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00:08He'll probably be here in a sec, just er, obviously quite busy, you know, cos he's, erm...
00:17Hey, hi, Bradley, alright mate, how's it going?
00:20Marcus, you, Dougie, you're a referee mate, what are you doing?
00:24Alright mate, we're all here, oh god, have you been waiting long?
00:28Can I just...
00:29About 45 minutes?
00:29No, I've still got it, it's got me in, loads of shit.
00:32Oh, shall we start?
00:34Yeah.
00:35Oh, from the beginning?
00:37Yep.
00:38Oh, 1981, oh, Adam and the Ants, who can forget that?
00:41No, it's not, er, it's not I Love 1981.
00:43No?
00:44No, it's er, we're talking about The Office.
00:46Brilliant, that's excellent, I wish it was I Love 1970, Space Office, Swizzlers, what's
00:51all that about?
00:52Yeah, we're talking about The Office.
01:19So, before we start, why is it called How I Made The Office, just by Ricky Gervais?
01:22Why is it how...
01:24It is, it is How I Made The Office.
01:24Yeah, but why isn't it How We Made The Office by Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant?
01:28Too long?
01:29Just your name shorter?
01:31Thanks.
01:35The thing about Ricky is that he's, er, the most irritating man I've ever met.
01:40I can't deny that he's got a capacity to be irritating.
01:44Why is he irritating?
01:46So many reasons.
01:47You know, from things like going, er, er, like that, for literally no apparent reason.
01:54He's like a child who's drunk too much orange squash with tartrazine in and has now gone
01:59a bit wild, and you need to calm him down.
02:01Err!
02:02He does willfully try to destroy a scene.
02:05He's going to keep doing something until he gets a reaction.
02:07He loves it, don't you?
02:08Like, it's, it's a joy.
02:10Yeah, he loves it, he's like, er, er, er, er, he loves all that, don't you?
02:14Exactly.
02:14I agree.
02:15Don't do it now.
02:16Seriously, don't do it now.
02:17Cos I'll go mental.
02:19And he's touchy.
02:20It's like 22, take one.
02:22I remember I had to have a single shot on me, just looking really a bit put out, maybe,
02:31and stern or whatever, and Ricky was just...
02:38I'm gonna be sick.
02:39Do you mind getting hit with that Ben, seriously?
02:42That smells like a pocket of a leg.
02:43Don't give me that fucking thing.
02:45That smells like a pocket of a leg.
02:46Put it over there as well.
02:48And then, um, that should, er, keep it going now until we, you know.
02:52Do they stop belching?
02:53My friend Robin says I've got two moods.
02:57One is, er, er, er, oh, er, er, er, er.
03:01And the other is, I can't believe it, I'm gonna have someone fired, what do you mean?
03:04Yeah.
03:05It's just, it's totally hypocrite.
03:06It's like, you know, anyone else makes a single bit of noise, boom guy drops the booming shot,
03:10I can't believe it.
03:11That's not true.
03:12But him, him kinda clicking, dancing, rah, making noises, that's fine.
03:15There was one bit where the people who, cause it was like a real office, an empty real office,
03:20there was a real office next door with people working, and they just came to complain about the noise.
03:23That is true.
03:24And it was like, it was supposed to be a set that was desperately quiet,
03:26with just a little scene being played out.
03:28Yeah.
03:28And he's there, singing, screaming, shouting.
03:32And that's, it's cause like, he's the star, he's allowed to do that, cause it's like, oh, I'm gonna be
03:35stressed if I don't do it.
03:36And that was terrible.
03:37I fired the location manager and I said, why put us next to a grumpy office?
04:08I think so.
04:12I think it does.
04:14But the thing about TV is that they literally, time is money.
04:17And so that, you know, you've gotta get everything right first time, you've gotta be on the spot because, you
04:21know, the clock's ticking.
04:22That's why I'm, go on, what are you gonna say?
04:24That's why I imagine, you deliberately try to jeopardise every single take we do.
04:30I wasn't gonna say that.
04:32He'll do things like just add lines or stupid names to try and surprise the other actors.
04:36Action!
04:37Yeah, I can see a pure silk for £9.99, so.
04:40Action!
04:42£9.99 pure silk, so.
04:44I have to snap it up.
04:45Okay.
04:45Action!
04:47And, er, Wally Burton, two for ten quid.
04:49Oh, yes please.
04:51Action!
04:51And, er, Nobby Burton came round, two for a ten.
04:54I went, yes please.
04:54I've got four.
04:55Action!
04:56And, er, you know, deaf Nobby Burton who comes round with a case, two for...
05:01Why are you making it harder for yourself?
05:03You're having a good time.
05:03Okay.
05:04Okay, I'm sorry.
05:05Okay, I'll just say, I'll just say, Nobby Burton who comes round with a case.
05:09Two for ten, I've got four.
05:10You'll never do it.
05:11You'll never do it.
05:12A lot of the stuff that ends up in the office, um, comes from me mucking around and annoying people.
