Ricky Gervais

I did Jonathon Ross last year and he said ‘do people do impressions of David Brent?’ and I went ‘well, they can’t really because he’s such a normal bloke’. Then, after the show, me and Ross are walking through the car park and this bloke jumps out and goes ‘der-ner-ner-ner-ner’, does the David Brent dance and runs away. Jonathon Ross was in hysterics: ‘all that shit you came out with and then some bloke jumps out and runs away’. But on the whole it doesn’t really happen.

[on animals] When I see a toreador in a bullfight getting gored I think: ‘Good, you shouldn’t be in there’. What is the pleasure in seeing an animal speared to death? It’s the same with fox hunting. They’re just psychopaths. I think I’ll end up doing something with animals – running a sanctuary or something.

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.

[On turning down the chance to appear in Ocean’s Twelve] Why say a couple of lines opposite Brad Pitt when I could be playing lead back home?

[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.”

Apparently, I don’t know if this is true but I hope it is, I’ve heard it from a few reports, when we went up to get our awards apparently Clint Eastwood turned to someone that he was with and went, (Clint impression) ‘Who the f**k are they?’

I’m a blowfish. I’m not a shark, I’m a blowfish. So that perfect example about me hitting my head, it’s like a blowfish. I wasn’t coming out of my house going to a paparazzi’s house to attack them. I’m defending my family in front of my own house. I’m defending my name as someone’s screaming something negative at me. That’s a blowfish. People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.

I think the best analogy for where we are right now is that America is Elvis Presley – the most beautiful, talented, rebellious nation in the history of Earth. And now, you’re in your Vegas years. You’ve squeezed yourself into a white jumpsuit, you’re wheezing your way through ‘Love Me Tender’ and you might be about to pass away bloated on the toilet. But you’re still the King.

I don’t see Johnny Depp as attractive!

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age.

Nudity for fictional characters is as normal and mundane as eating breakfast. What bothers me is our culture’s obsession with nudity. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There’s the worry about seeing one’s body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on YouTube.

I don’t speak particularly well. That’s one of the consequences of being extremely ugly.

I think movies are great and I have a great time making them but they’re not what keeps you warm at night, or what’s ultimately the most important thing in anyone’s life journey.

Do your thing and don’t care if they don’t like it.

I don’t want to be stuck in the ’70s or the ’80s. I just keep moving. That’s my intention. That’s my stimulus. Otherwise, I’d be at home doing the garden.

I guess I was a floater, but not really. I don’t know. I didn’t get high school.

So when you get a chance to look at things and chill and relax, it makes you want it more, and that’s why I’m so happy to be back!

I work, and then whenever I have any other time, I’m with my daughter, and then I go to sleep. I think you basically have to abandon the dreams of having any other adult activities in your life. You have to go to sleep whenever your child goes to sleep. That’s basically how we’re doing it.

Okra is the closest thing to nylon I’ve ever eaten. It’s like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

When humor works, it works because it’s clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.

There’s nothing worse than a bunch of jaded old farts, and that’s a fact.