Ricky Gervais

There’s nothing wrong with getting 20 million viewers, but I think there’s something wrong with aiming at getting 20 million viewers, because then you have to take away all the things that will offend, and you’ll end up with something so anodyne that it just washes over you for half an hour. I imagine The Office was also one of the most hated shows on television, that some people passionately hated it. But that’s better, for me. David Bowie said that after Let’s Dance, which is his biggest album ever and obviously not his best, he was doing these stadium gigs and looked out at the audience and suddenly realized that he had Phil Collins fans instead of Iggy Pop fans. And that’s how I feel about everything I do: I want Iggy Pop fans.

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.’

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.

We’re still trying to break records on the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid. I’ve just heard Bob Geldof has put Phil Collins on a jet to Philadelphia. There’s nothing going on there, we just don’t want him around this year. No I’m joking, of course we didn’t put him on a jet. We stuck him in a catapult. To be fair, he didn’t get very far. Although it worked in rehearsals when we used it on Chris De Burgh. I could do a whole routine about injuring Phil f**king Collins.

I hate lateness. I hate people who are late. There is no excuse for turning up late for anything. I’ve never been late for anything in my life. I was actually born a week premature, because I wanted to be early for my own birth. Being late is an insult to me.

I did Jonathon Ross last year and he said ‘do people do impressions of David Brent?’ and I went ‘well, they can’t really because he’s such a normal bloke’. Then, after the show, me and Ross are walking through the car park and this bloke jumps out and goes ‘der-ner-ner-ner-ner’, does the David Brent dance and runs away. Jonathon Ross was in hysterics: ‘all that shit you came out with and then some bloke jumps out and runs away’. But on the whole it doesn’t really happen.

What makes us a bit nervous is, in this instant age, to release something that might take more than one listen. Where everything is instantly judged on YouTube or something! It’s a bit like releasing a horse and cart on a racetrack.

I’ve known Daniel since I was 22. We did a play together in London many years ago.

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

I really admire stand-up, and I think I would have loved to learn how to do it. I think it’s terrifying and thrilling. A really cool thing to do. It’s a dying art, in a way.

A song is a song, you know? First of all comes a song, second of all comes the way it’s promoted … where you place it and what happens to it and how it gets streamed and all that sort of thing is in the lap of the gods, and maybe artists in the end just take a back seat and let it roll.

I was labeled a ‘theatre type’ in high school, which made it hard to fit in and feel part of things.

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.

I’ve sort of heard that “it” girl thing, but not really. Hearing it from a few people doesn’t solidify it in my mind and I wouldn’t know how to solidify that title. It’s so elusive and what does it mean, I don’t know?

Anything that we think is incredible and beautiful and wonderful, we ascribe to something that we don’t know what it is.

With the war and everything that’s going on, unless you’re Susan Sarandon, the best route is to keep your mouth shut. For me it is, anyway!

I don’t take myself that seriously. I’ve just had a good, big life. It’s a big one.

I’ve never felt uncomfortable with my level of fame. I don’t get hassled. Maybe sometimes in a minor way, but New Yorkers are much too cool for that. The thing is, you choose to be an actress, but not to be a celebrity.

It’s nice to come home to what’s real.

I believe ‘ye’ is the most commonly used word in the Bible, and in the Bible it means ‘you’.

I’m not a flowerchild or anything like that… whatever it was.