Stephen Merchant | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] [Music] thank you I mean that we could have poured that before we got started missus this is just dead time only like Spica sure thank you very much Cheers yeah I thought I sort of flash back to the beginning of your career okay and asked if you always wanted to be involved in the comedy sphere when you were growing up and whether any particular showbiz icons that inspired you to go down this route well I did want to be in comedy from a very early age and I wanted actually to go to bear with me guys to go to Cambridge University alright because that was where John Cleese one of my big comedy heroes had started at the Cambridge Footlights performance review thing and this says a lot about my school that they said you're not going to get the grades for Cambridge but you could apply to Oxford because there was an entrance exam as an option which apparently there wasn't that Cambridge I don't remember so anyway so I decided that was I can do that instead so I was gonna apply to Oxford and so I came to Oxford with my parents and you know to do the kind of open day or whatever like I had to inspect Oxford to see if I thought it was good enough for me you know and and I remember I bought the t-shirt dude have you seen these t-shirts it's it's like it looks like the Guinness logo but instead of Guinness it says Oxford and underneath it says pure genius I imagine you all have them and all wear them and so I bought that t-shirt because I'm a wanker and that was all I ended up with because they didn't they obviously I failed the exam which means that I didn't get to go to Oxford University which means you're all cleverer than me which seems absurd this guy is cleverer than me I can and better-looking it's disgusting so so I ended up going to the University of Warwick and there at least I was able I did do a lot of kind of comedy related stuff so I did a radio show and I'd make short films and I took a show to the Edinburgh Festival and I kind of you know like I jumped feet first into sort of extracurricular you know student stuff keen as I was to do comedy from that young age mm-hmm and early on in your career you sort of dabbled in stand-up you know as once common to that it was notoriously difficult yes what challenges did you find with that medium well the problem with any kind of comedy is that you can sit in your room particular with stand-up you can sit in your room and write it and try out in front of the mirror and you'll just think you're absolutely killing it you know if it's just you in the mirror I mean I was crushing it night after night I mean I just thought I was amazing and then you go out in front of an audience and you very quickly discover it's much harder than it seems and unfortunately with stand-up there's no other way of trying out material you know you there's no machine that you can just try it that will tell you you know with a dial if it's funny and so it's tough you know because when you're starting out you maybe get five minutes to do material and you come out and you're nervous and if you screw up a line that's your shot at trying that joke out and then you've got a beg or steal another slot another Club another night you know it just takes a long time to sort of build up a head of steam and get the practice under your belt and all the rest of it and the first show I did I actually went well for the first five minutes and I just thought I'm crushing this and then the following shall I did was terrible than I died on me arse and and I just realised it was much much harder than I realized and over the years I've sort of you know I've done it in a compact to it and I'm gonna I'm working on some more at the moment but it gets a little bit easier the more you do it and then the more experience you get it's very counterintuitive stand-up so for instance if it's not going well you have a tendency as many of us do when we get nervous to speed up right like we're gonna just try and get through everything and actually the best thing to do is to slow down and take a sip of water and it just suggests that you're in charge you know and kind of eases everyone because one of the things with sound up is that the audience needs to be reassured that your income you're in charge because if you start to flounder they kind of over the audience because most audiences are on there on your side and they they sort of start to feel uncomfortable and then that makes you feel uncomfortable and then if everyone's like this including the act on the stage then you're in trouble yeah and what song was the creative process behind some of your skits to stand up what sort of material did you draw upon often was it different every time you kind of go back to it no it was it was being from the west country and you know and lots of I mean it was lots of jokes about inbreeding all right I was young and then I hit on this this character I would go on as myself but the joke was that I was an arrogant comedian from the West country and so I'd come on and I'd be like yeah alright this is a I'm here I'm gonna do some groups for you I got some great material you know but I didn't like your attitude when I came on but it's right would find that worry you know and I would very quickly the joke was that I sort of thought I was better than the club and I would never get to this routine I kept promising them this great routine but I never got there cuz I decided someone in the audience that annoyed me so I'd be like you got seem to have an attitude and I'm caught I'll come on again I want a bigger round of applause and it would just it was like it was an act that never got started and when the audience went for it it was the best thing in the world it was amazing because they would they were onside they realized it was a character and everything you said the more insulting you were to them the more self-loathing you were the funnier it got and then I would sort of in the end I'd say I'm all right this is not gone as well as I hoped I'm gonna leave I'm gonna walk off I want a huge round of applause so I'm gonna walk off and don't speak to me if you see me in the bar ignore me and I'd sort of I go to crap and they'd all pull out and I'd walk off and I'd leave it and it got quiet and then I would walk slowly back out and I'd be like you can't go out that way and if they were on site it was amazing but if they weren't on site if they didn't get the character I was [ __ ] cuz I had no act and so they just thought I was an arrogant comedian from the West country so they were just they were just hair cool I mean I was I did a gig in exeter once when i remember someone actually shouting taxi for the comedian which i thought was a myth but they actually it was it was unbearable because i had nowhere to go and he it's not like i could step out and go guys it's a character i just had to keep going with it and it was brutal and so eventually i could have dropped that and i tried to sort of start being a bit more authentic and speaking as myself then when you heard for example white taxi for the comedian where did he find then the resilience to sort of carry on with you I didn't on that instance I remember a straight away afterwards phoning my agent and saying I can't do this anymore please get me out whole future geeks and um and he said well I can't you're booked in you know you've got fulfil your obligations and so then I went to the next gig the next day and it was in the darkest part of Cornwall and I thought well there's no way if the sophisticated people of Exeter didn't get this then there's no way Cornwall is gonna get it and Cole loved it and I was like I'm clearly amazing it was just Exeter I'm and every week we curve up and down you know and I be I know no I'm not gonna do any 1k more gigs and so yeah it was it was it was a rollercoaster you then transitioned into radio work and then obviously at the podcast work for you did you find it hard to be funny with he have that comedic flare when sort of the only tool at your disposal was your voice and so how did you do that I think radio is much easier in a lot of ways partly because you don't see the audience and by you know it you know it can be intimidating if you're staring out a room of people not you people obviously but but if it's if it's a crowd and there is a certain although most British audiences I think are on your side they don't always show it you know if you perform in America and stand up on the whole even if they've never heard of you there yeah this guy come on they're on your side whereas in England even if they know who you are there's a sort of funny guy and it's quite intimidating whereas with a radio