Ricky Gervais playing cowardly, disease-infested pigeon Bugsy talks about the British animation Valiant.


Q. Do you like pigeons?
Ricky Gervais: I like all animals. I saw a mad posh bloke hit one once with a stick and I wanted to take the stick and hit him.

Q. With something like this, you get the impression it's very much you as the character…
Ricky Gervais: Do you mean I'm a very, very limited actor? [Laughter] Well I am! I like to make things natural and it's difficult in films when you don't get the chance. I think a lot of people are brought up on soaps where they do their line and then it's cut together. I like to get a bit of naturalism because I just think people connect more with something they recognise as opposed to being force fed TV speak. I always try to give a bit of me or a human aspect… to a pigeon!

Q. Did you have any input as to how you looked on screen? Could you ask for a bigger beak?
Ricky Gervais: No I didn't, because initially you have no idea what it's going to look like because you do the script first but they filmed me doing it and they came up with that fat, mouthy pigeon with scruffy hair, no idea why. They've done me proud there! I think his legs are longer than mine. What can you do? It's a comedy part and I think it's funny. If I was handsome David Brent wouldn't be around would he? The fun for me is coming up with the bits and pieces adding character and the ad libs and the gags, they let me get away with murder and then kept what they could.

Q. It must be quite strange to see that coming back at you?
Ricky Gervais: Absolutely, very strange but you can laugh at it because it's not you, which is good. The office has been sold to about 100 countries and a lot of those it's the original just dubbed or something and I can't wait to see myself shouting in Japanese or Spanish, that'll be good.

Q. Was there much continuity to the speech when you recorded them?
Ricky Gervais: I did four four hour sessions, the first time I just went and read the script, did it and I was rubbish. I'd never done it before and I'm still mildly embarrassed being an actor which is a terrible restriction and so I had to really warm up. They were like: "do it louder", "do it like this", "do it more cockney" and I said look I think you should have got Bob Hoskins and I saw them all look at each other and think - he's right! But then they let me ad lib a bit more and do my own thing and I made him more of that cowardly, wise cracking wide boy like Bob Hope or Woody Allen, because he is sort of a reluctant hero and there's lots of "well I'd love to but I can't"! All that sort of fear and by the end I wanted to start again! The director must have been very patient.

Q. Why are you embarrassed about being an actor?
Ricky Gervais: Loads of reasons really, the association, most celebrities I don't want to be associated with because they're fools, you get paid too much. You get paid more than nurses and you don't really do anything so all I try and do is do my best and do a few things as well as I can because it's not a thing to be proud of, it's not like coming home from a war or saving a life, it's mucking around. Which is what I would be doing anyway, so I just try and muck around as well as I can.

Q. You've always wanted to be famous, the pop star phase then into comedy and everything else, you've always wanted to be a performer…
Ricky Gervais: Fame is the upshot of something I wanted to be really. I don't want to be famous for being famous, I want to be famous for something I've achieved that's why I want to act and direct as opposed to turn up to premieres I'm not in or go in "I'm a celebrity get me back on telly". I think you've got to keep your powder dry so as an upshot it's OK thanks but I think you ask kids what they want to be nowadays and they say "famous", not "I want to be a writer" or "I want to be a pop star" which is fine, it's that wanting to be recognised. I just think if you asked a group of the general public, pull out someone who was in Hollyoaks once and the bloke who's just found a cure for cancer and they'd be going "look it's her out of Hollyoaks" I just think fame is nothing.

If I hadn't been in the show [The Office] I wouldn't be recognised, the writer/director doesn't get recognised but I wanted to play the role because I knew I could play it well. I've never just wanted to be famous. And being recognised is the worst bit about it. I love the work, I love the creative process, the freedom, I quite like the awards and the money's good but it's in that order. Being recognised buying pants is bottom of the list.

Q. Have you got to the stage where you check where you're going?
Ricky Gervais: I've done that for a while really. Because of that feeling I don't want to be trapped, in a tube station or room full of drunks so I find I'm back before dark.

Q. When did you stop using the tube?
Ricky Gervais: When I was about 20! [laughs] I hate it!

Q. You said you admired those in the war? Do you have any relatives who were involved in the Second World War who are proud of you doing this film?
Ricky Gervais: Well, my parents were old enough to be in the war.

Q. Was your dad in the RAF?
Ricky Gervais: No, he was transport, he used to take tanks from the depot to the place they were needed.

