Gervais’ Failure Fears

RICKY GERVAIS avoided making a big screen movie for more than ten years - because he was frightened of failure.

Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant enjoyed enormous success with their comedy TV series The Office, and were approached by a number of movie studio bosses to pen a hit film.

The pair refused the offers for more than a decade, but finally teamed up to work on Cemetery Junction which is set for release next year (10).

Gervais says, “I think there’d be a prejudice if I was in it. There are prejudices out there - it’s because people leap too quickly. They get one hit on TV and they try to make a film and it’s dreadful. It’s advertised for a week and then goes straight to DVD.

“You want to go in at a higher level. We resisted this for 10, 11 years.

“When The Office first came out we went round every film company and got offered a film deal. We took the card and said, ‘We’ll call you when we’ve got an idea.’ We think we’ve done the film proud.”