Stephen Merchant
Stephen Merchant
Stephen James Merchantis an English writer, director, radio presenter, comedian, and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington, as the co-writer and co-director of the popular British sitcom The Office; co-writer and co-star of Extras; and co-host of The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook, and television show forms. The Ricky Gervais Show in radio form won a bronze Sony Award...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth24 November 1974
CityHanham, England
If we put the real Ricky on screen, with all his neuroses, it'd be worse than (his character on The Office) David Brent. People would hate him.
My heroes - people like Woody Allen - were stand-up comedians. Therefore, I always felt I should give it a go.
When we did 'The Office,' no one knew who we were, so it was easy to champion us; you could own us. Once you become successful, people don't have that any more, so it becomes more polarised. Some people want to champion you, and others want to slag you off. It doesn't concern me.
When I was a teenager, I met a comedian who I admired, and he was very rude to me. That's why when people come up to me I try not to be rude. I don't want to name who he is, but it really put me off watching his stuff since.
People think all fame is the same, but being on BBC Two from time to time does not make you Warren Beatty. I honestly can't impress that upon people enough.
You hear some people saying, 'I'm alive on stage; it's where I feel most complete...' I don't understand that at all; I find that weird and depressing. I don't dislike the audience; it's just when I'm up there, they're in the darkness. There's just a sound of laughing or not. They're not 'people,' they're this big organism.
I know that this sounds grand, but I don't try to compete with other people. I like to think there's enough pie for everyone. The kind of people I'm competing with are my heroes - Woody Allen, Billy Wilder - who I know I'm going to fall short of.
There's this way pop culture has been rammed down our throats that people think that if they were just in the right place at the right time, they'd be married to Heidi Klum.
I guess as you get older you sort of see the mechanics, even with the best comedians. There's admiration for people I admire, but it's not guttural laughter. It's a wry 'Oh, well done, sir.' But I sort of miss that slightly; I miss the raw joy of comedy I used to get.
When I started to mention to people who know about such things, 'I'm doing this game, 'Portal 2', they got very excited, suddenly. More excited than anything I've ever done before, weirdly. Gamers are incredibly enthusiastic about the stuff they love.
We didn't want to have this kind of hermetically sealed world. We want to have different people coming in and interacting each week.
I was trying for years to woo people through humour, but it seems flash cars are much easier.
I like playing a bit of golf. But, if people went around beating people to death with golf clubs, I'd say, 'Ban golf. I'll take up tennis'
Maybe there's a sort of veneer of optimism about U.S. comedy, whereas perhaps in England, we don't mind ending it on a sourer note.