Stephen Merchant talks Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, and Karl Pilkington superstar

By April MacIntyre Feb 19, 2010, 1:07 GMT

Courtesy of HBO

Stephen Merchant, part of The Ricky Gervais Show cast, concedes that the Mancunian round-headed Karl Pilkington is the main event for the upcoming HBO animated series that takes their podcasts (originally a radio show) and rolls with the inanity.

The series stars Ricky Gervais, the big Kahuna TV and film star, but the series shines on the subtle performances of both Merchant and Pilkington, the latter who began in a lowly position at the radio station, and grew with the show as it hit the right notes for Gervais' funny bone.

It all began with an unemployed radio producer, Pilkington, whose unfiltered bon mots tee up Gervais' incredulous responses and Merchant's more low key questioning, digging further into Karl's world.

Pilkington plays the oddball on The Ricky Gervais Show, a hit podcast.

Conversations about dying and babies being inside you to come out and live again, animal penis eating and other bizarre topics are de rigeur for the Manchester native whose soft accent reveals a less worldly participant in Gervais' social experiment of just having a laugh.

The Ricky Gervais Show is a breakthrough podcast phenomenon, with millions tuning in to hear the ramblings of Karl, and how Gervais and Merchant pick up those ducats and roll with them.  HBO noticed.

The premise for the HBO animated series follows the podcast, as Gervais and Merchant do their best "'hang on a minute" British disbelief act as Pilkington, their former producer at the radio station, shares what's grinding his very slow moving gears.

HBO wisely grabbed the opportunity to monetize the event for Gervais, who lamented at the recent winter press tour for the television critics that he was a "fool" to give the podcasts away for free.

Monsters and Critics caught up with Stephen Merchant and asked him about the series, coming Friday, February 19 on HBO:

Did you realize the audience you had?

Stephen Merchant: Yes, well we were made aware that there was quite a number of sorts of fans of our radio shows and our podcasts who had already taken upon themselves to sort of animate some of their favorite bits.

When did you realize you had comedy gold with Karl Pilkington?  You and Ricky both?

Stephen Merchant:  Almost the moment that he opened his mouth the first time we were working with him. 

And I think we were working on this radio show and he was just he a producer pressing buttons.  And we asked him a question I mean who knows what the question was and the answer was just extraordinary.

I mean completely not what we were expecting.  And over the subsequent weeks we would just – every day out on the show we would ask him just a few more questions.  And we would just bring the stuff out.  And he was never interested, couldn't care less, wasn't trying to be on the radio, wasn't interested in being a star.

But would just come out with stories about families he knew growing up with horses in their living room and he thought it was perfectly acceptable.  Or two people with giant heads and webbed feet who never hung out together because in his words "that would be too obvious."

And you know just would pipe up with questions you know, “Hey, Steve what are those things in the film Gremlins called?”  “Gremlins, Karl.”  And so it would go on again, endlessly, again and again and again.  And it just seemed like a never ending well of stuff.

But then also just his unique approach to the world.  He just sees the world differently and that's magical in him.  He doesn't care.  This is not something that concerns him.  As far as he's concerned it’s a minor part of his life.  He's got important things to do.

He needs to go home, his girlfriend needs him to do the washing up.  He has himself recurring problems with his you know maintenance of his boiler of his house.  He has a lot of repairmen that come around who don't seem to be getting the job done.

Sometimes you'll phone him up and he's just watching ants in the garden or he's watching a wasp slowly die.  This is seems to be what his life involves and this podcasting and stuff is just a distraction – an occasional distraction for him.

How long it took you to approve your own animated version of yourself?

Stephen Merchant:  For some reason we want the animation to be kind of quite simple, quite elegant, quite old-fashioned.  You know we were citing things like Hanna Barbera and the Flintstones.

And you know they've made me look like a kind of lanky, goggle-eyed nerd.  I don’t know why they've gone down that road but there we are.  But if that's what they think will entertain people so be it.

And I'm quite charmed by it.  I think they sort of captured something about us.

What's the creative process you go through?

Stephen Merchant:  Well the thing is that I think it's sort of imperative that people understand when they tune in that these are real conversations.  I mean we recorded them because we thought they might be of interest but they are not planned.  They are not scripted.  The subjects are not discussed beforehand.

Rather like if we did a radio show we would just react to what was in our thoughts that day.  We sit in front of microphones and we start talking like you would a couple of friends in a bar or pub and so that's what we've come up with really.

And certain areas re-occur because certain areas are of particular interest to Karl, chiefly amongst them freaks.  He's obsessed with freaks and I don’t know what the politically correct term is for that.  He just likes to refer to them as freaks.

And I should point out that there is no malice on his part.  You know he is like a child when a child sees something weird on the street he's not being mean.  He's just intrigued because he's a child, he's an idiot.

And that's essentially true of Karl.  You know he's not so-called trying to cause offense.  He just is unfamiliar with things.  He's not familiar with the appropriate ways of talking and behaving in civil society.  He is just a moron.  But not in a medical way you know he's not – he shouldn't be in a home.

But yes so he's – so subjects that will re-occur tend to – he's fascinated by science but has no grasp of it.  Philosophy but he can't get his head around it.  So we try to provoke him with sort of big ideas, as well as, just silly bits of nonsense.

Do you prefer ad-libbing or do you like the scripted work? 

Stephen Merchant:  Personally I like a script but I like to be able to improvise after that if you like.  You know I like there to be some structure if I was doing TV or film or anything. 

One of the good things about doing radio and podcasts and stuff is that there is a sort of – there is a different freedom.  It really is more like having a conversation with a friend.

You're just so less aware of an audience.  You know stand up comedy but I like to hone that.  I like to rework it out.  I'm not terribly comfortable improvising you know completely whereas with something like radio or podcasting or audio books, there is just a different freedom.  You just sort of forget that people might ever listen to it.

Generally speaking, most of the working that we can do comes out of improvisation and we improvise in the room.  You know we improvise and we toss stuff around and then we refine what we've come out up you know.

So there is always a sense of refinement and an editing process that happens.  You know the idea that you could just go on stage let’s say like Robin Williams and just ad-lib for 40 minutes just seems insane to me.