05:20So that's what I say in my defence.
05:23Yeah.
05:23It's my art.
05:25But to be fair, I remember when we were making the pilot, um, we did a whole sequence where
05:30we did all the talking heads that Ricky does and then we just left the camera rolling.
05:33And I would sort of interview him as though I were a real interviewer and he would just
05:36kind of talk as though we were Brent.
05:38And I think a couple of ideas and things come out of that.
05:40But most of the time he would say something and I'd utterly ruin it just by cracking up.
05:42One of the, I suppose, occupational hazards of being a laugh is that they think they can
05:50have a laugh, and they can, but not at the expense of me and the company as a whole without
06:03humour involvement.
06:05In that sense, I mean, they can't...
06:11I'm sorry.
06:14Without the humour involvement.
06:17By that I mean, I don't mind a laugh during work or instead of work.
06:25What I don't enjoy is what I call the anti-laugh, where it's at...
06:33I'm sorry.
06:35Can I just leave and you just carry on talking?
06:37That won't help.
06:40It's what is called by me the anti-laugh.
06:45And that is...
06:47Anything goes.
06:49Thanks very much.
06:50Have a laugh.
06:50Find the funny side of life in everything.
06:53Okay?
06:54Have a laugh at yourself, please.
06:57Have a laugh at me, with my blessing, because I will with you.
07:01But don't make the mistake of the laughter of hate.
07:06Oh, God!
07:08Don't fuck this.
07:13I first met Stephen.
07:15I was working at XFM, which is a local London radio station, and I was the head of speech.
07:23Well done.
07:24If you've heard him speak, that's ludicrous.
07:25I know.
07:25And the head of speech was like, he had to be involved with all the speech output, the
07:29news, the competitions.
07:30Do you know what I mean?
07:30He had to have a perfect grasp of communication.
07:33So, I'd blagged the interview and got the job.
07:36Well paid, wasn't it?
07:37Very good.
07:38Good.
07:38But then, when it launched, I had to do stuff, which was...
07:42That was the problem, wasn't it?
07:43...annoying, and I knew nothing about it.
07:45So, I went to him and said, look, the workload is mental.
07:49I need an assistant.
07:50And I went, sure, this guy knows what he's doing.
07:52And I met Steve, and I basically said, listen, I don't know what I'm doing here.
07:58I've got to do loads of stuff, filing and stuff.
08:00If you do all that, I'll let you get away with murder, which left me free to do more important
08:07stuff.
08:08Like rolling around on your chair in the office?
08:10That was one of them.
08:11Yeah.
08:12Boating on Regent's Park.
08:14Golfing.
08:14Yeah.
08:15But then I joined the BBC, and I was sort of training there, and I had to do a training
08:19day, like where they gave you a camera crew, and you had to make a sort of short film.
08:23And most people were doing documentaries and things, but Ricky had this kind of character
08:27that he used to sort of muck around and improvise in the office when we worked with him.
08:31It was just a thing called Seedy Boss, which was more an observation on sort of like a
08:36lecherous boss who was sort of smarmy, and I mean, it was David Brent.
08:42I don't give crappy jobs.
08:44If I give a good job to a good guy, and then after a period of time he comes to
08:49me and says,
08:50thank you for that job, David.
08:51I've done that.
08:52I want to move on.
08:53I want to better myself.
08:54Then I can make that dream come true to, AKA, for you.
09:01We shot it where the office that Ricky used to work at in the University of London, and
09:04just used some actor mates of mine.
09:06Air conditioning.
09:08Computerised.
09:09Totally.
09:10So I've got the whole thing permanently sealed, isn't it?
09:13Star text, I think.
09:14But I mean, it knows what temperature it is, what time of day it is, whether you're working
09:18or not.
09:18No, we couldn't do it.
09:19It was illegal.
09:20The reason we shot it like a documentary was time, really, wasn't it?
09:25Just because it was quicker.
09:25It was just a quicker way.
09:26Any other camera crew for a day, so that was the quickest way to shoot everything.
09:29And then if time's against you and you just point the camera at the character and let
09:32them talk, you don't have to change the camera angle or anything.
09:35It's really simple, but you can get a sense of the character.
09:37And I really love the talking heads in the show because, because we shot like a documentary,
09:42we couldn't do things people wouldn't do in front of the camera.
09:45They can't shut the door and, you know, take a line of coke or they can't blur out things
09:49they're thinking because it just isn't true.
09:51But ironically, when they're by themselves and they're just being filmed, they're a little
09:57bit more honest.
09:58People do let their guard down because it's flattering.
10:01When a camera's pointing at a normal person, they think, this is my chance, this is my
10:06platform.
10:06I can tell the world all my great philosophies on life.
10:10And, of course, they open their mouth and they blow it and they can't take it back.
10:14Like now.
10:16Exactly.
10:18People, they could come to me, they could go, David, sorry to bother you.
10:24You've been in the business 15 years.
10:26Can you give me a couple of words of advice?
10:30But they don't.
10:32It's the tragedy.
