Going Out, Gervais Picks Bang Over Whimper

By EDWARD WYATT
The New York Times
Published: December 15, 2007



Ray Burmiston/HBO
Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen in the “Extras” series finale.

LOS ANGELES — Ricky Gervais says he decided to make an 80-minute finale to his HBO series “Extras” because he had a few things left to say about the wages of fame, and the people who pay them.

“Shame on you” is one of the printable expressions that Andy Millman, the pompous sit-com star portrayed by Mr. Gervais, lobs toward the network executives who put “freak show” reality series like “Celebrity Big Brother” on television.

But he doesn’t reserve his vitriol just for the programmers. He sprays bile toward the audience who watches the train-wreck television and the celebrities who feed the beast, having weddings sponsored by tabloid magazines and calling their publicists before they call taxis to go to rehab.

“I’ve always sort of deconstructed telly a little bit,” Mr. Gervais said in a telephone interview from New York this week, where he recently finished shooting his first starring role in a feature film, “Ghost Town.” “I’ve also been in my ‘study of fame’ years. ‘The Office’ was sort of my life’s work, where I downloaded everything I knew about the minutiae of behavior from working in a normal job. The last few years, I’ve been in the media, in the middle of fame. They say, ‘Write about what you know.’”

Here is where it is difficult to talk about what Mr. Gervais concludes without spoiling the effect of the “Extras” finale, which will be shown Sunday night at 9, Eastern and Pacific times, on HBO. (The episode, which is more than twice the length of regular ones, is the first new installment to be shown since February.) So here is a spoiler alert: Stop reading now to maintain the full effect of Mr. Gervais’s diatribe.

What Millman concludes about the celebrity life could be as powerful an indictment of fame and the medium of television as Howard Beale’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” in the 1976 film “Network” — even if Mr. Gervais has failed to produce such a notable catchphrase.

“The Victorian freak show never went away,” Millman rails in a soliloquy that serves as a climax of the “Extras” final episode and a moment of redemption for the character, whose life and friendships have been corrupted by fame. “Now it’s called ‘Big Brother’ or ‘American Idol,’ where in the preliminary rounds we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multimillionaires.”

To the networks, he says: “You can’t wash your hands of this. You can’t keep going, ‘Oh, it’s exploitation, but it’s what the public wants.’ No.”

To the audience watching at home, he says: “Shame on you. And shame on me. I’m the worst of all. Cause I’m one of these people that goes, ‘I’m an entertainer, it’s in my blood.’ Yeah, it’s in my blood because a real job’s too hard.”

Mr. Gervais, who won an Emmy for best actor in a comedy series this year for his role in “Extras,” said he was not ashamed of his life’s work — far from it, in fact. He said he ended both the original British version of “The Office,” which he created, and “Extras” after only two seasons because he had said the things he wanted to say, and did not want to continue milking the ideas simply for profit.

“Of course I want the respect of my peers and to do well in my chosen field,” he said. And he acknowledges that his indictment of celebrity and television dissects “only a symptom of what’s going on elsewhere.” He cites a 2005 British survey of 10-year-olds who, when asked what they most wanted to be, responded most often, “rich and famous.”

Mr. Gervais said: “I think life’s about the struggle. Too many people see fame as a shortcut and think that the quick and easy way might be the way for them.”

He said he was not aiming his jeremiad at anyone in particular, including Ben Silverman, whose production company took “The Office” to the United States and who now, as the recently installed co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, is offering greater volumes of reality fare like “The Celebrity Apprentice” and “American Gladiators.”

“No, I haven’t talked to Ben for a while now,” Mr. Gervais said. “Is he doing reality programs?”