| Caption | Gervais at the 2007 BAFTAs |
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| Birth name | Ricky Dene Gervais |
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| Birth date | June 25, 1961 |
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| Birth place | Reading, England |
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| Medium | Stand-up, television, film, music, books, radio, podcast |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Genre | Observational comedy, Improvisational comedy, Cringe humor |
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| Subject | British culture, American culture, everyday life, self-deprecation, obesity, body image, race relations, relationships, current events, religion |
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| Influences | Garry Shandling, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Louis C.K., Woody Allen |
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| Active | 1983–present |
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| Domesticpartner | Jane Fallon(1982–present) |
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| Notable work | David Brent in The OfficeAndy Millman in ExtrasHimself in The Ricky Gervais ShowDr. Bertram Pincus in Ghost TownDr. McPhee in Night at the Museum |
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| Website | http://www.rickygervais.com/}} |
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Ricky Dene Gervais (; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician and writer.
Gervais achieved mainstream fame with his television series The Office and the subsequent series Extras, both of which he co-wrote and co-directed with friend and frequent collaborator Stephen Merchant. Besides writing and directing the shows, Gervais played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. Gervais has starred in a number of Hollywood films, assuming leading roles in Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying. Gervais has performed on four sell-out stand-up comedy tours, written the best-selling Flanimals book series and starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the most downloaded podcast in the world as of March 2009, The Ricky Gervais Show.
He has won a multitude of awards and honours, including seven BAFTA Awards, two British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, one Golden Globe Award and the 2006 Rose d'Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.
In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic. In 2010, he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. Gervais hosted the 2010 Golden Globe Awards and has been signed by NBC to host the 2011 Globes as well.
Early life
Gervais, along with siblings Larry (born 1945), Marsha (born 1948), and Bob (born 1950), was born and raised in the suburb of
Whitley in
Reading, Berkshire. Gervais's father, Lawrence Raymond 'Jerry' Gervais (1919–2002), a
Franco-Ontarian, emigrated while on foreign duty during the
Second World War from
London, Ontario, Canada. Jerry met Gervais's mother, Eva Sophia M. (née House; 1925–2000), during a
blackout, and they settled in Whitley. She died aged 74 of
lung cancer.
During Xfm London's The Ricky Gervais Show and in further newspaper interviews with The Independent, Gervais noted that he believes his birth was unplanned due to the age difference between his youngest sibling and himself. During one interview with The Independent, Gervais tells the author that even his mother admitted his birth was unplanned. He has claimed that his father was "drunk when he filled in the birth certificate", leading to the unusual spelling of his middle name.
Gervais has stated that his upbringing and childhood were stable and trauma-free, with a high level of honesty and openness between his family members. He claims that his family, "much like The Waltons", made fun of each other regularly.
Gervais attended Whitley Park Infants and Junior Schools and received his secondary education at Ashmead Comprehensive School, before moving on to University College London in 1979. He arrived to study biology but changed to philosophy after only two weeks and earned degree in the subject. During his first and second years at UCL he stayed at Canterbury Hall, one of the University of London halls of residence in Bloomsbury. It was also during his time at UCL that he met Jane Fallon, with whom he has been in a relationship since 1982.
Career
Music
In his final year as a student at UCL (University College London), in 1983, Gervais and his friend
Bill Macrae formed a
pop duo,
Seona Dancing. They were signed by
London Records, which released two of their singles—"
More to Lose" and "
Bitter Heart". The singles failed to break the top 40—with "More to Lose" charting at number 117 and "Bitter Heart" peaking at 70 in the UK singles charts.
According to the 20 December 2003 Ricky Gervais Show, Gervais later had a band called the Sacred Hearts, which Ian Camfield described as Gervais's Bon Jovi phase.
Radio
Gervais later worked as an
events manager for the
University of London Union (ULU), where he continued working until he took a similar job as "head of speech" at
Xfm London.
Needing an assistant, Gervais interviewed the first person whose curriculum vitae he saw. The CV belonged to Stephen Merchant. During the interview at a local pub, Merchant agreed to do "all the boring stuff" because of his experience in media studies while Gervais "mess[ed] around". In 1998, Gervais was made redundant when the station was taken over by the Capital Radio group.
Gervais was music adviser for the BBC drama This Life, which was being produced by his girlfriend, Jane Fallon. He and Merchant also contributed sketches to BBC Radio 1's The Breezeblock in 1999 and 2000.
After the first series of The Office, Gervais and Merchant returned to Xfm in November 2001 for a Saturday radio show. The show ran intermittently until January 2004 with breaks of 1–3 months between new shows. This was their first time working with Karl Pilkington, who produced the shows and later collaborated with them on their series of podcasts.
Podcast
On 5 December 2005
Guardian Unlimited began offering free weekly podcasts featuring Gervais, Merchant, and Pilkington. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number-one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007
Guinness World Record for the world's most-downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month.