10:34There was some points in it that were almost toward the surreal that we decided
10:39that we wouldn't have because we really just wanted a normal person.
10:43And there's just little bits and pieces that wouldn't sit well.
10:48I think there's a bit where you put some lipstick on or something.
10:50That's very nice and boring.
10:51It's very nice and boring, didn't it?
10:51That's right.
10:52Thank you, sir.
10:53This is a physical question.
10:55You should have room to do it.
10:57So there is aBaby horses that can roll out.
11:00Is this search at the the position?
11:01What is it?
11:03What's it?
11:04It's going to have to do in service.
11:06With all?
11:07So you're...
11:08informational people.
11:10You see?
11:11And the people in this country will be następ.
11:14Now, what's his new catch date on?
11:34That was, I think, the first time Ricky had done any acting kind of properly, and it
11:41was, you know, once that got made and that little demo tape existed, it got passed around
11:45and that's how he got onto the 11 o'clock show and things like that.
11:48And yeah, he was an absolute nightmare.
11:50And we only had, the clock was ticking, and he was like, well, that'll be fine, that take
11:54will be fine, let's go down the pub now.
11:56I've got a thing which I filmed with us just rehearsing, just an empty pint glass.
12:00You can just see, he's just thinking, bar will be closed soon.
12:02Yeah, I'm acting faster because I've got an...
12:04Yeah, absolute nightmare to work with.
12:05And now you're marginally better.
12:07Isn't that weird?
12:08Strange.
12:09It's good.
12:09You've learnt so much.
12:10Yeah.
12:11People say, oh, well, you know, we'll fame changer.
12:13You were always obnoxious.
12:15Yeah.
12:17Hour and a half.
12:19We went to quarter two.
12:21After the little pre-pilot that we shot ourselves, our little demo pilot, the BBC commissioned
12:27a script and then a real pilot, if you like.
12:31The script seemed quite good.
12:34And I went along and originally read for Gareth.
12:37And then I think I was sort of on my way out the door, pretty much, actually.
12:42And then I read for Tim.
12:43I was imagining him a lot more like Norm from Cheers.
12:46I think he was going to be quite fat, wasn't he?
12:48Yeah.
12:48And that kind of wisecracking in that way.
12:50I had three callbacks, I think, for the part.
12:54But, I mean, they don't let you know that it's a close thing and you might not get it.
13:00Some of the people we ended up with were not as we'd imagined them originally.
13:04I mean, I remember when Mackenzie came in as Gareth, I mean, it took some persuasion.
13:09I wasn't convinced at all.
13:10I didn't realise Stephen didn't think I was the right man for the job.
13:13I'd imagine him as much bigger and much more kind of militaristic.
13:16Obviously the skinny weedy guy won through in the end.
13:20But I can play butch.
13:22What was exciting about Mackenzie is that because he's got this...
13:26He looked very fragile and vulnerable, not like we first imagined.
13:30We found that we could give him more and more ridiculous and horrendous lines
13:36and you still didn't mind because of his, you know, little bird type face.
13:41I don't mean like a woman.
13:43No.
13:43Like a little baby bird.
13:45Like a little fledgling pigeon who just hatched too early.
13:48And there's a sort of sweetness and vulnerability about Mackenzie.
13:52Vulnerability?
13:53Ah, yes. Language is your tool.
13:55Ah. We can cut that out.
13:57We can put a subtitle up.
13:58Vulnerability about Mackenzie.
14:00And that was nice.
14:03I don't give shitty jobs.
14:05When a good man comes to me and says,
14:09Thank you, David, for the opportunity and the continued...
14:13The official BBC pilot that we made is pretty much the same in terms of its plot
14:17as episode one of the real series.
14:19But there was some strands we cut out.
14:20There was a whole sequence where Dawn tells Tim a joke,
14:23which is that one of...
14:24Did you see that film last night, Gaylord Say No?
14:27No.
14:28That means you're a Gaylord.
14:30You see? It's a classic school playground joke.
14:34Oh, yeah.
14:35You just got it?
14:35Yeah.
14:36And so she tells him that and then they sort of play that joke on the cleaning lady.
14:41Say it back to me.
14:43Did you see a film, Gayz?
14:45No.
14:46Did you see that film last night, Gaylord Say No?
14:50You get it?
14:52Yeah.
14:53Let's go.
14:54Gareth, did you see a film last night, Gaylord's?
14:57What?
14:58She was wondering if you saw that film last night, Gaylord's Say No?
15:02No.
15:03That means you're a Gaylord.
15:05I'm not a Gaylord. What's a Gaylord?
15:11Oh, hello.
15:12Hello.
15:15Hiya.
15:19Hello.
15:20Hiya.
15:35Hiya.
15:36Oh, oil.
15:38Somebody got their fingers burnt.
15:40David.
15:41Hi.
15:41Mr. Keywood.
15:43I need to know if there's anything that you've heard, any rumours that you've heard from the head office.
15:48Anything that...
15:48You've got the stuff on your face.
