Just to explain very briefly what's happening.
I don't know if you're familiar with Extras,
but at the end of the last series, Andy Millman, the character I play,
he got a chance to make a sitcom, okay? So this is when we first see the sitcom.
This series starts with the sitcom happening and it's not how he planned.
People have interfered, it's become very broad and childish,
and it's... It's just very, very bad.
# Tick tock, alarm clock I'm gonna be late
# Porridge, toast, kids, car Bloody school gate
# Factory floor, what a chore Another week's graft
- # And 50 times a day I hear - RAY: Are you having a laugh?
# Whatever happened to my dreams? Is this the life I chose?
# The highlight of my ruddy day is when the whistle blows
# When the whistle blows #
It wasn't that we were necessarily saying that anyone who does broad comedy
or knock-about comedy is bad, it was that, "Don't do it if that's not what you wanna do."
If you wanna be a person of grand ambitions and integrity, as Andy wants to,
then don't compromise because you'll find it painful.
You can either carry on and record this show as we've already planned,
or you can burn all your bridges with the BBC and you can go back to being an extra
and then you can work your way back up again from nothing.
What do you want to do?
GERVAIS: Andy does want to be famous, really,
because he's tired of scrabbling around and getting, you know, scraps from the table.
And he's stood at a crossroads
when he even accepted to do a show that he knew he probably wouldn't be proud of.
And I suppose the whole series,
if it's got a message, is sort of "be careful what you wish for".
I'm sure when everybody heard that Extras was going to be
the Gervais-Merchant next project, they were worried that it would be
a kind of in-joke about acting, and that it was only for other actors
or people who thought they were hip to what acting was about and film sets were about.
But it isn't. It somehow takes the side of those
who attentively, intelligently and ironically and any other adverb-ly
watch film and television, and sort of is on their side.
He's our man inside, although he is a professional as well.
It's very hard to explain quite what the appeal of it is.
Shaun, on EastEnders, they started to turn his character into a joke
and he walked away at the top of his game. That's called integrity.
Okay, it doesn't matter what happens to him now 'cause he's got his dignity.
People are fascinated by fame and chasing fame,
being famous, having been famous.
And so to us, it seems like it's as valid a subject
as, you know, class used to be in '70s sitcoms.
It is a comedy and it's extremely funny, but it does open up all these questions
about what on earth we do, what relationship we have forged with television, with actors,
with drama itself, with celebrity,
with the whole nature of the thing that most human beings in this country
spend far too much time doing, which is sitting and watching television.
I do a huge amount of it.
One should remember Noel Coward,
who was asked once whether he saw a television programme.
He said, "Television is not for watching, it is for being on."
The first day I left the set and went home in the car,
I don't think I'd felt that confused for quite a long time.
I've been without a man so long, I think I'd say yes if Ray asked me out.
- My ears are burning. - Maybe I can last a few more years.
I didn't actually know what I'd done at all. 'Cause there I am, I'm in a sitcom
that Liza's agreed to be in 'cause she thinks it's a good vehicle for her,
and here I am talking about myself as somebody else as well.
That's sort of a bit marshmallow-head.
Well, Rita, I know you've had your problems, but I want you to know this.
- The door to my office is always open. - Thank you, Mr Stokes.
Yeah, I think it's the bloody hinges. Get off your arse and fix it, will you?
The sitcom's crap. Only, it's my vehicle.
And somewhere, I think I felt in my marrow, I felt a bit sort of let down.
A bit sad that I'd said yes to that. A bit desperate.
I genuinely am fond of When The Whistle Blows.
It does make me laugh, and Ray makes me laugh.
- My ears are burning. - I think I can last a few more years.
Morning, campers.
Andy is the straight man. And as important as Andy Millman is in the show,
it's not as much fun doing Andy, a normal man, who's surrounded by idiots,
as suddenly going...
(COMICAL NOISES)
(HIGH-PITCHED GIGGLE)
Oh, Mr Stokes. Will you be nice to her?
And you feel guilty 'cause you think, "Well, this is easy."
Anyone can put on a wig and funny glasses and go...
But then you see how far you can go.
GOBBLER: I don't get it. RITA: Neither does his wife.
Oh, you...
(LAUGHING) I'm sorry!
- MERCHANT: How was that toned down? - (LAUGHING) I don't... I don't...
This is what I can't resist. This is the move I can't resist.
I just, I don't know...
We even thought of doing one whole episode where, almost certainly,
I would also play my sister.
- Definitely would play his sister. - Split-screen.
Close-up on a completely different... A woman's hand.
"Can't believe it. What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"
And just being exactly the same character, but she'd have a slightly different wig,
and glasses that went up like that.
"Oh, bloody hell, it's my sister. I haven't seen her for years."
"Hello, Raymond." "Oh, bloody hell!"
Are you having a laugh? Is he having a laugh?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Bizarre thing is that people started shouting that catchphrase
- at me in the street. - That is bizarre.
You're having a laugh.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
We were trying to say that it was quite simple
to have come up with this particular catchphrase,
and people were shouting it without irony.
Are you having a laugh?
(GIGGLING)
- Good catchphrase. It's brilliant. -It is good, yeah.
(CHUCKLING)
Obviously, the main star of the first episode is Orlando Bloom.
- Oh, no, I don't believe it. - What is it?
Just Top 5 Sexiest Film Stars, for God's sake.
