By KYLE SMITH
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/
Last updated: 12:56 pm
September 19, 2008
RICKY Gervais is lethally funny seeing dead people in his leading-man debut on the big screen, "Ghost Town."
Imagine David Brent of "The Office" with some brains and a touch of Jack Nicholson's character in "As Good as It Gets," and you've got Dr. Bertram Pincus, a misanthropic dentist who scuttles past the office party on the way out the door so he can get home to his prearranged pajamas and his crossword puzzle with its three neatly laid-out pencils.
Like Brent, he insults people; unlike Brent, he does it on purpose. He likes being a dentist because he can shove things into people's mouths when they talk too much: "You're resting your jaw. I'm resting my ears. We're all winners."
In the hospital for a routine procedure, he encounters what his doctor (Kristen Wiig of "SNL," who is again hilarious in a near cameo and has easily earned the right to play lead roles) calls "a cessation." Or maybe it was "a biochemical anomaly." Or perhaps, "You died. A little bit."
Now he can see the ghosts of dead people with unfinished business - such as Frank (Greg Kinnear), a sleazy fellow tenant of Bertram's Upper East Side building who was cheating on his wife (Téa Leoni) when he died. Frank is haunting/harrying/mocking Dr. Pincus for as long as it takes for Bertram to break up the widow's relationship with a do-gooder lawyer.
Lots of funny although familiar scenes follow in which Bertram simultaneously fends off the nagging ghosts that follow him everywhere while trying to carry on conversations with living people who can't hear the dead. The situation has been a comedy staple for decades, but Gervais has both the delivery and the pointed script (co-written by "Jurassic Park" and "Spider-Man" screenwriter David Koepp, who also directs) to deliver major laughs.
Even throwaway moments that seem improvised are great, such as when Bertram refuses to answer personal questions asked by a nurse or tells a doorman to stop saying "Bless you" every time he sneezes.Gervais does some classic hate-shtick that harks back to the great insult comics, but with a Brit twist. When he mutters "stenchy ethnic food that stings the eyes," he's talking about tacos.
The interaction between Bertram and Frank leads to brilliant odd-couple friction, as when they go to a fancy bar and Frank keeps toolishly twiddling away at his BlackBerry, even though it no longer works when you've roamed into the great beyond. When Frank starts to outline some situations in which his widow could be tempted away from her current fiancé - "You show up as the cable guy or the innocent pizza guy" - Bertram says, "You watch a lot of porn, don't you?"
Breaking Bertram out of his shell proves to be a challenge for Frank. When the dentist approaches the widow, the best line he can think of is, "Shoes. Your shoes. Are. Comfortable."
A plot development that isn't really explained: Frank promises he has the ability to keep the other ghosts from bugging Bertram for favors, but why does Frank have influence over the others?
In the third act, the movie all but announces it's going to copy "Groundhog Day," then does so. Some fans of Gervais are going to feel cheated by the blatant sentimentality, but a lot of great comedies are bait-and-switch affairs.
What "Ghost Town" has on its mind is so immense most dramas never approach it in heft: the yearning to have all of your affairs in order when you die. Although ghost hijinks are a very Hollywood way of dealing with the subject, the twists are executed superbly, right up to a climax that fits the David Mamet definition of what makes for a perfect ending: It is both surprising and inevitable.
GHOST TOWN
Sixth sense for comedy.
Running time: 103 minutes. Rated PG- 13 (profanity, sexual humor, drug references). At the Kips Bay, the E-Walk, the 84th Street, others.
Seeing Ghosts: Ricky Gervais
By Sara Cardace
Published Sep 14, 2008
New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/
(Photo: Dave M. Bennett/Getty Images)England’s reigning comedic superstar Ricky Gervais—who parlayed his oily charm into the hit British series The Office and Extras, as both writer and star—makes his big-screen debut this week with the supernatural comedy Ghost Town, in which he plays a misanthropic dentist who gains the unwelcome ability to commune with the dead. Gervais talked to Sara Cardace.