audience obvious you can't see them and so it immediately relaxes you and also with I think with radio no one's expecting a work stand-up routine you know so you know if you think most DJ's are a pretty name on the whole and and there's a lot of that kind of the time is fast approaching three o'clock still to come we got tracks from storm Z and simply read I don't know what station that is but by the way the time cannot fast approach it can only just it's always going at the same speed but but so if you are a little bit witty on top of that then then then you're the best thing that anyone's ever heard and and plus you'll can always play a record so if you've run out of steam you can play a record and get out of it so radio was was fun and that was where I met Ricky Gervais is in that kind of how we got started and radio is great because it's very intimate you know I think people I guess podcasts do the same thing now but for years radio was a way of I don't know but you could privately engage with with people and they felt like you at the best they felt like you were a friend of theirs that they were listened to you know on a week on a weekly basis mm-hmm and then how did you solve work the material of n your podcast a british-based of a teacher ratio before was this all pre-planned or was a kamal Ganic well when it was initially was just Ricky and I on a radio station and we would kind of have a quick chat beforehand and then we would just make I was win along and then we got given this producer karl Pilkington and we asked him a question he was just there to press the buttons and make tea and things I forget we asked him a question or he was telling a story or something and he said something about bar habla and the neighbors you know and they were the neighbors that had a horse in the living room anyway and we were like what do you mean anyway let's go back to the neighbors with the horse in the living room and for him that wasn't the interesting part of the story and we quickly realized that he was sort of dull dust you know and he and he just almost anything that you asked him was was just only because he just had this completely unique view of the world and you know we were we were talking once about celebrities who were only famous because of who their father is so I'm in you know Calum best whose father was footballer George best ganker Gascoigne you know also and and we were saying they're only famous because of who their dad is and Carl said why you could say the same thing about Jesus and and you're sort of like yeah I kind of make sense it away I remember we asked he wants to explain evolution and he said something like um evolutions easy you know it's it's you know it's like slugs monkeys mermaids man and so um so he was just a he was just a never-ending you know supply of he's like if you'd found a magic lamp you know and you could just rub it every week and just magic would come out really so then it really became a show about him really and and off we went and so there was never any planning there I mean it was just showing up and unwinding Carl up into the you know until he spoke of course you are very well known for the office what was the creative process behind that show and do you think there's a recipe of success that I can ensemble comedy show well the office came about because I realized when I was initially on the radio with Ricky that I was probably gonna get fired or both of us were gonna get fired because before we worked with Carl we were on the radio on this London radio station called XFM and we were so essentially backroom boys who had to do jobs behind the scenes and went occasionally they let us on the air and I just sense that you know Ricky you know Ricky was probably gonna get us fired just because he never did any of the other work except for the radio bit he just he was lazy very lazy need hired me because I was gonna do the work and and so I sensed that we were in trouble so I got a job at the BBC when I was at the BBC I had to do this training film and the training film became this little if you like demo tape version of The Office and and for some reason it kind of it was good and Ricki was at brilliant and they just they were into it and they wanted us to make a pilot and then and we'd never done anything I mean I was sort of 25 and Ricki was just fat and old and and and we started making demands you know like um well we're gonna write this and he's gonna be in it and probably director as well produce it and I was mad thinking back and I think a lot of it was that Ricky was older and he he didn't care as but he wasn't so desperate to be famous or he kind of he was willing to walk away it was extraordinary it's something that I was 25 and I had didn't have that confidence because I thought this was a huge opportunity and so he so Ricky would be like well forget it then and I'd be like well this wait a second let's talk about it Rick we can and I was sort of the negotiator and and they let's do it and and and I think because we were nobody and because there was no expectations and cuz no one knew who we were and cuz it was cheap and the BBC kind of were just allowing us to do it quietly in a corner of the BBC with no it no one sort of scrutinizing us I think because of that freedom um everything kind of came together because there was sort of almost no pressure you know and everything he or I or together have done since that it's always scrutinized and there's a pressure and expectation and it's judged against your previous work and everything else whereas when we first came along it's like a new band that you know that people just like they'd like to get behind you know and and so I think it's very hard to create that that recipe again you know of everyone in it was pretty much unknown and were amazing talents and so I think it's plus I just think there was a sort of there was some kind of alchemy you know there was something that you just need to do good work that just the right elements came together and it was but it sort of no one goes into any project whether it's that or Schindler's List or sharknado not seriously not trying to do a good job of work you know everyone's trying to do could work it's just really hard to do anything well and particularly your the pressure of being supervised and scrutinized whereas in that case we were just left to our own devices mm-hmm so when the showed them so transcendence across the pond how much influence would you have in the u.s. office and for you is it a bit strange to see characters that you've worked so hard like into to create or reimagine through a different lens well our first aware sense of being aware that it was even known in America and it was still only the British version only known among kind of comedy fans and people but we got nominated for a Golden Globe and we went to America and they picked us up in the airport in a limousine first time in a limousine I was like this is this is amazing and kind of there and it's like free water and things free water I can't believe it and an ice tray and you can press buttons and the lights change on the ceiling and get to the hotel and then the BBC people there say there's absolutely no way you're gonna win a Golden Globe we're like all right they said just enjoy the free water and everything so the day of the awards comes and the limo shows up and that's amazing how quickly you were climatized and you're like this limos not as nice as the other one does it [ __ ] and we pull up and we're driving to the Golden Globes and Ricky decides yes I said to him I said to him eat something before you go because you leave in the middle of the afternoon I said he's gonna be starving by four o'clock sure enough he was so we're pulling up to the awards before we get to the awards he demands that we stop in a petrol station to buy the American version of what's it's Cheetos she buys a big bag of Cheetos and he eats now in limo on the way and now he's covered in orange dust and are in sort of coloring all over his face and his fingers in a tuxedo and so now I have to get my handkerchief from my suit like putting that in the ice trade like wipe off the orange like a mum cleaning off a toddler's face and we pull up and ahead of us is the other Desperate Housewives getting out of a car I'm thinking there's no way teri hatcher was cleaning orange dust off Eva Longoria's face we go in there and the gold lives is very exciting because there's film stars as well as TV people and are in there it's like Tom Cruise and Katie saw didn't it's unbelievable and we get there and we are uh so the our category comes best sitcom and the nominations are read out over and the announcement comes in it's us and no