Ricky Gervais Unleashed: Exclusive Portraits of the Comedy Cringe King

Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais says his character on Derek, about a caretaker at a nursing home, is different than those he's played in the past on The Office and Extras.

"They had ego and they had jealousy problems, and we were laughing at the gap between how they saw themselves and how we saw them," he says. "With Derek, there's no gap. … I've never connected emotionally with a character before like I do with Derek."

Gervais on His Kinder, Gentler 'Derek'

"As you get older, you start realizing that when you're young, the most important thing is being popular," says Gervais. "Then when you hit adolescence, it's being clever. Then it's being funny. And now it's about kindness, and that trumps everything else,"

Gervais on Being a 'Control Freak'

Gervais attempts to defend his "control freak" tendencies that largely have prevented him from working within the studio and network system. "It's not because I think what I do is perfect," he says. "It's because if I didn't do it that way, I wouldn't be doing it at all. Someone else would. It's like getting a model kit, then getting someone else to build it for you. What's the point? I want to make it." Photographed by Austin Hargrave.

On His Friendship With Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld

"They tease me about being poor. They have me in the middle, and they throw money above my head for me to jump up and try to catch." He waits a beat before confessing, through his famed cackle, that that couldn't be further from the truth: "They'd both be horrified to hear I even joked about that." Photographed by Austin Hargrave.

Gervais on Why He Has No Children

"I see people walking around with 12 kids with no shoes. The question should be: Why are they allowed to have children?" Photographed by Austin Hargrave.

Gervais on His First Big Paycheck

Gervais says he creates things because he wants to, not because of the money. "When the first check came through for The Office, it ruined it a bit. I thought, 'I didn't do it for that,'" he notes of his guilt, before snickering, "I got over it." Photographed by Austin Hargrave.

Gervais on Fame

"I didn't want to be lumped into those people who are living their life like an open wound, anything to be famous," he says, as repulsed by the "stars" as he is by the population that props them up. "It's like they see no difference between Kim Kardashian and Robert De Niro. They're people with money on red carpets or on their telly, and they don't distinguish." Photographed by Austin Hargrave.