Over at the Onion AV Club is a nice little interview with Ricky Gervais (He won the Best Actor and Best Series Comedy Gloden Globes for The Office). If you don’t know, The Office is a Spinal Tap-esque mockumentary that follows the World’s Worst Manager as he runs a branch sales office of a paper manufacturer.
“O: Really, only your character [David Brent] and Martin Freeman’s [Tim Canterbury] acknowledge the camera all that much on the show, although you do it in different ways.
RG: Yeah, he does it to say “Are you getting this? Are. You. Getting. This?” It’s almost a savior for him—when Finchy or Gareth are making complete twats of themselves without knowing it, he can look at the camera and go, “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s not just me.” Whereas I do it for two reasons: Directorially, I do it to remind people that it’s a fake documentary, but within the character, within the narrative, I do it because he’s showing off. And then I use it again to let people know that I know I’ve made a fool of myself. Because I’m always fascinated with how we make faux pas. We say silly things every day, but usually it’s to a bus driver or a friend. When the nation’s watching, it must be worse. It’s a sort-of theme of The Office. I was fascinated by this spate of docu-soaps where normal people had their Andy Warhol 15 minutes, then came out and got an agent and wondered why it didn’t last. [Laughs.] Like they thought “I’m the new Bill Cosby!” No, you’re not! You let someone film you in a bakery for a week. That’s it. Well done. It’s like Brent thinks if he just gets enough airtime, people will love him.”
Of course, The Office is being adapted for American television where I am sure it will be distilled to an unwatchable state. On that subject:
“O: Do you have any fears about the U.S. version of the show?
RG: Uh… [Laughs.] No, I don’t have any fears, because I didn’t do it. [Laughs.] From what I’ve seen, it looks really good. I didn’t make it, but they used our script for the first episode that I’ve seen, and the cast are really good.”