15:50Oh, that's probably...
15:52I'm just making it worse.
15:54Have you got a tissue?
15:55Sorry.
15:55Have you got a tissue?
15:56What's that?
15:57That's not mine.
15:58It's the first one I picked up.
15:59Do your mum's?
16:00Yeah, mine are twice as big as that.
16:02I've got a lace.
16:03Yeah.
16:07Don!
16:08Don't want that.
16:10They're all talking out there.
16:11Right, okay.
16:12Slow down, slow down.
16:14Who's talking?
16:15Everyone's talking because...
16:17No, I haven't.
16:18Who's that?
16:18That's it.
16:19It's my mum's.
16:20Mine are twice as big.
16:21Without the lace.
16:22I'm team leader.
16:23I should know.
16:24I'll be the first one after you to know.
16:25Yeah, right.
16:26You're the first one after me to know.
16:28Okay.
16:29What?
16:29Don't...
16:30What's that?
16:31Don't put your...
16:32I meant to spit on it, so it's mine.
16:33It's my spit on my face.
16:34I don't want that.
16:35Don't bother.
16:36No, I feel I've got a responsibility to the staff to know what's going on.
16:41Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, say what you mean.
16:42Jennifer came in here this morning.
16:44Right.
16:44Soon as she's gone, now there's all rumours going...
16:47Dawn, actually, this is a private meeting.
16:49What's all this about us losing our dreams?
16:51Joan, this is a private meeting.
16:53Joan, sit down.
16:53Yes, Mr Brent.
16:54Shut up, Dawn.
16:55I don't think that I'm being so...
16:58Frankly, I'm a little bit insulted that, you know...
17:01Why are you...
17:02Losing jobs?
17:04Can you give us two minutes?
17:05Sit down.
17:06Welcome.
17:07I thought it was supposed to be a private meeting.
17:09It's just...
17:10Just...
17:12Okay.
17:15As team leader...
17:16Oh, this is pathetic.
17:18Right, I've called this meeting...
17:20Thanks, thanks for coming.
17:21I've...
17:21Right, I've called this meeting cos...
17:23Gareth, sit down.
17:24Right.
17:26All it is...
17:28Is...
17:29The powers that be...
17:30Have deemed this.
17:31All right, so now you're telling them, are you?
17:33Well, yeah, you know what's going on?
17:35It's my meeting, I called up.
17:36To find out what's going on, so I'm gonna tell you.
17:38In front of everyone else.
17:40Well, go on.
17:42When we look back at the pilot, it just felt a bit too much like...
17:44...it had become a sitcom with a beginning, middle and an end.
17:47Yeah.
17:47If you watch a real documentary, they've pieced together that...
17:50...from stuff that happened in real life.
17:52So we wanted to get that sense like we've cobbled it together.
17:55And, um...
17:55I was genuinely panicked, wasn't I?
17:57Yeah.
17:57Because I thought it was the sitcom that we always said we wouldn't make.
18:01Um...
18:01And, uh...
18:02We just really G'd ourselves up and said, right, we're going back to basics.
18:05And we really wanted to do something...
18:07We sort of thought we were making something, uh, new.
18:10Or we hoped we were.
18:12And, um...
18:13We didn't want anything that...
18:14But I remember you described it as better than Dickens.
18:17Didn't you?
18:19Yeah.
18:22It is.
18:23And that's Shakespeare.
18:26Gaylord.
18:28What's up?
18:29Hey, what's up?
18:30I love it.
18:31Why I think some of it looked quite real is because...
18:34...obviously I'm not an actor.
18:36And I don't care about hitting my marks or where I should stand.
18:40And Steve would go, well, can you at least just, you know, speak up a little bit?
18:44Face the right direction.
18:44Not really.
18:45Not really, no, I'll just do it this way.
18:47Hmm.
18:49Uh...
18:49Well, you do think that everything you've guessed is probably the truth.
18:53Yeah.
18:53So if you guess at something, you assume that's actually how it's done.
18:56I'm not a trained actor.
18:57This is amazing to find out.
18:58He's not.
18:59No.
18:59Or a trained director.
19:01He's got nothing.
19:02No.
19:02His CV is empty.
19:03Yeah.
19:04Yeah.
19:05I haven't got a CV.
19:06No.
19:07Never needed one.
19:09Yeah.
19:10He'll be on a single of him or a talking head and he'll be more worried about the lighting.
19:15Learn the lines.
19:16You wrote them.
19:17Okay?
19:19I think the difference between our show maybe and other sitcoms which are set in office
19:23is that they always seem to be too full of incident.
19:25It's like there's people kind of doing one-liners and being zany and falling over and doing crazy
19:29stuff and getting into amusing scrapes, which is not what the experience of being in office
19:32is like at all.
19:33It is just about kind of monotony, often if it's a job you don't enjoy, which is occasionally
19:38interspersed with, you know, someone making a joke or something kind of.
19:42So we wanted lots of sort of sequences when between the jokes, if you like, of just people
19:46working.
