Ricky Gervais

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 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.

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?’

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 grew up watching fantastic mainstream comedies like ‘Porridge’ and ‘Rising Damp’. There are some mainstream things I love.

[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.”

[reacting to George Zimmerman’s acquittal] I think it might honestly be time for the Sunshine State to officially change its motto to the Worst State.

You can never say you’re big – I don’t think you can ever take anything like that for granted.

People say, Kanye he’s so crazy, he’s this, he’s that. People call you crazy so much you start to believe it yourself.

The difference between male comedy writers and female comedy writers is that the male ones are taller and weigh more.

I don’t want to be a babe. I don’t want vanity to ever get in the way, because I think to maintain that, you have to be aware of yourself all the time, and that gets in the way of acting. My job’s not to be the beautiful person. My job is to be the best actor I can be.

I can’t tell you an answer to that (question on the meaning of life). I can just say live it, be kind, do your best, don’t hurt anybody, and don’t fake orgasms. From a man’s viewpoint, that’s pretty impossible.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

I am looking for a man I couldn’t beat in a cage fight.

People will say, ‘Oh, fashion magazines are so bad, they’re giving girls a negative message’-but we’re also the fattest country in the world, so it’s not like we’re all looking at fashion magazines and not eating.

I’m competitive with anyone who writes a good song – I don’t care if it’s a band or solo artist or whoever.

There were the Pussycat Dolls, and there’s a band called Perfect Pussy, but they’re white, so they get the pass. I can’t be Junglepussy and black, but I just push through, especially when my mother says she doesn’t have a problem with it.

A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. Ive been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right.

I was the original pop star, knocking off as many birds as you could get in one night. Pete’s got a bit of a chip, because I used to get all the girls.

[on “The Cell”] I didn’t really want to do it, from reading the script. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It was (Cell director) Tarsem (Singh) and his visuals that made me want to do it. It’s almost like you walk through a museum exhibit of an artist in a dark period of his life.

That’s when I realized that as long as you don’t broadcast your beefs, you can get away cold with murder. It’s even better if you don’t allow the beef to take place. If someone disrespects you, you can know in your heard that you’re going to get him, but you don’t have to show him there’s a beef. You can just look at it like, Okay, this nigga must not know. And then you fall back and you put it down.