Ricky Gervais

[on turning down a role in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’] I didn’t really fancy sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles for nine weeks for two minutes on screen, to be honest. I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to write and direct. I’ve been offered about ten British films. Obviously all shit. I was offered one with Johnny Depp, but again, it was a small character part, and I thought, ‘What’s the point?’ No one’s ever watched someone in seven films for one minute and said, ‘Yeah, give him his own film’…it doesn’t happen.”

I’m a lot taller than I look on television and younger, and for the role of David Brent I wore a fat suit under my shirt and trousers. Really I’m about 25 and about 6′ 1 tall. So that’s probably why you don’t recognize me in the street.

I grew up watching fantastic mainstream comedies like ‘Porridge’ and ‘Rising Damp’. There are some mainstream things I love.

I hate lateness. I hate people who are late. There is no excuse for turning up late for anything. I’ve never been late for anything in my life. I was actually born a week premature, because I wanted to be early for my own birth. Being late is an insult to me.

There’s nothing wrong with getting 20 million viewers, but I think there’s something wrong with aiming at getting 20 million viewers, because then you have to take away all the things that will offend, and you’ll end up with something so anodyne that it just washes over you for half an hour. I imagine The Office was also one of the most hated shows on television, that some people passionately hated it. But that’s better, for me. David Bowie said that after Let’s Dance, which is his biggest album ever and obviously not his best, he was doing these stadium gigs and looked out at the audience and suddenly realized that he had Phil Collins fans instead of Iggy Pop fans. And that’s how I feel about everything I do: I want Iggy Pop fans.

We’re still trying to break records on the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid. I’ve just heard Bob Geldof has put Phil Collins on a jet to Philadelphia. There’s nothing going on there, we just don’t want him around this year. No I’m joking, of course we didn’t put him on a jet. We stuck him in a catapult. To be fair, he didn’t get very far. Although it worked in rehearsals when we used it on Chris De Burgh. I could do a whole routine about injuring Phil f**king Collins.

I dig chicks that have their own careers that have nothing to do with music. Chicks in the music business try to impress you with it.I like models.

History’s gonna be harder to make than I thought.

Of course, chicks keep popping up. When you’re in a hotel, a pretty young lady makes life bearable.

[on Sarah Palin returning to Fox News] First tonight, I and the rest of America woke up this morning in the worst way imaginable.

An iPhone would be a more coherent president of the United States.

There is no one of-woman-born who does not like Red Lobster cheddar biscuits. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar and a socialist.

I was always loud and obnoxious and giggly and funny.

I always dream about other musicians. And they’re never interested in hanging out with us. It’s like being at school and the bigger boys don’t want to play with you!

As strange as movie making is, doing love scenes for the first time with someone you’ve never even said hello to does work in terms of having a fresh quality to a relationship.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

The Lion King always makes me cry, especially when Simba’s father gets trampled.

It’s good to get information and feedback from your fans on the Internet. But a lot of it is downright mean. There are three or four guys who say they’re Vince Neil and people come to the shows because these guys promise them tickets, and when there’s no tickets there, they get mad at the band. That kind of stuff bums me out.

My love for the band is still there. It hasn’t changed, maybe that’s why it’s so painful these days.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

I like work. If it’s not hard enough, I try to make it harder. I like the process of being daunted by it, tackling it, and knowing I can do it.