- Are you in it? - Number one.
We had this nice storyline about the idea that Ashley, who's always looking for a guy,
suddenly, for some bizarre reason, doesn't find Orlando attractive.
Come out for a coffee with me, you know. Come on.
Just get to know me, get to know the normal me,
take a better look and, you know, see the attractiveness.
But I don't think you are.
And then we got Orlando, and we were working with him,
and then we thought, "Oh, my God."
At the end of episode 6, series one, she takes down a poster of Orlando Bloom.
- We thought, "What's the chances of that?" - That doesn't make any sense.
So she would like him. And we thought, "No one will remember."
We were hoping that they'd think it was Johnny Depp if they remembered at all.
Keith's on his way.
- Keith? - Keith Chegwin.
Keith Chegwin? Can he act? He's a TV presenter, isn't he?
I think, for us,
the person who really stole that first episode was Cheggers, Keith Chegwin.
- Amazing. - Because that was such a big ask of him.
When I got the script through, I thought, "Oh, God. I'm really worried about this."
'Cause I read the first bit, and it was me, you know, being an idiot.
Then I read the second bit, it was me having a go at Jews and queers.
Then I read the third bit, which I'm having a go at black people.
I thought, "I'll blow it. I may as well kill my career in one go."
Men have knobs,
women have fannies.
Pop knob in fanny,
not up the arse.
- People forget that he was an actor. - Yeah.
He was a child actor, but he was also, amazingly,
in Roman Polanski's version of Macbeth, bizarrely.
And then, obviously, went on to do Cheggers Plays Pop.
And so I think people had forgotten that he was once an actor,
and I think we were also surprised at how good an actor he was.
And put it this way, if God had wanted a cock up an arse,
he wouldn't have given us minges.
The truth is, if you're not happy, I'm right behind you.
- Right. - And I've got the perfect replacement.
- For what? - For you, for your character. It's only Barry.
(ANDY SIGHING)
- All right, Shaun? - He's all set, knows all the lines.
When I first got the call to do Extras, I was never in any doubt that I'd do it
'cause I'd always wanted to work with Ricky and Steve anyway,
'cause I was a huge fan of The Office, but...
It's always worrying going back, 'cause I'm playing Shaun Williamson,
but I'm also playing Barry. And after three years out of the soap,
you know, you're always trying to shake off your soap character.
And I think this is about the only thing that would've tempted me
to go back to be "Barry", as it were.
I remember when we were writing the first series, we always had this idea
that whenever Andy came in to see his agent,
there'd be a person sat outside the agent's office, desperate for work.
- Yes? - Oh! You all right?
- Is he in? - Yes.
And I think, straightaway, the first thought was Shaun Williamson.
Barry from EastEnders.
I can't remember there ever being another option on the table.
No, I remember why. We found it funny that people refer to him as "Barry".
- Yeah. - Even the press.
They'd say, "Barry from EastEnders."
Or Shaun "Barry from EastEnders" Williamson.
Exactly, yeah. And we thought, "I wonder if that bugs him?"
Do you remember this guy? It's only Barry off EastEnders.
- Hello. - Oh, yeah.
He said, "That's exactly true."
He's been in meetings with people, with executives,
that have said, shake his hand and said, "Well, great to see you, Barry."
And he hasn't said anything. So we thought, "Well, this is great."
The thing about Barry is, and I've noticed this, right,
people will laugh at him, they never laugh with him. It's extraordinary.
Look at that face.
There's a sort of undercurrent of tragedy to it, isn't there?
The dynamic between the agent and Barry just seemed so much fun
that it seemed mad not to sort of beef up their roles a bit in the second series.
When the scripts were actually delivered, I couldn't believe it.
I flicked through episode 1,
and I was already in episode 1 more than I was for the entire first series.
And then it just got better and better the more I read,
so I was over the moon with that. It was wonderful.
I have so much fun doing scenes with Shaun.
I just think he's a genuinely great comic performer.
I mean, he's inventive, he's warm, he'll just come up with little ideas,
just little tiny little subtle touches which really amuse us.
I was quite overawed, I think, the first series,
and didn't put as much of myself in it as I'd have liked.
But this time I'm getting a bit braver, and just experimenting a bit more
'cause I know I won't get shouted at now.
For instance, I'm having to feed him some cake at one point,
and as he leans in to take a bite of the cake,
- he just said, "Hello." - Hello.
- Here's a lovely bit of muffin, mate. Try some. - Hello.
Hello!
(LAUGHING)
Hello!
- Hello. Hello to the cake. - Just said "hello" to the cake.
So suddenly now, it's this entity.
He's personified it, that it can understand him.
- It's mutual. - Yeah.
He's thinking, "The cake knows I love it, I love the cake."
And we just couldn't... And then he upped it.
- That's lovely. Try some. - Ooh, hello, you.
(GERVAIS LAUGHING)
You swine!
-"Hello, you." Really sexy, to a muffin. - Yeah, yeah.
- Try some of that. - Hello, you.
(GERVAIS LAUGHING)
- Lovely bit of muffin, try some of that. - Oh, hello, you. Sorry, sorry.
- Go on. Lovely. - Why's he eating it like that?
Yeah, why are you eating it like that?
Me hands, I've been cleaning out the toilet.
- Mmm. - Mmm.
Why is he eating it like that?
Why's he eating it like that?
Me hands, I've just been cleaning out the toilet...