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Ricky Gervais
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Ricky Gervais recently said that he’d be “quite happy” never doing television again, teasing his retirement from the medium.
The 62-year-old actor, writer and comedian told the Evening Standard that stand-up comedy is now his “favourite thing” since he’s less likely to be censored.
“If people said ‘There’s no more television any more’, I’d be quite happy with doing stand-up,” Gervais said. “It’s my favourite thing now.
“There’s no one to answer to, except the police,” he joked, adding: “I think it might be going that way. As long as you don’t break the law, it’s up to you.”
The creator and star of the original The Office (UK) star described stand-up comedy as “less of an art form and more of a science,” where your job is simply just to “say the funniest thing you can.”
“It either works or it doesn’t,” he said. “So you know: ‘that joke works, they laughed, keep that bit. They didn’t like that bit, improve it or lose it.’ After like 50 gigs the audience have found you your perfect hour.”
He then talked about the lack of creative freedom that comes with making movies and TV shows, adding: “Even though I get final edit on TV and film there’s still 60 people involved.”
Speaking about his live performances, Gervais said he used to prepare his entire dialogue prior to performing but now gets on stage with a few notes and mostly just reacts to the audience.
“I’ve got that sort of brain where I’d rather be doing three things rather than one, but now I’m getting older that seems more stressful. Stand-up I don’t have to worry about, you go up and do your best,” he said. “You don’t have to prepare, in a way.”
In June, Gervais was forced to beef up security on his UK tour after he had received “disturbing letters” and was “made aware threats have been made to his life” in response to some of his jokes.
According to The Sun, some of the threats were in response to Gervais’ 2022 Netflix special SuperNature, which has been criticized and accused of being “transphobic.”
