Ricky Gervais

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 animals] When I see a toreador in a bullfight getting gored I think: ‘Good, you shouldn’t be in there’. What is the pleasure in seeing an animal speared to death? It’s the same with fox hunting. They’re just psychopaths. I think I’ll end up doing something with animals – running a sanctuary or something.

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.

[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.”

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.’

[on Stephen Merchant] He’s eight foot tall, has stupid glasses, awful hair, but it makes me look good, which is why he’s in the series. We look so strange on screen together as well. The height difference is ridiculous. I want people to know that he is a freak and I’m the normal one. Don’t look at this and go, ‘What? Didn’t know Ricky was a dwarf.’ I’m not. He’s the weird one.

I cried, I was so overwhelmed to meet Michael Jackson.

They made a porn movie about Sarah Palin, and the same actress, Lisa Ann, played me in the porn version of 30 Rock. Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy.

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.

Paramount sent them nine-foot-high (theater lobby) cutouts of me. They say, “You don’t have to come home, we’ve got you in every room of the house!”

Record sales don’t really mean anything. For us, the pressure is imagining some 15-year-old kid in Cincinnati who buys our album and doesn’t feel like he wasted his pocket money.

Last year in L.A. county 150 out of 151 incumbents ran unopposed. And come on. They could at least go through the motions of pretending there was another candidate. Just throw a robe on a pelican and tape a gavel to his wing. Or – I’ll tell you what – you’re in L.A. Just pretend you’re considering Blake Lively for the job. Movie studios do that all the time.

I see myself more as a character actress than a celebrity!

My mother always taught me, even my dad, just never let other people’s opinions of you shape your opinion of yourself. And I never have and I never will.

I used to be better looking than this.

Before you talk to people in music or entertainment or video games, or even gun control, you need to talk to psychiatrists.

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

I didn’t miss out on a family life because of racing. I had one because of it.

I knew I had to make a sacrifice to do what I’ve always wanted to do.

If I could be anyone, I’d choose the lead singer of Arcade Fire, Win Butler.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.