19:47And there's something lovely and kind of empty and boring and static about just someone sat
19:50typing at the computer.
19:55I mean I know sort of drama or whatever is life with the boring bits taken out, but
19:59we left some of them in because they can be the funniest bits.
20:04And so, you know, we didn't top and tail scenes so cleanly.
20:07We like the dwelling on, you know, a bad joke or, you know, a nothingness.
20:13What's funny about a bad joke is the agony of that silence after a joke has gone flat.
20:19Have you heard...
20:20Oh, have you heard Michael Jackson's new song he's doing?
20:23No.
20:23He's teamed up with West Ham football team, apparently.
20:25Yeah.
20:26Doing On Forever Blowing Bubbles.
20:32Chimp.
20:33She's not a football.
20:35Tell her later.
20:36The frustrating thing as a writer is that you had to get around this camera being there.
20:44Because we couldn't have exposition, we couldn't have, you know, people doing things they
20:47wouldn't do in front of a camera, it was a bind.
20:49But what we could use, is the advantage of that, is that it would up the agony.
20:55And that's where that came from.
21:01That was the joke there.
21:10What you find as well, especially with the romantic plot, is it's like because the camera's
21:14filming them, they can't show their emotions for each other, they can't show their true
21:17feelings, you know, Tim and Dawn.
21:19So it means that you've got, it's almost like you've sort of some kind of Victorian seething
21:23kind of melodrama where, you know, suddenly just him touching her or her touching him, that
21:27becomes, that's as much as a kiss, it means as much, you know.
21:30Yeah.
21:30A kiss becomes a shag.
21:31So it becomes a kind of, you get that nice kind of electricity between them.
21:34Sorry.
21:34Oh, can I have this, when you're finished?
21:36Yeah, you can have it.
21:37When will you be finished?
21:38Today?
21:38I don't know.
21:40Maybe we could share it.
21:41I know that Ricky and Steve worked hard to get that right, because it could have, it
21:45could have fallen on its face, could have been embarrassing or just simply not worked.
21:49The first time I really got Tim and Dawn was after I saw the, the last episode on the reruns
21:55the other week, and yeah, for the first time I thought, yeah, I know why people have got
22:01really upset about that.
22:02And my mum rang me about two minutes later in tears.
22:04It's not just a farcical, a farcical comedy, you know, there's poignant bits in it that
22:10people do care about, that when Gareth thinks that David Brent might be leaving and he goes
22:16in and breaks down.
22:19All right, that's it then, is it?
22:21The old team on the scrap heap.
22:23Poor old Gareth.
22:24You know, I am fond of Gareth.
22:26He's a, a Wally.
22:29But, but yeah, I'm fond of him.
22:31Oh, this is stupid.
22:33Yeah, it is.
22:33This is stupid.
22:35It's so, sorry mate, what do you want?
22:38Laurel and Hardy was a constant reference point, which sort of came out in, a little bit
22:43in Tim's looks to camera.
22:45I mean, not that they're completely Olly-esque.
22:47I mean, I never went, you know.
22:49I was working last night actually on something and I actually couldn't stop doing it.
22:54I think it might ruin my career.
22:56So by the time you people are seeing this, you really won't be seeing me again.
23:00Because everything I do now, I can't stop going like that, which is a problem for any actor.
23:08The other people in the office, at the desk, which weren't particularly main characters.
23:15But rather than getting extras or supporting artists, they were all proper actors.
23:20Hello. You're through to Keith.
23:23Ewan, who plays Big Keith, was just a real treat.
23:25Because he just came in and he was just sort of sat there typing away.
23:28Then you give him a few lines and you realise he's got this whole kind of character that he's created.
23:31It's just this kind of deadpan, you know, drawing.
23:33I mean, I don't know if that's what he's really like.
23:34Well, we still don't know whether that was his best naturalistic acting.
23:39And we just found it funny and he thought, well, I'll keep quiet.
23:41Or whether he knew exactly what he was doing.
23:43I'd like to think he knew how funny it was.
23:46Because it's just, it's great.
23:48Well, he's watching this. He won't mind me saying he's an oddity, man.
23:50He's a freak.
23:51I mean, no, I'm just saying it's like if it was a hundred years ago, he wouldn't be in telly,
23:54let's say.
23:54I mean, not only because it hadn't been invented yet.
23:56One of my favourite scenes is where, in episode five, where he's just talking to Tim and they're in the
24:01smokers room.
24:01It's a really tight shot and he eats a scotch egg in the end.
24:04And it's a joyful scene and, you know, his performance with that is impeccable.
24:06What did you watch on telly last night?
24:08I didn't watch telly. I watched the video.
24:09I watched that. Peak practice.
24:11Yeah, I've never seen it.
24:12Bloody repeat.
24:14It's annoying, innit?
24:16Not for me. I hadn't seen it.
24:22Boring, isn't it? Just staying in watching peak practice with your life?
24:27Mmm, yeah.
24:27Not for me. I like it.
24:30Yeah, I just stayed in, had a big wink.
