Ricky Gervais Wants Respect
How Ricky Gervais Totally Lost It
IT'S SATURDAY MORNING in London's posh Hampstead district. On a pretty cobbled lane, diners enjoy a mild day at outdoor tables. Between a realtor and a restaurant is an unmarked door. When the door opens, it appears no one is inside. Then a grin—that grin—flashes in the shadows.
"All right?" he asks.
Ricky Gervais stands a deliberate couple of paces back, just out of view of the Great British public. There's no assistant, no publicist. Just a 50-year-old man in faded sportswear, padding through a basic two-room setup and leading me to a cramped office. One wall bears a Post-it journey through an episode of his new HBO sitcom Life's Too Short. I perch in a chair and he slumps opposite me, slinging his feet onto the table.
He looks well. For Ricky Gervais, he looks very well. When The Office hit in England 11 years ago, with Gervais in the lead role as demagogue David Brent, he was a chunky presence. "I was only playing fat," he laughs now. That role ushered in more successes—The Office's adaptation was a hit in the United States, one of over 80 countries in which it was screened or adapted. There was the HBO show Extras, and a flurry of films (Ghost Town, The Invention of Lying, and Cemetery Junction, among others). Still, Gervais remained defiantly immune to healthy living.
The nadir was shortly after Christmas 2009 when, at home in Hampstead a few streets from where we sit, he settled down to a plate of sausages. "Eleven sausages," he clarifies with a smile. When he looked at the empty plate, something clicked. "I just thought, This is getting fucking ridiculous."
He was hovering around 200 pounds. He's now 168 and still dropping. He has the first hints of the cheekbones he lost in his 20s. While his frame is still thickset, muscle is steadily pushing through.
This committed atheist wouldn't call his sausage meltdown a religious epiphany, and he wouldn't dare call his new regimen a fitness manual. The ultimate aim, he says, is to "stay alive and eat more cheese and drink more wine." Still, he claims he's started habits that he's now addicted to. It's a belated wake-up call, and one that fits a pattern.
"I didn't have a proper job until I was 28. I didn't get into comedy until I was 38, and I didn't start exercising until I was 48."
I don't have to ask the moral of the story. "It's never too late," Gervais says. "Never, ever too late."
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