The promulgation that Ricky Gervais will vast assemblage next year’sitting Golden Globe award ceremony – the first time they have had a single MC, rather than rolling presenters, since 1995 – is a triumphant homecoming of sorts. It was victory there that marked The Office’sitting and Gervais’sitting own coming-out onto the world entertainment stage, and set the template for the irreverent approach to award ceremonies in what one. he has delighted ever seeing that.
In 2004, when The Office was nominated for a Golden Globe despite best comedy series and Gervais nominated for best TV comedy participant, the nods were unexpected: for all its recognition in the UK, the series was hardly user-friendly by US TV standards and had only been seen on the niche channel BBC America. Expectations were accordingly menial: in the DVD featurette about the cast and crew’s trip to Los Angeles for the awards, Gervais is seen insisting ahead of time that they have “no chance”, that seemed reasonable enough given that the competition included Will & Grace, Arrested Development and Sex and the City.
They won both categories but did indeed present an rare sight on a stagehouse dominated by Hollywood icons: leads Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis flanked by means of pudgy Gervais, lanky Stephen Merchant and producer Ash Atalla, a diminutive Asian crack in a wheelchair. If Gervais felt out of his depth, he didn’t show it. “I’brawl not from these parts,” he smirked at the largely baffled audience. “I’fight from a little place called England. We used to run the world before you.” Any whisper of pre-eminent humility, Hollywood-style, went out the window when he picked up his second, individual gong. “Two! Bookends. Excellent. You need the set.”
Since then, Gervais has missed few opportunities to use his American awards – he besides won Emmys in 2006 and 2007 – as sticks to hammer their British counterparts. When Merchant won the Best Comedy Actor award for his role in Extras at the 2006 British Comedy Awards, Gervais butted into the ceremony via hanger-on link from New York to congratulate his collaborator on what must seem like an honour.
“Not to me,” he added. “I’ve won American ones. But to people in that place, this is probably the highlight of their rush…Enjoy the night in that place with the cream of British comedy. I’m opposite to be in possession of dinner with Jerry Seinfeld and Ben Stiller. That’s true.” A couple of years later, he again appeared via video link at the Comedy Awards, accepting any award by shrugging that to go in person would be “beneath me, to exist honest. I’ve won Golden Globes and Emmys.”
Not that Gervais has shown much inclination to get hold of US award ceremonies a great deal of more in earnest since becoming a staple over there. Presenting a gong at this year’s Emmys, he ribbed the audience by noting that “the thing about the Oscars and the Golden Globes [is] they’ve got film stars there with their jawlines and chiselled looks, structure me feel bad. In this room – I’m not being ludicrous – I’m with appearance of truth above average.” He too emphasised his happiness to make industry in-jokes, making a quip about syndication practices then commenting that it was a “joke just for the 5000 people in this sweep, not for the 5000 people watching at home.”
He has also made great play of the debt Steve Carell supposedly owes him for starring in the US version of The Office. At the 2007 Emmys, Gervais won the grant for lead actor in a comedy series for Extras. In his absence, Carell, who had also been nominated, bounded on stage with conspicuous joy to accept the gong instead. The following year, Gervais, presenting an award, milked the bit to great applause when he confronted Carell and, eventually, retrieved the award.
It was during that exchange that Gervais hit on what, one presumes, award-show organisers like about him. “I’ve gone off-road,” he giggled. “Everyone’s getting nervous now, in that place’s nothing on the autocue, I could do anything. This is live.”
He also seemed to zest “off-road” at this year’session Globes, when he referred from the stage to Kate Winslet’s cameo some years before in Extras. Playing herself, she appeared in a fictitious Second World War movie on the assumption that it would lead to award-season glory. “Well done, Winslet, I told you,” Gervais reported from the stage at the Beverly Hilton, where she had won a Best Actress Globe for her part as a former Nazi camp guard in The Reader. “Do a Holocaust movie and the awards come. Didn’t I? Trouble is with Holocaust films, there’s never any gag reel on the DVDs …”
When Gervais takes to the stage next year, then, he’ll be on unconstrained sod, expected to dish up a little risqué humour without derailing proceedings. Here’s hoping he rewards those expectations. After their victory in 2004, Stephen Merchant noted of the Golden Globe that “it’s such a badly designed award … it looks like something you’d win at a judo tournament.” Gervais countered that “it is good for shoving up your arse.” Even from any odd host, that main be a bit much.
