberg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.