24:35Yeah, that scene was, erm, it was very hard.
24:38Because Ewan's so consistent, the arm kept coming up on exactly the same point every time to eat the scotch
24:43egg.
24:44And Martin could see that in his peripheral vision.
24:47And once you think of something's funny, that's it, you're done.
24:49After about five takes, and I looked through and, like, Ash and Annal and, you know, and Ricky and Steve
24:55were all sort of, like, going,
24:57Ah, come on, come on.
24:58And I thought, God, I really might not be able to do it. You know, I thought, I might not
25:01actually manage this.
25:04Boring, isn't it? Just staying in watching peak practice with your life?
25:08Yeah.
25:09Not for me, I like it.
25:13Yeah, I just stayed in.
25:16That was so good. That was so good.
25:19Boring, isn't it? Just staying in watching peak practice with your life?
25:24Yeah, it is.
25:25Not for me, I like it.
25:26Yeah, I just stayed in at a big wink.
25:31Not for me, I like it.
25:37Boring, isn't it? Just staying in watching peak practice with your life?
25:41Yeah.
25:43Not for me, I like it.
25:44Well, I just stayed in at a big wink.
25:51Boring, isn't it? Just sitting in watching peak practice with your life?
25:57Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:58Not for me, I like it.
26:04Ricky likes to remind me that it did take 13 takes.
26:06I would like to remind him that just kind of maybe walking down a corridor for him took about 40.
26:12You know what I mean?
26:13I knew he was going to go because he would suddenly go...
26:18And his face would just do that.
26:23What's the difference?
26:25A dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms.
26:28and legs.
26:28I'm so sorry.
26:30We've been saying that word now for an hour and suddenly it was funny.
26:36I couldn't take it.
26:38But suddenly the word midget was remarkably funny.
26:44Right, here we go.
26:54I'm sorry.
26:54I'm sorry, Catbird.
26:54A dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs.
26:57I'm sorry, Catbird.
26:58I don't know what I'm going to do.
26:59What's the difference?
27:01A dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs.
27:06God almighty.
27:07I'm so sorry.
27:09And action.
27:10Action.
27:11Oh, God.
27:13Okay.
27:13One minute.
27:17Sorry, Joe.
27:19Okay.
27:20And action.
27:21What's the difference?
27:23A dwarf is someone who has disproportionately short arms and legs.
27:27I've no idea how I'm going to do this.
27:29Wait a minute.
27:30Action.
27:31What's the difference?
27:33A dwarf is someone who has...
27:35Fucking hell!
27:37You actually feel that you're never going to be able to do it.
27:39You think, well, if I never do this, what happens?
27:43Do we run over by a year?
27:45What would happen if I could never get this seen?
27:47And it panics you.
27:49And, yeah, and TV's Ricky Gervais is...
27:51He's not autistic, but he's kind of...
27:53He is like a sort of...
27:55Well, not even like a girl lesson himself as well, but...
27:58Um...
28:00What's the PC way for giggling buffoon?
28:06Scene where...
28:09Dawn is eating her lunch.
28:11She's just eating a sandwich and she's really minding her own business
28:15and she's on her own.
28:17And David comes up.
28:18I had a bit of a scare earlier.
28:21Did you?
28:22Yeah.
28:23I thought I found a lump.
28:25I examine myself regularly.
28:26I didn't check that out.
28:27It's fine.
28:28But...
28:28Terrifying.
28:30Let's take you to cancer.
28:32Cancer with emerald testicles.
28:35What's that?
28:38Oh, God!
28:39That was a great one.
28:41We'll do it again.
28:42We'll do it again.
28:43Damn!
28:44What made you go?
28:45Do all right now.
28:46Nobody whatsoever moved.
28:48No, we know.
28:49No, it was my fault.
28:50No, no, it was no one's fault.
28:51It was mine.
28:52And he can barely get through a take without being so impressed by his writing genius that
28:58he has to ruin it with laughing, you know.
29:00He doesn't even have the sort of humility not to laugh and say, oh, what I wrote isn't
29:03actually maybe that funny.
29:05It's like, no, this is a...
29:06I am a genius.
29:07I'll ruin the take.
29:09Oh, again.
29:10Yeah.
29:23No, he's not based on any one person.
29:25He's sort of a Frankenstein of all those types, those bosses from Howe.
29:30I mean, the whole programme is basically nailing types and observations.
29:34It's very much a, you know, ticking off office observations.
29:40And David is one of those.
29:43I mean, the most important one of them, sure.
29:47But just one of the main one.
29:52People have said to us, like with David Brent being bad at his job and rubbish and he should
29:57be fired.
29:58If you just walk around the BBC for a day, you see people who, you know, people who are
30:05rubbish keep their jobs.
30:06In very important jobs as well.
30:07I mean...
30:08We're talking about executives.
30:08The only analogy I can use evolutionary-wise is marsupial survives in Australia because
30:14there were no predators.
30:16And that's very much like the BBC.
30:17Because no one from the outside is coming and going, what are you doing?
