The GQ Comedy Q&A: Ricky Gervais
Just for creating The Office, his comedy-god status can never be revoked—and his career has only mushroomed since. But the bigger Ricky Gervais gets, the harder it’s becoming to tell if he’s still sending up rich, self-important celebrities or turning into one. (In his forthcoming Netflix comedy, he plays an uplifting simpleton. Yikes.) Gervais, for his part, says not to worry. He’s still the same run-of-the-mill comic genius he’s always been:
GQ: Last night you tweeted “Hope you enjoy my stand-up. If you don’t please let me know because I don’t give a fuck.”
Ricky Gervais: Yeah. We’d been out to dinner, and I’d just got back. It was because I was getting loads of tweets that Science was on TV, and everybody was tweeting me lovely things, so instead of going, “Oh, thank you so much, I really appreciate it,” I thought it was more in character. My stand-up persona of not giving a fuck. I was going along with the persona of the comedian that says the unsayable. Which isn’t true. Comedians who say the unsayable don’t usually get TV specials. I’m very considered. I can justify every joke I’ve ever made, really.
GQ: You once went on a British chat show and when the host noted that you were looking newly fit and trim and asked how come, you replied, “AIDS.”
Ricky Gervais: The joke there is that it was small talk. If that was the answer, I wouldn’t have said it. But what’s wrong with it? How would people be offended?
GQ: Well, to joke about a disease that is killing loads of people…
Ricky Gervais: I do that all the time! I do it all the time. If you can’t joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what’s the point of jokes? What’s the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things. That’s all it’s for. That’s why you should laugh at funerals. Of course it’s the wrong thing to say. That’s why it’s funny.
(via gq)