This movie is very sweet-natured, which seems at odds with your usual persona.
That’s exactly right. It’s a throwback to old-fashioned, nicer times. Like something Jimmy Stewart would have done. I mean, my stuff is pretty spiky sometimes—my stand-up is about as far as you can go with taboo subjects—and it’s nice to be the antidote.
You had to improvise some of the scenes, right?
The best script in the world doesn’t work perfectly when you actually act it out. That’s a law. That’s a given. So you have to play with everything. And the more fun you have with it, the better the finished product. I was filming a bar scene with Greg Kinnear, and we were going off on different tangents, saying crazy things and laughing. We thought, “This is great! This is funny!” But after two hours the director came over and goes, kind of hesitantly, “So, should we do one like it is in the script?” [Laughs] And I went, “Yeah, sure, we can do one like it is in the script.”
In one of your stand-up routines, you talk about the tabloids running bad photos of you with obnoxious headlines. Is the American press any nicer?
They are, except yesterday I was at a press junket with about twelve reporters asking about the film—you know, do you believe in ghosts, all this stuff, very pleasant—and one woman put her hand up and said, “Ricky, I think it was hilarious you playing a dentist with those manky teeth you wore.” I’m like, “Sorry?” And Greg Kinnear went, “Oh God.” And I had to say, “Okay, well, you know, those are my real teeth. Would I wear these teeth to here if they were fake?” And she sort of went red, and everyone was laughing. She probably thought, “I can show them that I’ve noticed something here—I love that subtlety, that he’s put in some really bad, crooked teeth. I’m gonna shine here. He’s gonna say to me, ‘That’s the best question ever. You’re the best journalist in the world.’ ” That was her hope.
You have an insanely popular podcast, The Ricky Gervais Show, which has introduced the cultishly adored Karl Pilkington. According to The Guinness Book of World Records, it’s the most downloaded podcast. In fact, you’re called the Podfather!
There’s an audiobook coming out on the 16th of September, and I can’t wait. I see my real job now as—never mind The Office, Extras, film career, Emmys— I want everyone in the world to know who Karl Pilkington is. Because he’s sort of a messiah, and I think only I know that.
Ghost Town
In theaters September 19.
Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais haunt 'Ghost Town'
BY PATRICK HUGUENIN
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/
Wednesday, September 17th 2008, 4:54 PM
Michael Dabin
The News got to take a look at all the action during the filming of the new comedy 'Ghost Town,' starring Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear
It's a frigid afternoon last November on the upper East Side and Greg Kinnear and Ricky Gervais have just finished shooting a scene from "Ghost Town." That's when Gervais almost gets hit by a truck.
"That would've been horribly ironic," he gasps, beating a hasty retreat toward the sidewalk as the truck whizzes past. "Wouldn't it?"
It would be if you consider the British funnyman's role as a reluctant medium in the ghostly comedy, out Friday. Gervais plays Bertram Pincus, a misanthropic dentist whose temporary death during a colonoscopy enables him to see ghosts. Kinnear is one of the ghosts, and since the day he was hit by a truck himself he has watched his widow, Gwen (Téa Leoni), slowly fall for a new guy (Billy Campbell).
Pincus is soon the middleman in a supernatural romantic plot. Sent by a spirit to break up Gwen's impending wedding, he, of course, falls for her.
"Really, this friendship blossoms," says Leoni of Pincus' unlikely charming of Gwen, a historian who spends her days dusting off mummies at the Metropolitan Museum. "But not like one of those bull- platonic friendships."
"It's nice to go away from the obvious," says Gervais. "It's sort of obvious when you see two leads bump into each other on the street and you know they're going to get together because one of them's George Clooney and the other's Michelle Pfeiffer."
The oddness of the couple, and the likability of Gervais' neurotic, antisocial Pincus have already charmed audiences at the Toronto Film Festival.
"I believe in this formula - in spite of the fact that it has dead people - more than most romantic comedies I've read," says Kinnear.