one was expecting us to win including us including the BBC who had told us you're not going to win and even the TV show because we're so far back we're liking their really crap seats like these guys at the back and and if you watch the footage the camera team can't even find us it's like searching for us musics playing and then eventually you sort of see me stand up confused and then sort of Ricky comes to there you know and then we sort of this motley crew make it our way to the stage and then the announcer who's no idea who we are it has to say our names and cuz Gervaise is its origin his french-canadian so I think he's just looking at these names and he just takes a guess and he's like welcome to the stage Ricky Gervais and Stephen Mitchell so if we get to the stage and I'm not joking I remember looking out and seeing Clint Eastwood like where this guy is here and I saw Clint Eastwood in Eastwood turn to the person next to me when lip-reading it's quite intimidating and and then they get late you know we won the award and then then Ricky won as well as a performer and suddenly you know you've gone there is just sort of tourists and you're kind of going to these parties afterwards like with you know two awards you and and and so suddenly people were coming up to us and kind of complimenting us on the show people you know samuel l.jackson or you know people that we subsequently asked to be in extras I follow show because we were just amazed that they were even aware of what the show was and then people came and they said look we you know we'd like to maybe remake this for America and the only thing I knew was that a lot of previous British shows that they tried to remake had not worked and my guess was because the original people involved had kind of meddled and didn't know enough about American TV and so the one piece of I think sensible advice that I had to Ricky was I don't think we should do this ourselves because I think we'll [ __ ] it up and so we found good people to take it over and and they are the ones that can should get the credit cuz they just ran with it and and Steve Carell was obviously amazing you know if it went and so the most we really do I mean we sat down with them for a week and kind of just tried to explain like what's the equivalent of so I it's quite hard to explain to someone what equivalent of Slough is or there's just things you realize you don't like I didn't realize that pub quizzes aren't really a thing in into the workplaces in America just a little weird things you'd never even know about you know when off they went really yeah and was it hard to kind of let go of that or talk about the show really because it was to me it was like was like being a fan I could be a fan of this show that we had done and therefore we could never enjoy from the outside and suddenly they would send us these episodes which were kind of our characters but done by better-looking people and it was a thrill it was Bernard ever never anything other than excited and proud of it yeah and then when you moved on to extras you earlier spoke about the fact there's then the added expectation of people knowing that like Jimmy's merchant that's a dynamic duo how did he do an approach that new series and kind of stay grounded and not kind of get swept up in the hype what it was difficult because you know we were it wasn't that we wanted anything to do anything in particular about celebrities which is what the show ended up being about you know weren't extras working on movies it was just we started finding area that all these amazing stars Kate Winslet and Ben Stiller and all these people we admired were fans of our show and we're up for do it and they'd be like what do you want can we do something and so our original idea was to do a show about movie extras in which real stars were the extras so like it would be about extras but Kate Winslet be making a film but she would literally be walking around in the background never speaking and then that just thing once she agreed to do the show that seemed a bit perverse to not give her any lines at all so then we started writing its what scenes for them and then it was just amazing you know what they were willing to do and how far they were willing to go and and I suppose you know I think what what again because I was something of a fan of comedy like right back when I was younger John Cleese and people that I realized that it's very hard to kind of keep topping what you've done before it's better in a way to almost go sideways and just do something else to sit alongside it and so that was sort of the aim I think for extras and everything else we've done really it's just sort of to do something else rather than to try and do you know more and more versions or to try and do it something that's bigger and more high-profile and you know more successful in stuff and it's very different tangent um comedy seems to sort of work in fads would like for example panel shows like how I've gotten used to you dominating the arena currently what do you think that takes what makes something funny and why do you think we saw binge consumed certain categories of comedy at a time that is a good question I am I mean I think week when we came along there was a vogue for people reacting to the more traditional sitcom style the stuff that's shot in front of a live audience and that quite broad and often great but but a little bit you know more knock about and I think people were ready for something probably that was a little bit more realistic and loaf I and low-key and naturalistic and certainly that you know there was us and there was the royal family and there were these other shows and then I think probably somewhere on the line there's been a reaction to that again right and so now you have the biggest show British comedy show is mrs. Brown's boys which is extruding it I just but it just seems like it lives in another world like it's it's so far from what we did so I guess maybe there's a turn back away from that to something more silly if you like and knock about and colorful and jokey and you know and surreal whatever you want to call it and that and then presumably there'll be a reaction to that and they'll go back to something else so I think I'm I also think that you know we were in a period where we we could be kind of edgier if you like we were we were sort of we were trying to talk about real things and trying to reflect the office worlds we'd seen or the real worlds we'd seen in that it could be awkward and make you cringe and be uncomfortable and talk about you know real things and I think I sometimes wonder now whether they whether they'd let us do the office you know in the way we did it I wonder if we would have been censored more because I feel like we were living in an age where there is a little bit more sensitive to things and maybe we wouldn't get away with it I don't know and kind of been in that vein especially with an Idiot Abroad the humour is known to be slightly more tongue-in-cheek not anymore offensive no I don't mean that disingenuously I think cuz to me Karl is so it's like a sort of idiot manchild it's a heart it's like if a child said something offensive it seems harder to take it seriously if you know what I mean and I think because of knowing Karl that is sort of how I how I take it but I can certainly see from the outside it looks do you think in perhaps like a slightly more politically correct world it's harder for comedians to soar do their job because they're having constantly tread the line and evaluate whether they are being offensive as opposed to just trying to be funny well it's tricky isn't it because Carl you know for instance just to take Carl as an example in that show you know he's traveling the world and he's reacting authentically to the world around him and he doesn't he's ignorant I mean he is the little Englander personified you know he's a man I'm not joking who takes little banks of teabags when he goes to you know Mauritius or something for two weeks you know he like my parents might you know he's he's someone who you know you he's someone who could go on holiday when he chooses to go on a holiday and immediately look for a cafe that serves the following leash breakfast you know while in Spain and I think therefore if you send him to far-flung places he reacts you know in an authentic way that's not him trying to fish for the controversial thing to say I think he is just reacting and I think it's not only think it's born from prejudice I think a lot of it is born from ignorance or naivety and I think sometimes that lands him into hot water and other times it's sort of it's weirdly sweet I remember him visiting there you know the the