Hi, welcome back to sancho*FM. This is a very special episode for two reasons.
This is the one year anniversary of sancho*.
It is also my birthday, which happens to be shared with the great Ricky Gervais, who I had the pleasure of shadowing on the set of After Life.
As you can see, that was exactly how it went down, which wasn’t exactly what I prepared for. I should have expected it, given how Ricky’s a funny man. But being the student that I was, I thought oh work has to be really fucking serious and all. I mean look at my face in that first picture. I swear I was just trying to get a good look at the monitor. This is what I said to the Bucks Free Press.
NFTS Directing Fiction student Shane Lim said: “It was really eye-opening to see how Ricky created an environment conducive for comedy, for example shooting on a multi-camera setup to allow the actors to improvise and for funny moments to unfold organically.
“The cast and crew were having plenty of laughs which encouraged the actors to play and that was when they were at their best. His ability to keep the set atmosphere light, playful but also focused was perhaps the biggest lesson for me.”
I actually wrote that. It reads like a proper quote, doesn’t it? Did I know that we shared birthdays when we met? No, I did not. I wonder how that would have changed things. We might have held hands a little longer, looked into each other’s eyes a little deeper. Maybe say, “soulmates 4eva?” Get married. Have kids. But then life would just be normal again. Or so I thought.
Shortly after finding out that Ricky and I shared birthdays, I decided to have a deeper look into the man. Not literally no stop it. His history. His biography. And that’s when I found this.
Did you know that Ricky Gervais was an actual pop star in the 80s? Did you? I bet you did not. Like an actual pop star. Not quite David Bowie, but almost. I’m not joking. Apparently they were big in Japan, so imagine my absolute joy when I discovered it was not at all a gimmick. Ricky Gervais is the real deal. This THREE TRACK HAIKU is dedicated to the man himself. Enjoy.
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