Ricky Gervais: The Principles of Comedy | Big Think

Well, of course, I mean, and it's still based on the same

principles

of what I

think

comedy

is about. You know, I

think

there's a big difference between

comedy

and a sense of humor, and I think the job of a comedian is not. just to make people laugh, that's easy, it could be a reflex. I mean, you see some comedians that's the beat they can even throw in a punchline, they would laugh and I think it's about a lot of people thinking about it and why it's funny and and I think comedy is about empathy. I think you know I can't laugh at people I don't like.

I believe you should never be above the public and there is nothing remotely fun about watching brilliant, incredibly beautiful people come out and tell you why. You're brilliant, I want to see an idiot lose his way, fall, get up and dust himself off, and you always have to see that humanity, that kind of struggle in anything, really works against changing my personality, no I don't . But of course, everything you do has personal chat programs. I'm playing a kind of character, it's not completely me. You know, I never let my guard down at an event when I'm on Letterman or Jon Stewart.

I don't act. completely like I do with my friends, you know, you're still editing yourself, you're still present, get up again, it's in this episode that I play a version of Brasher, more arrogant and more self-assured, and then there's another level at which I normally play the guy. who says the wrong thing, you know the goal of my stand-up scene like there are easy targets but of course the goal is public prejudice and middle class angst and I, I mean, I'm always the target of a joke I'm ignorant, I'm on the wrong side Joe Collier Nelson Mandela what a great guy he often gets a round of applause I was imprisoned for over 25 years released in 1990 he's been free for nineteen years and hasn't reoffended I think he's going Sure, show That prison works, so I always played at doing it wrong, you know?

And then in the characters that I play, you know, from David Brent to Andy Millman, dr. Pincus in the ghost town are variations on each other. I always play that that putz that that joker in the face of adversity and I make no apologies for that. I've never seen this from an actor trying to show. his versatility is due to a casting director. I choose myself for the public. I don't mind. All my favorite people have done one thing right forever. Woody Allen, same character, Bob Hope, same character, Groucho Marx, same character, different situations, you know, even the great actors they play. they play versions of themselves, they play it with their voice, their Dustin Hoffman, you know, I've never impressed people by going out of their way, they wear 3 different wigs, I'll go, who cares, you know things like, I know sketches and the ones they don't.

They don't resonate, they don't mean as much as a character who has full development and a narrative and I've always been my outlet, I've always been the other. The other characters I create in the office make me much more excited to be the creator. and the director of all the other characters in the office besides me putting on the wig and doing it, you know it's a pyrrhic victory for me because you can't suspend your disbelief, so that's important to me. Realisms have always been important to me.