the wall that divides you know Israel from Palestine and him just kind of just baffled by it like it was so he's just like it's so ugly I don't understand like he just he doesn't understand the nuance of that debate so to him he's just this like a child seeing this monstrosity and kind of not understanding it so you know it's really it's sweet in a way in terms of a if you like a smarter comedian choosing to wade into controversial territory I mean I don't know I mean I think you I think if you police yourself you you can be in danger of just being very Hannah dying because someone will always be offended by something you know I don't think that means you don't have responsibility I think you know it's your responsibility you know there's that famous quote whatever you freedom of speech doesn't extend to shouting fire in a crowded theater you know for a laugh and I think that's true but I do think I do think there's in a way there's almost an exchange between an audience and a performer you know and that if the performer if the audience chooses to take offense then they're well within their rights to do that but I don't know if that means they can shut down or sense of the person on the stage you know and it's tricky you know censorships a tricky thing because where does it stop you know do you allow people with the most horrendous views of public platform I don't know I mean I I don't I don't never understood the answer to that one I just think in the end you you know you have to be responsible for your actions and if you cause offence then you choose to either apologize or not and that's up to you I guess but I don't know if it's funny you talk about political correctness because it feels like that was exactly the thing that was in the air when we did the office you know it was political correctness was this sort of buzzword you know and to us that show was about a man trying to navigate that and not understanding kind of what the rules are or why what he thought was liberal was not you know or why he can't go up to a black guy and go tell you I love Sidney Poitier why he thought white to him that was that was a good thing to do why would you not why what's wrong with that you know and I suppose you on the surface you could look at that and go well it does that make the show racist well I would argue that the character is misguided and prejudiced but that doesn't mean the show is and I think with a lot of commit comedy in particular you can talk about difficult areas and tough subject matter without that necessarily meaning that you subscribe to the the offensive line of thought you know it's really tough yes so then kind of in that vein of comedy being able to talk to a specific topic perhaps more than something else when you have then shows like Trevor Noah for example where he uses comedy to tackle really really deep issues do you think that we're slightly over politicizing entertainment and comedy and it should actually sometimes just be a place of escapism or do you think it's now a duty for some comedians to use their power of being funny to illuminate issues that otherwise where he can't be done as well well I think I think that there's always been a place for satire I would sort of put Trevor and and you know a lot of those late-night American talk show hosts in that category of satirist s-- as much as anything um there's always been a long heritage of that and that's I think always to be applauded I do think though what's interesting is it generally is left-leaning satire on the whole and it might be interesting if if that was mixed up a little bit more and you had kind of right and left doing battle a little bit more in the same environment because I think there is that feeling that you know that Trevor Noah Jon Stewart before him those late-night host Stephen Colbert they're slightly preaching to the choir you know and to me it kind of would be interesting to see them sort of going head to head with people on the other side of the fence because I think that would just generate some interesting sparks creatively and also I think it might welcome in people from the other side of the argument who might then themselves learn a little bit more from the side of the fence they're not on you know and so um you know the when you when you attack Donald Trump however justify we might feel that is it's not moving the dial is it clearly because his fan base are not even aware of those jokes or they're just dismiss them out of hand and so there's a you know there's a great value in satire and thank God it's there because we all go crazy without it but it feels like it's voicing what we are feeling and letting us feel better that someone agrees with us and shares our pain rather than it making any change you know I mean I remember with the office you know people would come up to Ricky in the street and they'd be like oh that boss you play I'm just like him see you later like they were proud of that they didn't see it as a that we were mocking him necessarily you know so we used to say we haven't changed anything people who still [ __ ] final question for me if I just open up to the audience so you recently starred in Logan and that was slightly more serious dramatic role compared to your previous ones do you sort of want to dabble in that area more and what was your experience from working on a blockbuster set well I definitely would like to do more drama I've always had an interest in there and I think you know even with the stuff we've done in the past we've tried to add some dramatic elements here and there and put me I've just done written and directed a film which is more of a drugs gonna draw comedy-drama I suppose which is about a real-life family of wrestlers from Norwich and it was it came about because I'm a dear friend Dwayne the rock Johnson he's friends with all of us he he was in England making a film he was watching a channel for which I just think it's amazing the image of him in a hotel like in a Travel Lodge or whatever wearing you know the there's you know the free kind of what you call it the free years of dressing-gown you know it's just a little bit too short on Dwayne you know is Johnson is visible to the world and easy in the shortbread and flipping through channel 4 and he's waiting for Grand Designs and this documentary comes on about this family restless and he desire dad work within before any any contact to me was like I think there's maybe a film in this and so I went to meet this family of Norwich wrestlers and um they're a whole family of the mum dad three kids and they all do that wrestling you know in that sort of WWE phony version of wrestling but it's not in the WWE in America it's in Norwich and the surrounding areas in real town halls and the dark dad is a former um armed robber who kind of found wrestling and it sort of saved him like some people are saved by religion and he's got these three kids and the to two of the teenage kids brother and sister auditioned for the WWE which is the big leagues of wrestling for a British person and only the daughter got signed so she went off to the States and had to train with them and meanwhile her brother got left behind and he in essence is sort of you know he it was very hard for him to deal with the pain of of that of being of that rejection and so you know the story on the surface you think it's just going to be this sort of silly knocking about thing about this kind of eccentric firmly but actually it so it becomes hopefully quite moving story of how you deal with kind of rejection when the dream that you've pursued all your life that you've been indoctrinated to do with by your parents doesn't come doesn't come off you know and and so just finish that and I think you know it it's that sort of it feels like where my heart is moving in terms of still using humor but kind of showing the flip of things because I think so much with comedy you know if you took away the laughter it would be tragic and bleak and in an interesting way you know so anyway so that's where we're heading thank you um now to open questions to the audience so if you stand up once you say your question and wait for the mic yeah remember in the orange top hi I'm thank you so much for coming today this has been so fun already my question involves working with the very a list celebrities on extras my favorite part about the show is how self-deprecating you guys ended up getting them to be and I think some more than others so how was that process was it a process of collaboration did Patrick Stewart for example suggest wanting to see everything right yes well he asked the amazing thing was we would come up with these ideas and I was just amazed at how often they would