Filming resumes. Gervais on a bench on the edge of Central Park. The camera pans to pick up Kinnear sitting next to him as if he has just materialized. Gervais startles. Brief dialogue. Gervais flees. Kinnear hounds him as he crosses the street, imploring him for help.
Gervais' character lives in the same building as Leoni's, convenient in terms of both plot and production. The actual residents of 1136 Fifth Ave., between 94th and 95th Sts., occasionally scoot past the camera equipment in the lobby with all the interest of people encountering a FreshDirect delivery.
"The first day we shot at this building, somebody gave me a book," says director David Koepp, who co-wrote the script with John Kamps. "Every old building in New York has some ghost story, and they left me this thing with a dog-eared page - there was a woman in the '30s who died in the building and they say she haunts the lobby."
'Office' star Gervais gets totally unserious during filming break with co-star Kinnear. Gervais loves New York. 'It’s, along with London, my favorite city in the world,' he says. I was driving back from the studio in Brooklyn, over the bridge, and it’s just so iconic. Manhattan. I never get bored with it.'Shooting in New York, he says, means preexisting scenic splendor worth the hassles (and the haunting). Despite having to wait for the buses to pass on Fifth Ave., "You can't really point the camera in a bad direction," he says. "Anywhere you look there's something nice to look at."
Gervais wears fall clothes. Kinnear wears the same thing he will wear through weeks and weeks of shooting: the outfit in which his character died, a tuxedo.
"I am tired of the tux," he admits. "I was tired of tuxes before this movie. There's not one black-tie thing in my future." Well, unless "Ghost Town" wins him an Oscar, right? He nods, deadpan. "Which we have to assume," he says.
Time for coffee, then the crew is back in the lobby for a scene that will take all of 30 seconds on-screen. Leoni, dressed for a night out, comes down in the elevator, looks in the mirror, and leaves.
But setting up the shot takes a while. And Leoni is already in performance mode. "The other night the kids and I were having a farting contest at the dinner table," she announces to the rapt makeup crew. "My 5-year-old son tried so hard that, God bless him, he pooped. I said, 'Well, there's no doubt, you won.'"
Dinner is served in the basement of a church a few blocks away. Afterward, Gervais will flee a streetful of ghosts led by Dana Ivey, all of them with problems for him to solve, so the makeshift cafeteria looks like the rec room for some spookily antique theme park. The diners include World War I nurses, 1960s airplane pilots and modern-day construction workers and cops. Everyone is wearing the outfit he or she died in. Well, except for the character known as "Naked Guy." He's wearing his street clothes.
Leoni postpones mealtime to stretch out on the couch in her trailer, preparing for the upcoming scene in which she'll get dragged along the sidewalk by a Great Dane-mastiff mix.
"I'm about to get thrown about 100 feet on a dog leash, so I'm trying to relax my back." She sighs comically. "I thought it would be funny if I wasn't paying attention and suddenly get yanked out of the frame. And what I thought would be a little stunt - maybe they'd put a pad down for me - has turned into a full-on harness situation. I'll remind myself to keep my mouth shut about stupid ideas like that."
The real challenge, she says, is playing opposite Kinnear - who she has wanted to work with for years, she says - and not being able to look at him. Apparently, the most difficult part of making a ghost movie isn't the stunts after all.
"Dave Koepp must be laughing at the dailies," she says. "At least the first or second take of every setup, as soon as Greg opens his mouth, I look at him, just a knee-jerk reaction. And then Greg will give me this look like, 'Listen, dumb-ass, I'm not here.'"
Ricky Gervais on his new film Ghost Town
Ricky Gervais talks to John Hiscock about wealth, celebrity and his new film
London Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 12:02am BST 18/09/2008
Ricky Gervais and fame do not go well together. The creator and star of the television series The Office and Extras was recently thrown into the celebrity whirlpool of lights, cameras and screaming crowds in Toronto, where he was one of the star guests at this year's film festival.
'I don’t do accents’: Ricky Gervais has his first leading role in Ghost Town, a supernatural comedy in which he plays a dentist who can see ghosts
While his characters, David Brent or Andy Millman, would have revelled in the limelight, for Gervais the whole experience was unnerving and embarrassing.