Q. You talked about the downsides of fame, what about the upsides? The freedom it gives you to do what you want?
Ricky Gervais: Well there's the cachet of being sellable, if I wasn't famous I wouldn't be able to get some projects off. I've worked out the only upside of fame is that people, like my heroes, like what I do. That's the biggest perk when I find out that Ben Stiller's a fan or David Bowie or Matt Groening's a fan - that's the upside. As long as you keep it in context it's fine. I just think I am quite a private person and I'm not saying that some people deserve it but if you're the type of person and you do go to the opening of an envelope and you need the press then you should complain less when you don't want to be treated like that. I do like people to watch what I do and so I do these things and say it's a good film or a good series and tell them about it but I don't then hang out to be photographed.

Q. From what you've said you don't like this age of celebrity, is that one of the targets of your new show 'Extras'?
Ricky Gervais: Yeah, yeah. I play the sort of guy who says things like "Acting's in my blood" yeah, acting's in your blood because it's easier than getting a proper job. It's that sort of pretension that I like to flag up, the hypocrisy.

Q. You've said the backlash might start with this, did you feel immense pressure to come up with the goods?
Ricky Gervais: I'm surprised I didn't get the backlash for the second series of The Office, not that I think I deserved it but it's the British way. In America the more you achieve the more they like you, in England it's like "now he's getting too big for his boots". We love the underdog and when they win, they're not an underdog anymore.

Q. How difficult or easy is it for you to lay to rest the ghost of David Brent because there's so much of you in the character?
Ricky Gervais: Without giving too much away, I'm much more like Andy Millman [of 'Extras'] than I am David Brent. David Brent is actually quite a nice bloke who tries to please people, he's desperate about his self image. We shot a scene [of 'Extras'] which is just like me, complaining in a restaurant and the frustrating thing is I can't do that now because I'm famous. Before I would have kicked up a fuss, now I'm famous I can't do it. Fame has turned me into a nicer, shyer person. [laughter]

Q. Is it refreshing that you have been successful in America, with Alias and various other things?
Ricky Gervais: I still haven't watched that yet. I can't watch it because it's me trying to be cool. I watched the documentary about it and there was a bit and I had to fast forward through it because I'm being cool. I can watch me being a fat smelly pigeon or a buffoon dancing like a gibbon but I can't do me being an international terrorist.

Q. Bugsy is very much a closet hero. Is there anything you're secretly very, very good at that no-one knows about and we'd be surprised to hear about?
Ricky Gervais: No, I've given everything; I've got no hidden talents. Some would say no outward talents but no… I suppose I'm quite a good shark hunter… no, I'm not. [laughter]

Q. Being a writer and director, did you find it difficult in Valiant using someone else's lines?
Ricky Gervais: No, because I was hired as a comic actor, they did let me come up with things so it was fun. It's their thing, their vision. I don't do it very often because of that. There's so many reasons I turn down films. 50% you can reject because they're rubbish. Then another 50% because I don't think it's right for me - if I can imagine three other people doing it why would I do it. Which so many people don't care about, they just want to be in work. But I'm not an actor I don't have that pressure, I don't have to work all year because I create my own labour so it's got to tick so many boxes. Some I turn down because although it might be an amazing role I don't want to spend 6 months in a Winnebago because I'd rather be back here working. It [Valiant] ticked all the boxes; it was filmed down the road from my house, it was four days work, and they said I could ad lib. And a lot of it was eating quickly to burp. So that's it.

Q. You got to work with Ewan, which is unusual for an animation movie to work together.
Ricky Gervais: He was there the first day and he was amazing. Loud, clear - just what they wanted. I was trying to work out how to do it all and I went to the loo and he came in and I said "I'm not sure if I can do this - it's the shouting I can't do" and he said "Aye, I know what you mean - you don't want to feel like you're a **** do you?!" That broke the ice! I thought - yeah, he's right, I shouldn't worry, then I went out again and it was great! That was my meeting with Ewan, in a toilet! He was great, he was brilliant. To them it's probably second nature. Ewan was actually reading the script and I was thinking I'll make it up as I go along! But, I was watching that scene with me and John Cleese and I was thinking, we weren't even in the same building! That's another thing you can be in a little booth and concentrate, it's very different to what I do but it ticked all the boxes and I think it's very very good, it's a really nice old fashioned family film, and it looks amazing which is obviously nothing to do with me but it looks incredible. I'm in awe, it's incredible how they do it, there's nothing done by mistake, every leaf is painstakingly done. It's incredible.