say they would agree you know and the the Patrick Stewart idea was that he would had written a script that he was trying to get made with in the show which I think it made in wedgy it was essentially just an excuse for him to see women naked clearly and in every version of the script he'd be like you know I'm riding on my bike and then you know I look at posh spice and then our clothes fall off and I ride on it and just sort of like you have this [ __ ] classically-trained Shakespearean actor with this rich voice talking like a child and you know and then you'd get you contacted his agent and get him on the phone and explain this idea I need to go quiet I mean it's like what and Riki somehow got hold of David Bowie's number or he'd met David Bowie somewhere or David Bowie how if you want to say and I'm I remember he said he phoned David Bowie and I think they've had a real I'm speakerphone I can remember and he said Bowie answered things like um or honor it I'm just eating a banana and to us we're like what David Bowie eats bananas ie bananas it's just the idea that he's at home with his supermodel wife in Monaco any bananas and and it's amazing how quickly you sort of realize they're actually actors on the whole they still want to act and do fun stuff you know and and that you know if you're on a film it's a big blockbuster film it could be months and months and you're stuck and you do very little acting and mainly waiting around whereas for us we promised them you know you'll be in and out a couple of days you'll have a laugh if we found any ideas you have for him in the mix they'd be like yeah great so you know they'd show up and there's almost nothing they wouldn't they wouldn't do I can't remember them even saying that it is almost always that they had a scheduling conflict rather than that I think there was a children's entertainer that was popular when I was a kid called Keith Harris who had a green bird called Oroville that he was mentally equipped and we asked him if he would be in any and he read the script and said it was the most [ __ ] disgusting thing he'd ever read was he I know if that was him or or Orville that said that but he he refused to do it but but everyone else was on board extraordinary I know I still don't know how that happened really it's baffling remember in the brown jacket so your timer XFM is often seen as being soft the beginning of the podcast era yeah and helping sort of pioneer this new sort of resurgence of radio maybe in a new form of entertainment are you proud of that sort of cultural legacy did you have anything anywhere that size in mind when you start out well I it's funny you know as you walk around the Union you see those pictures of you know pioneers in various fields like um you know Einstein and Malcolm X and we got karl Pilkington to talk about eating penises you know when he's in the jungle so yes a pioneer in every but I didn't know what a podcast was and and Ricky suggested there's this new thing where you know you download it straight to your iPod at the time whatever okay I've no idea and we started doing them and and then it was fun because you had none of the restrictions of radio it's obviously with radio is still restricted in what you can say within reason with a podcast at the time you had gloves off you could say anything and and it just suddenly we were in the Guinness Book of Records for the number of donors I mean that's because there was literally no one else doing it so it's easy to win a road record when no one else is doing it but um but now as a pot as a keen podcast fan I love it I'm very proud that we were sort of that we were kind of ahead of the curve on that and it's funny I've done people's podcasts since and they've talked about ours as being kind of instructive and informative for them and I've met people you know I was in Vietnam I met people listening to the podcast and people all over the world because there's sort of something is a great democratization with that you can just download it from there anywhere in the world and listen and and and that's I think one of the most exciting things about media now that there are since when I began is that it's just it's kind of wide open it's like an international field do you know if you want to do a podcast about you know I don't know that the nerdiest weirdest I mean I just did one recently that David with your hosts that oh there is only about David Bowie that's all they talk about just Dave about it from weeks hours at a time of just just Dave about it and there's people listening you know because there's enough fans and I think that sort of extraordinary and it's a bit like in the way that the internet seems to have opened up every possible sexual perversion that anyone want like whatever crazy perversion I want addresses and know why I do right yeah there's four million other people that want to do the same things not I've googled not known you know I mean you can just reach out you can find kind of almost anyone that's interested in what you're interested in thanks to the the web and so yeah I love podcast I'm proud that we were part of it the member in the aisle so I've so I've earned up if you're gonna talk to me okay I watched the American version of The Office and its influence on me has largely been that I now you know imagine hell as being stuck in the universe of that show yeah but so you said that you that the success of your original show was rather unexpected so I'm just wondering sort of in retrospect what do you think made the show so successful well I think um we discover you know about 50% of this country works in an office apparently and I'm sure that's true of most of sort of you know the sort of industrialized world and and so therefore I think that that immediately there's something relatable about just that as a working environment and then I think um we tried to be as authentic as possible we spent a lot of time literally sitting talking about people we'd work with in other offices and it seemed to us there was always this sort of guy who you know at the time wore his mobile phone on his belt and always had his laminated security pass and was a real kind of jobsworth you know across the t's dot the i's type and we knew we needed someone like that and we there was the boss who wanted to be a friend but was also the boss and was trying too hard and we both worked in places where those people existed and the guy that's just trying to get through the days you know and perhaps didn't really want that job but it's just sort of wound up there and um and then you know it just turned out that those people are in every country and started in America but they we did a French version and a french-canadian version of an Israeli version in a there's a South American version in and I think that I'm not joking that the Germans did a version without asking permission not like the Germans to take something without asking but um but anyway forgiven forget but but yes so it clearly there was something that was that was very relatable you know and even though you could change it for sort of regional specifics that the core of it I guess was relatable you know but again I you know I think if we'd sat out to do that we'd have never achieved it remember in the front row in the beauty shop thanks for coming one of my favorite parts or several parts in an Idiot Abroad is when you guys push Karl seemingly over the limit of having him stay places that he genuinely looks unhappy or the whole bungee-jumping skit how much of that is real and how much did he know was coming when he signed up to it I think in the first series he did not know what was coming ever and he was genuinely alarmed and there's a lot on the cutting room floor of him just just angry not entertaining for anybody it's just him I think by the second series in order to persuade him to go we didn't tell in the specifics but we would give hints just because he just refused to go otherwise but normally the limits if we were pushing into the limits that was not him playing acting that was him almost sort of trying to negotiate with the producers you know as to exactly I mean the bungee jumping you know I mean we wanted him to do the full bungee jump and he refused and he does some tiny little and I forget if he does it doesn't he just jump off like a from like a foot you jump jumps from there to there he was pathetic and so now and then he goes ultimately he and he's doing his own stuff now because he doesn't want to share the money with us or sensibly be tortured without him knowing because that's the thing you know once you make someone a celebrity they then have a lot of power and they can turn around and go now why on earth would