"The worst thing about this job for me is the fame," he says. "I've never understood why anyone wants people to know who they are. That's the thing I wish I could turn off."
Gervais was in Toronto to promote Ghost Town, the first film in which he has the leading role, although he has made cameo appearances in For Your Consideration, Stardust and Night at the Museum. An American production, filmed in New York and co-starring Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni, Ghost Town is a supernatural comedy in which Gervais plays a dentist who discovers that he has the ability to see ghosts.
"When they asked me to do it, I said they had to make the character English because I don't do accents," he says. "I haven't got time; and I don't wear wigs either. No wigs, no prosthetics and no nudity: no one wants to see me without my clothes on."
A conversation with 47-year-old Gervais is like a chat with a friend in a pub: a few jokes, a bit of reflection on serious matters and a rehash of the events of the past few days. A naturally funny man, he veers cheerfully between the comic and the serious.
He shares an anecdote from a press conference the previous day at which a journalist had complimented him on the "manky" false teeth he wore in the movie. "I said, 'These are my real teeth. You think I'd wear them all the time if they weren't real?'?"
Although it was his first time in Toronto, Canada is a meaningful place for Gervais. His father is a French-Canadian who emigrated to England while serving during the Second World War. "Half my genetic material is from London, Ontario, just down the road," he says. "If I'd been born in Canada I'd be taller and have better teeth and a bigger neck and be much stronger. But I went to England, ate bad food and forgot to grow.
"I've still got pictures to prove that I was thin once," he says. "Now that I'm famous in a couple of places people usually wheel out a video or picture of me 25 years ago. They think I'll be embarrassed about how I looked then, but I'm not: I'm embarrassed about how I look now. I had a jaw-line then - I had features."
Although fame took a while to find him, Gervais has been plugging away at a career in entertainment since his student days at University College London where he and a friend formed a pop duo called Seona Dancing. They released two singles on London Records, More to Lose and Bitter Heart, which reached 117 and 70 respectively in the UK charts. A year later More to Lose was re-released in the Philippines and became an unexpected hit.
After his stab at pop stardom he briefly managed the Britpop band Suede, then went into radio and worked at Xfm London, as "head of speech", where he hired Stephen Merchant as his assistant and they began their collaborative career. Together, they moved to BBC Radio 1 where Gervais's first broadcast was, he says, the most frightening episode of his life.
"I opened the microphone and I thought I was going to die," he says. "I was terrified. I thought I was having a heart attack. But then I thought, 'It doesn't matter. Who cares if they like me or not? I can't even see them.' And since then I've never been afraid. I don't care if people laugh or not."
He appeared on the sketch comedy The 11 O'Clock News and contributed to other comedy series while working on an idea for a show set in a dreary office that would parody the "docu-soap" genre of reality series. The result was The Office.
Six years later, Gervais has already made comedy history as the only British comedian to write and star in an episode of The Simpsons. His one-man shows are sell-outs, he is a regular guest on American late-night television talk shows and a six-part television series based on his children's book Flanimals has been commissioned by ITV.
Although he maintains that he never set out to be an actor, he has recently finished filming a role in Night at the Museum 2 and put the finishing touches to This Side of the Truth, a comedy he co-wrote and is co-directing with a young American called Matthew Robinson. Set in a world where the concept of lying doesn't exist, it stars Gervais as a loser whose life changes when he invents lying and uses it to get ahead.
The only thing that mars the comic's life at the moment is, he says, the thought of money. Not the lack of it; just the opposite. He seems to feel genuinely uncomfortable at the money that is pouring into his bank account.
"My first big pay cheque was probably for the DVD sales of The Office and that scared me a bit," he says. "It made me feel guilty and a little bit weird. I worried it was too much.
"I've never done anything for money that I wouldn't do for free, and that's the truth," he says. "I interviewed David Bowie once and I said, 'Why do you still do this?' And he said, 'To stave off the boredom.' It's the same for me."
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