The truth

Today’s guest blogger is, unwittingly, actor/writer/producer/director Ricky Gervais, creator of the TV series “The Office”, and star of the original British version. Mr Gervais was interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio in January, and I watched it last night.

There was a segment of the interview near the beginning that I particularly liked. I hope that neither Mr Gervais nor Bravo will mind my transcribing it here.

James Lipton: You’ve spoken of lessons, valuable lessons learned from your family. Apparently they were very open and very honest.

Ricky Gervais: Absolutely, yeah.

James Lipton: What are the lessons that you learned?

Ricky Gervais: That the truth doesn’t hurt. Whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt.

James Lipton: Really?

Ricky Gervais: It’s better to know the truth. I remember, my mum only lied to me about one thing. She said there was a God. And, um... But that’s because when you’re a working-class mum, Jesus is like an unpaid babysitter.

[laughter]

D’you know what I mean? It’s just sort of like, she wants you to be good. You know, the best a working-class mum where I grew up could... she wasn’t hoping I’d be a doctor or a lawyer, she hoped I wouldn’t be stabbed to death in a barroom fight, you know. So, the best thing to do is, why, if he’s God-fearing, then he’ll be good. Its a good rule of thumb.

Because, you know, I went to Sunday school from about the age of four ’til eight, it was just great teachings of Jesus. I loved Jesus. He was my superhero. He really was. God was magic, right, but Jesus was just a man. And what I loved about Jesus was he was kind. And he was brave. And I thought he was amazing. And I absolutely thought he was brilliant, right, just a brilliant guy, you know.

So I was about eight, and my brother must have been nineteen. He came in once, and I was doing something from the bible, and he said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “Oh, doing Jesus.” And he went, um, “Who’s Jesus?” And I said, “Well, he was the son of God.” He went, “Why d’you believe in God?” And my mum went, “Bob... Shut up!”

[laughter]

And I knew she had something to hide, and he was telling the truth. And I knew, I knew from body language. And then I worked it out, and I was an atheist in an hour.

[laughter]

James Lipton: In an hour?

Ricky Gervais: Yeah. It’s true. I wish there was a God. I wish there was; it would be great. What I’ve heard, he’s brilliant, you know. But I just... I can’t... you can’t believe in something you don’t. Also... if there is a God... why did he make me an atheist?

[laughter]

That was his first mistake. Well... the talking snake was his first mistake, but....

Here’s the video of the segment on YouTube. The part above starts about 4:30 into it.