I eat a sheep's penis in the jungle you know so but no but it's not it's not him it's not him - turning it on for the cameras really it's not it's not manufactured in that way yeah yeah remember in the flu shot hi there so as a gamer I'm a really big fan of your performances Wheatley in Portal 2 thank you and so I was curious whether what was your experience like working with a big name like valve and did it encourage you to work further in the gaming industry well I did this voice for this video game called portal 2 which I had no idea about portal or portal 1 or any of that stuff having given up gaming just after University I think in university I'm a good deal gamer now because I think afterwards when you do a real job you don't have quite as much time to game as I've discovered so I kind of stopped doing it unfortunate because I just at the time but um so I by the time I got to do it I'd sort of you know cuz I was really into games for a while but I just I didn't know what's going on anymore and then they said that this had been a big game would you like to do it whatever it go that I liked video games that seemed like a fun thing to do and what I hadn't anticipated is that when you do a video game you you you don't just do the voice for every for just the route through the game you have to do every possible Avenue that the gamer like you might take let's assume you're a terrible gamer and that half the time you're just like you know walking into a wall and you don't know how to sort of turn him around then I have to do all the voice Bert you're walking into a wall you dig what you're doing turn around nob you know just have to do that for every possible idiot thing that you might do playing a game you know do your studies you lose there or whatever it might be and and so it was exhausting it was crazy because you just went on four days of just every possible route but but the freedom on the flip of that was that they were very open to just letting me kind of ad-lib and play around and sort of insult the player and things and and afterwards it turned out it was really good fun and there are people that because of great thing about video games they sort of sit there and some of them just you know are getting people are discovering them all the time and playing them all the time bit like podcasts and so I still get you know people all the time sending me pictures of the game or knitting me little little dolls of Wheatley and and it's wonderful because I sort of I'd forgotten just how vast the gaming community is and sort of if you're not playing it all the time you kind of it slightly slips off your radar and you know famously the gaming industry is it's it's a much bigger industry than the film or TV industry and it's a billion dollar industry and you realize it's just this again a swathe of fans all over the world who for whom you know and they've sort of spend I don't know how long it took you to play that game but I would imagine it's you know it's a couple of days or whatever I don't know and so you're just there it's just you talking to them you become like a friend so it's great I would happily do it again I haven't been asked to do again but but it was good yeah and that's the thing is I kind of like you know it's times gone on and opportunities have arisen I I'm I just like kind of like to follow the opportunities that come and I would never thought about video games but he came along and it was and it was something that was fun to do and it's funny like when I was younger and I would look at people's career it's like John Cleese and I think you know why did they do that and why did they choose them what a weird what and then you realize it's just sometimes fun things come along or you try something it doesn't work or whatever you know that it's very few people that can have a master plan of of kind of what their career is going to be dated the member in the floral shop hey thank you I had a question actually about this to humor that you have because in the shows and in the podcast love the humor revolves around physical appearance whether it's Carl's head or in the office with the augment stare so how did that arise was that something that you just found to be effective and then how do you not take it personally when it like does it ever go too far yes yes well I guess you know what the world reasons I got into comedy was I remember you know at school feeling I mean I was six-foot-seven by a young age you know and so I was I was talking to some guys before about how I used to really enjoy dancing in kind of clubs and pubs and places with other people you know not just not just get out dance and and I remember I say to these guys like you know I was dancing once I you know because I got the moves they come on and and I caught my reflection in a mirror dance for a wall and I realized that I was about two feet taller than everybody else dancing and I suddenly really self-conscious as I looked like um like a substitute teacher you know at the school disco who's there to something you know it's just it was really weird and I just I became pretty self-conscious about that and I think um when you are very tall than if you've got glasses or whatever or you I don't know you when you're a teenager you know you have those those insecurities and and I remember someone saying to me once in an interview do you think you use humor to control when people laugh at you and right that might be true that might be just a fancy way of saying it but I think there's some truth in that and I think because I always sort of felt a little bit awkward in that way it seemed natural to make fun of the way I looked or the height or whatever sort of before anyone else did and then as we moved into working with other people you know certainly when I met Ricky he was short and fat and in my mind old in actual fact he was younger than I am now but there we are and you know Karl obviously does have a head like a [ __ ] orange so you mean you use what you can have plus also just sort of physicality is some you know using your body particularly if your toy no I think just it it's fun I tried to do that in this American show I did how the ladies would have just used the physicality of you know like this whole sequence where I was outside a club and they wouldn't let me in and they were talking about the kind of that red velvet rope they have to let you in and out and obviously for me I can just step over it really easily and I was just playing with that harlot because it's sort of absurd that this barrier I'm in and I'm out you know and just so that's that's always a joy to do I mean I don't I don't I think we've very we've never picked on someone's physically that they didn't give us permission to to joke about you know I mean so we don't spring it on anyone so if there was any jokes in in any of the shows we did that the people were always on board with that because yes he is a hurtful if summons that's the terrible thing is that I can joke about my height and I've given permission to Ricky in car but if anyone else makes a joke I'm furious you know I mean just you know and again the weird thing about height is people it's seen as an achievement you know [ __ ] you know you're tall you like you prick like I'm supposed to go well thank you sir I appreciate and so um and so yeah it was not a day goes by when someone doesn't kind of mention it or talk about it and so I figured like you know what I can't pretend it's not a thing I think what was more insulting was when they asked me to do Logan they say would you like to be in a superhero movie and I'm like bigger than the gym finally the calls come and I've you've not seen the film I play a giant albino or Albee no mutant with you know terrible skin a shaved pale head freakishly tall weird eyes I mean it was it was typecasting and so yeah I mean I think the only reason I got that role is there's not a lot of six-foot-seven freaks in Hollywood you could save them a fortune on the prosthetics or CGI it's just annoying I didn't get to do Gollum I could have been absolute shoo-in for Gollum the precious or whatever I don't see yeah remember in the communist Thanks I wondered how your relationship with Ricky has changed over the years too many now he's seen as kind of a slightly different persona at least publicly right now than he used to be well i'm i don't know i mean i think the the disparity between kind of Ricky's public image and his real image is one that because when you do stand up you and comedy you you sort of blur that line because you use your name but you're magnifying or exaggerating or taking positions on things you know I mean even someone as seemingly safe as Michael McIntyre