30:19Exactly.
30:20What are you doing?
30:21How long have you been here?
30:22If they took a John Harvey Jones in there, it would be decimated.
30:25They'd just be me and Steve?
30:26Yeah.
30:27It would just be the two of us doing a lot.
30:29Plate spinning.
30:32Why isn't variety still as big?
30:34I bloody love variety, Rick, and I wish it would come back.
30:36I wish it would come back.
30:37You don't see enough of the...
30:39Song and dance men.
30:40That's what we want back.
30:40Do people go into plate spinning?
30:42Or is it like handed down?
30:44Like, son, these...
30:46I've broken a couple, but these are yours.
30:48I'm going to be a doctor.
30:50And you go, all right.
30:51It's not as popular as it was, plate spinning.
30:55I don't think they are that unsympathetic.
30:59I think, um, Brent, you should sort of feel sorry for.
31:03Gareth is...
31:04He's a right wally.
31:07But, you know, he's all right, really.
31:11He's harmless.
31:11The only person that you could, um, in real life not like is probably Finch, Chris Finch.
31:18Because he's a bully.
31:19You know, and he's one of those people that when he walks in the room, he does say funny things.
31:22And you laugh.
31:23And then you go, it's my turn soon.
31:25And someone asked me, like, oh, Brent's such a bastard.
31:27But he's not.
31:28He's a...
31:29He's a tit.
31:30He's like, he's a...
31:31He's a twerp.
31:32He's a knob.
31:33He's all those things.
31:34He's a...
31:34He's a twerty tit knob.
31:35Exactly.
31:36He's a twerty tit knob.
31:37Yeah.
31:40I like bosses like that.
31:43Because you get away with murder.
31:44All you have to do is laugh at their jokes.
31:47Uh, invite them to one in five drinks.
31:50And that's it.
31:51He's your mate.
31:52And it's like teaching at school.
31:54You soon learn that, um, uh, you can go, Mr. Morris, what bike have you got?
31:59And you go, well, we've...
32:01It's a Harley-Davidson, uh...
32:02And then, yeah, you got through the lesson.
32:04That's it.
32:04He talks about his bike.
32:05And it's just getting on the good side of these people.
32:07Because they're not nasty.
32:08They're not malicious.
32:09And, uh, very often, they want a mate.
32:13I mean, I don't want to...
32:14I don't want to...
32:14I don't want to jump on you and impregnate you.
32:17Yeah.
32:17Is that, I mean, some story you've got to tell?
32:18Wow.
32:21I was always told when I, uh, uh, doing, you know, English O-Level, you know,
32:26write about, uh, what you know.
32:28And it...
32:29And it's so true.
32:30It's just...
32:31It's so much easier.
32:32Yeah, that's why you want our next project to be you, uh, as a man locked in a futuristic
32:37prison.
32:38Well, yeah.
32:38I've been, you know, it's called brain jail.
32:41And it's only your own conscience that, that, that keeps you there.
32:45Because I imagine that's what it'd be like.
32:47In, in...
32:48I'm working out as well.
32:49You know, I'm going to be a...
32:50I don't want to use the same body I used for Brent.
32:53Right.
32:54Because...
32:54Well, it's very flabby and doesn't look so good in a vest.
32:59It...
32:59I mean, he is, isn't he?
33:01He's a flabby bloke, Brent.
33:03But this one won't be.
33:04Well, not just flabby, fat.
33:06I mean, downright fat.
33:07Yeah.
33:07A bit of a bloater.
33:09Whereas, Scott Carson, a crime he didn't commit.
33:14He was probably saving some people from a burning building.
33:17But he's just probably broken up a rubbish law in the future.
33:20You can't have your own thoughts.
33:24Downloaded.
33:25Brain jail.
33:25Yeah, I think I downloaded my own feelings from my computer.
33:29Yeah.
33:30Well, I just wish you could get back your dead wife's memories
33:32and bring her back to life cryogenically.
33:34Yeah, but the evil bloke in charge of it,
33:36it wasn't even voted in.
33:37He killed people to get there.
33:38Oh, not that dictator.
33:39Yeah.
33:40He's got it on a floppy disk.
33:40The sword on.
33:41Except it's not even a floppy disk by then.
33:43It's just a floppy dot.
33:45It's like a little dot, isn't it?
33:47That floats.
33:51It's as good as written.
33:55It's as good as Dickens.
33:58Loser.
34:02There wasn't much improvised in the making of it.
34:05Most of it is there on the script for us to see.
34:09As a tribute to the writing, it's writing that sounds improvised.
34:12The script comes out of improvisation anyway.
34:15So as we're writing, we're sort of doing it.
34:18So we're very careful about the dialogue and the realism of that.
34:21So it seems more improvised than it is.
34:25But again, within that, there would be times that Ricky or Steve would come up to a couple of us
34:30or, you know, various one of us and say, we need a quick, you know, we need a scene quickly
34:34about this or something.
34:35We need one to get us, a bridge to get us from that scene into this one.
