107 / 121
stack.net.au
well, because I had to acknowledge
that a man would’ve changed in 15
years a little bit. And I decided to
make him just a little bit more broken.
I wanted fame to have broken him a
little bit over the 15 years. I gave him
a nervous laugh. I made him slightly
more honest, because that reflects how
documentaries change as well, because
a documentary is much more intrusive
these days. 15 years ago, you wouldn’t
have talked about a man’s breakdown.
But now documentaries start with it.
You know, things on TV or film, they
start with people at their lowest ebb.
It’s an unwritten contract. It’s like, ‘you
want to be in a documentary? You’d
better give us everything then. You
want to be in
Big Brother
? You better
run around like a maniac and make a
fool of yourself.’ ‘Okay. I promise.’
You know, that’s what happened.
People live their life like an opened
wound to be famous these days.
What’s nice about Brent is we realise
he wasn’t that sort of person, actually.
He’s not the modern person who would
do anything to be famous. He wants to
do something to be famous. He wants
to be a rock star, bless him. It’s really
quite sweet, I think.
I think the most uncomfortable
part of watching David Brent is the
realisation that there’s a little bit of
him in us all.
I think that’s absolutely right, and
it’s the same for everyone. I think you
watch David Brent, and the first time
you watch it you go, ‘Oh my God, what
a prat!’ Thank God I’m not like that.’
Then you realise, actually I’ve done that.
We’re all a bit like Brent, because what
I put into Brent was the things that we
all care about. We all want to be loved,
we all want to be popular, and we all
want to think we’re making a bit of a
difference every day. I just magnified
that and made him desperate for all
those things. And that’s what we see
in him. We see all those things that we
care about.
You always seem to be working on
something. Where do you find your
inspiration? Does it come to you in
the supermarket? Does it come to
you in the middle of the night?
Yeah, you just don’t know. You can’t
help your thoughts. I never sit down
and think what am I going to write
about, what am I going to tell a joke
about? It happens when you’re not
thinking about it. It happens when I’m
going for a job, or I’m on a plane where
I haven’t got my phone. Most of my
day is probably admin. When I do get a
little bit of peace and quiet, I sit down,
I relax, I can have a day off, and in that
day off I go, ‘I’ve just had a great idea.’
It’s fun. I still think of it as fun. I try and
rule out anything that’s not fun. I’m
doing comedy. This should be the best,
most fun job in the world. I try and
make sure it is.
Are you critical of your work? When
you sit back and watch it, do you
think, “I could’ve done that better”?
Yeah. I don’t think I’ve always hated
that, or I wish I could go back and
change it. I think if I did it now, because
I’ve changed, and the world’s changed,
I’d do it differently, because I’ve always
got my own way, so it’s not like I look
back and think, ‘I knew that was wrong,
why did they make me do that?’ At
the time that’s what I wanted to do.
I only think differently now because
I changed, and not because I think I
made a mistake. Hopefully I’m getting
better, so I should look back on my
work and think I could do better now.
Did you write
Life on the Road
in its
entirety?
Yeah. Although the raps – Doc
Brown, who plays Dom, he did the rap,
so they really are his raps in the songs.
And there’s ad-lib of course. You make
up little bits and pieces. I wrote the
4 3 2 1
6 5
continued