I'm sure he's not as furious about you know airports as he's pretending to be you know he's probably getting by like most of us in an airport pretty easily it's just that you know he'll magnify his frustrations for a comic effect and certainly Ricky does that and I think in the age of social media he does that even more I think he'd like he's always liked sort of provoking he's always had a kind of sort of punk rock edge to him even from when I when we were first working together that idea of sort of you know there's a famous interview with the Sex Pistols you know where they kind of are on this bill Grundy TV show and kind of you know causing trouble and I think this is a little part of Ricky that likes that that like it's kind of prodding and getting a reaction which I don't really have in the same way I think I've always quite liked the idea of just slipping on I'm just I'm here I'm just gonna sneak out the back guys you know and so I think probably just as he's got more well known you know that sort of has come to the fore and he's sort of he's indulged that more but I think you know when you work with him or you know him I mean he sort of is it's just you know he's hard-working and he's very reflective and he's very thoughtful he doesn't you know he's not he's not that person that he's not that it's not his ship if you know what I mean so um you know I don't know I mean it's hard it's yeah I I've not done a sort of enough of an analysis to say but certainly I used to joke with him I used to say you know Rick someone asked me if celebrity has changed you and I told them know you've always been a [ __ ] but that stemmed more from the fact that he had very difficult eating habits he just would he was he's got that appetite of a child and so we would just spend hours of writing time wandering around looking for you know baked beans on toast or fish fingers fish fingers are quite hard to find sometimes in in North London for lunch so that was my main objection to him and when I first knew him he was very consuming he was very lazy which has changed the memory in the blue t-shirt very hi Steve big fan especially your ex femme work building on the previous question I was wondering if you would still consider working with Ricky or possibly Carl and feature I would do yeah absolutely yes there's not there's no there's no reason not to I think I think certainly with the radio stuff of the podcasts we just you know we did a lot of hours of that in the end I mean I wouldn't want to talk them up but you know we did the radio show every week for you know that's 2 or 3 hours at a time and we did that for quite a few years on and off we did a lot of the podcasts and that's a lot of time speaking in a room with each other and you just at some point you start to feel like you're going over the ground you know and even as someone as rich and genie in a lamp as as Carl there's only so many times you can go back to that well without it starting to feel like you know overkill but yeah if I mean we used to push what we should try to get Carl to do tour torrents you know like university tours and three of us would sit and you know we knew you guys could ask him questions and we never we never do it he was always fearful of going out on the road or and so that was a bit of a missed opportunity because that would have been fun and maybe that's how we could still do in the future that Beefalo thing what about a TV show or a film with ricky yeah possibly i mean i think i think a lot of it comes to me comes down in part because we're sort of in different parts of the world a lot i spend a lot of time in LA and he's in London or in New York and also I think you know we work together again sort of pretty cheap by channel for over ten years and I think it's just that feeling of slightly kind of having different of being pulled in different directions clearly you know sort of I feel like you know like you're saying with the drama I could have weren't interested in that and not that he's not but I think generally he wants to perform in the stuff he does and I feel like I'm quite happy to from neither of us to perform and to let other people perform and I think it's just not quite something he's interested in and because I think a lot of Ricky's humor is about him putting it across and him presenting it which is why he's so good at stand-up whereas I'm kind of more interested I think a little bit more in their sort of nuts and bolts of making stuff and and I think also he's quite he likes to just get stuff done you know he just he's impatient he likes to just do it whereas I kind of are happily spend months years kind of grinding it out you know so I think if the right idea was there I'll be good to do something but at the moment there's nothing on the horizon okay I mean we have time for about two more questions so would you like to make the last tip I just down I'd I'd hate to upset someone please know you can do a great job can I remember in the Navy jumper are there any British comedies that you particularly enjoy at the moment British comedies I enjoy at the moment well I don't watch a lot of stuff only because I always feel like I'm gonna get jealous if it's really good you know I genuinely do like I like hum what's that I forget its name as it called them people that don't do nothing or a people only do nothing nor is that what's it called you know the one I mean what's it cool people don't do nothing yeah which i think is great a camera or its name but I love it I think it's really funny I just I know there's loads of great stuff people keep raving about I just haven't I just don't watch anything weirdly I watch a lot more and I don't know I think maybe with comedy I just feel it either I'm gonna be jealous because it's so good or I'm gonna be there sort of thinking I would've done it like there and you know the mean so no I just nobody knows I don't know what's going on it was a comedy I haven't heard this I've just seen clips of it and it looks terrific it looks brilliant yeah I saw a great thing with someone trying to put a wheelbarrow of rubbish in it you know skip from that show that was absolutely hysterical where he's somehow is he somehow is that his legs end up on the to plank I forgot it's but it's brilliant google it geez I'm not even screaming but that looked great that looks really good look brilliant it's just weird sort of you know with things like that when people mention it to me they say oh you know they've obviously been inspired by the office you just think that's so weird that you know we're the sort of granddad's of comedy now you know in I mean it's just so depressing but ya know otherwise I don't really see much I feel bad I thanks for coming um I think that one of the highlights of extras was your relationship with Barry and I was just wondering how that came about and how you kept him Barry from EastEnders of everyone yeah you know I cannot remember how an earth that came about why on earth did we think we could take a night to have been in EastEnders and say you're gonna be in our show you're gonna get no work we're gonna just portray you as a complete loser and I will be your agent and I'm gonna pretend I don't even remember your real name I can't I mean I that's what how on earth did we suggest that to him I can't remember whether had he met him somewhere I can't remember but um clearly he agreed to do it and he is Shawn Williams that he's an absolute joy that man he's just he's he's the nicest man in the world and he does nothing you can say to him that he won't do you know Shawn you're gonna get caught ranking over a nudie pen yeah sure I'll see you Tuesday and in fact recently he got married he got married again and and so I sent him a video that I did as my agent character just wishing him well for his wedding but saying about how I'm furious I'm being in what I've heard you're doing a wedding I don't know much you getting paid but I should be getting a cut of that you know and then it was great I'm really pleased he's amazing he's great and that's what I mean it's just to so many people that means people we've worked with that I just I could you know we could write whole series just for them you know because they're so they're so talented there's such a roster of talent in this country it's amazing but how on earth we persuaded him to do it I have no idea Dean Dean Gotham I'm calling Dean Gaffney you're gonna be again we're gonna say you're a loser you can't get any work you're working in The Carphone Warehouse yeah fine nobody I think that's all we have time for for today but could everyone please join me in thanking Steven for such you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 550,991

Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, debate, debating, The Oxford Union, Oxford University

Id: 6Vn6ecRR8LE

Length: 63min 2sec (3782 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Jameis_3]

53:13 onwards for some chat about Ricky and potentially working with him in the future. Fairly positive stuff, definitely doesn't sound like they've fallen out, just very much gone their separate ways as of recent.

[u/drbeansy]

He got his dream of speaking to adults rather than 8 year olds in Bristol! No need to brag about Beyoncé

[u/astave56]

Really good, thoughtful stuff from Smerch.

[u/whats_wrong_with_it]

When he did the "time is fast approaching" joke it made my day. Have any of noticed that they still take material from those old xfm and podcast shows? Both Ricky and Steve have used them in stand up and if imagine Karl will have a few Easter eggs relating to ye xfm days in sick of it.

[u/dametupata]

Good answer about Gervais and Karl

Hope for a reunion one day. But really when you think about it, they were at their absolute funniest together (IMO) on XFM and that was mainly in the the early 2000’s. It’s crazy that it was over fifteen years ago, soon it’ll be two decades ago

[u/[deleted]]

This was brilliant! Lots of mentions of Ricky and Karl and throwbacks to the classic RSK days, even saying he'd consider working with Ricky and Karl again in the future.

Ricky barely mentioned Steve or Karl when he did this. It just reinforces the suspicion that Ricky must be holding a grudge about something that happened in the past. So frustrating.

Also, so glad he mentioned People Just Do Nothing, I love that show and it was clearly inspired by The Office.

[u/ConMerchant]

They're all looking so old...