34:38One of the times we had to do flirting, improvising, I thought, because I love my hair being played with,
34:45anyone will do really.
34:47And so I thought, oh, I'll incorporate that because he can't say no, we're on camera.
34:51And so basically, he just had to play with my hair, which was really nice.
34:56Oh, bless.
34:57It's all touched your head.
34:58Can I have?
34:59Cut there.
35:00Carry on, carry on, carry on. Carry on to my hair.
35:03And I'm going to do a lot more in the next series. I might have a massage or something. I'd
35:11never thought of that. Great.
35:13Everyone knew the characters so well that it was just easy to come up with those little bits, um, bits
35:19of ad-lib.
35:20Like at the end of episode two where David's on the phone, apparently speaking to Chris Finch and firing him.
35:26And Jennifer presses the button and it's, in fact, the speaking clock.
35:29Pathetic.
35:30Is it?
35:32I checked my watch.
35:34You know, I just thought that's the Gareth thing to do.
35:36Just checked his watch just to see that it is the right time.
35:43Just filming what's funny, just filming the comedy, is all that you need to do.
35:47You don't need to get clever and tricksy and stuff.
35:48Just filming Ricky Gervais' fat, funny face is bloody hilarious.
35:53All right, four eyes.
35:54Well, don't have a go at me.
35:55Yeah, you're a goggle-eyed freak, so don't have a...
35:57That's not fair because I...
35:58Yeah.
35:59I'm not even on something before.
36:01And also, when you say fat face, this is a condition, so...
36:05What condition?
36:06Greed.
36:08Right.
36:08So, before you insult someone, find out what the...
36:10It may be medically cheese.
36:13All right.
36:14I'm suffering from cheddar.
36:15Yes, okay.
36:16Aren't I?
36:20Well, yesterday, in fact, on the tube...
36:24...somebody said to me, all right, Gareth, where's Ricky?
36:27I'm like, well, what's that about?
36:30Why do I get called Gareth and then he gets called by his real name?
36:33And I don't know where he is, but he's certainly not going to be on the tube...
36:36...because he doesn't travel on the tube any more.
36:38When I first started filming the pilot episode...
36:43...Ash, our producer, had said to me, because he knew that my dad was Jasper Carrot...
36:48...and he said to me, oh, when did you change your name to Davis?
36:52And I said, at what point did you think Davis was the made-up name?
36:56People have been asking for...
36:59...for autographs and, you know, they want me to write something funny...
37:03...so I found myself writing, I could catch a monkey.
37:06Love Mackenzie.
37:08Great.
37:10That'll be worth something.
37:13A lot of people who sort of look at these extra sort of footage in DVDs are nerds.
37:20Yeah, geeks, sure.
37:21Geeks and...
37:22Losers.
37:23Yeah.
37:23Probably watching this on a sunny day.
37:25Yeah.
37:26Curtains drawn.
37:27Yeah.
37:27Spotty fat git.
37:28So what we do for them is give them some sort of real behind-the-scenes nuggets.
37:33Interesting stuff.
37:33Not to us.
37:34No.
37:34But to them.
37:35To them interesting.
37:36Yeah.
37:37What's interesting?
37:39Your dad?
37:39Yeah.
37:40The guy that comes through the door in episode six and kind of just stares and looks at the
37:44camera and then who also appears later in the party.
37:47He's my father.
37:48My real father.
37:49His name is Ron and my mum's name is Elaine.
37:51And that's the name of Donna's parents.
37:53Daughter of my best friends, Ron and Elaine.
37:57Oh, the guy that Ricky's interviewing at the beginning of episode one is the guy he's
38:02firing at the end in episode six.
38:05Yeah.
38:06Fascinating.
38:07You know, as you picked upon it, you know, Gareth.
38:12Well, that's not his real name.
38:14His real name is Mackenzie Crook and he's just an actor.
38:18Yeah.
38:18So.
38:19And you know that at the beginning where I meet Ricky and I pretend I haven't met him
38:25before.
38:25I have.
38:26I cast him.
38:27I have a Chris.
38:28He's an actor.
38:29He's been in other stuff.
38:32Yeah.
38:33Sort of an illusion, isn't it?
38:35Yeah.
38:36And you know because you get a bit confused because the office obviously is not a real office.
38:42What's happened to it?
38:43Bankrupt.
38:45See, no one wants a paper anymore.
38:46Go on.
38:46It's just a, it's fake, isn't it?
38:48It's just a make believe.
38:49It's like a set.
38:50What do they sell?
38:51Who?
38:51Not paper.
38:52Who?
38:52All the people that work there.
38:54They don't work there.
38:54They're actors.
38:55Oh.
38:56Temping.
38:58Acting's a hard business.
39:0090% of the time they'll probably be working in offices.
39:02Can we switch it off because I need.
39:04I need a scotch egg.
39:05I need a scotch egg and he needs to lie down.
39:08Can we get, can we get Ricky Gervais' hammock?
39:11Just bring that in.
39:13I love a hammock.