The Guardian's Chris Tryhorn explained the "few gripes" he had with
Extras, "particularly in the second series". "You can forgive Gervais a certain arrogance after the success of
The Office, but..." He remarks on the confused tone of the series, taking in the clash between the broad comedy of characters Barry (
Shaun Williamson) and Darren (
Stephen Merchant), and the apparent parody of this style with
When The Whistle Blows, and "given their total indulgence of Gervais, the BBC is portrayed as interfering, its comedy department run by a rather crudely
stereotyped gay couple".
Gervais guest-starred in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", which aired on 26 March 2006 in the United States, on 23 April 2006 in the United Kingdom, and on 18 July 2006 in Australia. He is the only British comic to write and star in a Simpsons episode. The episode was the highest rated in Sky One's history, arguably because of its extensive promotion, which revolved around the angle that Gervais was the episode's sole writer (and the first guest star on the show to also receive a writing credit for the episode of his appearance). Gervais clarified the extent of his input in a joint interview (with Christopher Guest) for Dazed and Confused magazine (January 2006): "No, all I did was put down a load of observations on an email and they made it look like a Simpsons script. I'm going to get the credit, but I think everyone in the industry knows it was a joint effort". Asked in a separate interview about how his idea for the episode (in which Homer swaps Marge on a game show) came about, Gervais replied:
I've always been fascinated with reality game shows but I think it was my girlfriend's idea. We watch Celebrity Big Brother at the moment, we watch I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here... we watch all those reality TV shows — The Office came out of those docu-soaps".
Gervais, a longstanding
Simpsons fan, presented a segment to mark the show's 20th anniversary on
BBC Two's
The Culture Show on 16 June 2007.
Gervais has also guest-starred on Alias (appearing in the third-season episode "Façade") as Daniel Ryan, a former Royal Navy bomb-disposal specialist turned rogue Irish Republican Army bomb-maker. He has said about the appearance, "I did an episode of Alias, and I can't watch it. Me being serious. I can't watch it".
Gervais made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live in a Digital Short during which he claims that The Office was adapted from a Japanese program of the same name (with Steve Carell reprising his role as Michael Scott). The sketch re-creates scenes from the American and British pilot episode with Japanese elements (although in an exaggerated way). "It's funny", Gervais laughs at the end, "because it's racist".
In January 2009, Gervais was interviewed by James Lipton for Season 15 of BravoTV's Inside the Actors Studio.
In January 2010, Gervais hosted the 67th Golden Globe Awards, making him the first master of ceremonies since 1995. He stated:
"I have resisted many other offers like this, but there are just some things you don't turn down."
His performance as host received a mixed response with positive reviews from the
New York Daily News and
The Associated Press, but also some negative comments from industry bible,
The Hollywood Reporter.
Gervais was a guest judge/panelist on Jerry Seinfeld's NBC show The Marriage Ref alongside Larry David and Madonna.
On 1 April 2010, Gervais made his first appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on NBC.
As of December 2010, he has made 17 guest appearances on The Late Show With David Letterman on the CBS network.
In April 2010 it was announced that Gervais and Stephen Merchant will be writing a new show, called Life's Too Short, which they described as, "A cross between Extras and Curb your Enthusiasm and One Foot in the Grave but with a dwarf. That is out and out funny.” The show will star actor Warwick Davis as himself, as well as Gervais and Merchant.
In June 2010 it was announced that Gervais had been cast in the upcoming Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm playing himself.
The Office
In August 1999, while on a BBC production course, Stephen Merchant had to make his own short film. He chose to make a docu-soap parody, set in an office. This sketch later formed the basis of the
interview episode. With help from
Ash Atalla, Merchant passed this tape on to the BBC's Head of Entertainment
Paul Jackson at the
Edinburgh Fringe, who then passed it on to Head of Comedy
Jon Plowman, who eventually commissioned a full-pilot script from Merchant and Gervais. However the BBC at first misunderstood the true concept of the series. They were keen for the series to have a narration akin to many of the docusoaps that were being screened in the UK at this time. They also favoured a laughter track the like of which Gervais and Merchant despised. To top things off the corporation wished to pack the series with established names:
John Thomson or
Neil Morrissey as
David Brent,
Reece Shearsmith or
Alan Davies as Tim, and as mentioned by Lucy Davis on a DVD extra feature,
Nadia Sawalha as Dawn. Gervais and Merchant balked at all the suggestions, and, inspired by
Sylvester Stallone's determination not to sell the rights to
Rocky without the promise of playing the role himself, Gervais held out to play the role of Brent himself, have total casting control, the narration and laughter track scrapped, and of course he and Merchant would direct every episode themselves.
The first six-episode series of The Office aired in the UK in July and August 2001 to little fanfare or attention. Word-of-mouth, repeats, and DVDs helped spread the word, building up huge momentum and anticipation for the second series, also comprising six episodes, in September 2002. The second series topped the BBC Two ratings, and the show then switched to BBC One in December 2003 for its final two special episodes.
The Office has since been remade for audiences in France, Germany, Quebec, Brazil, and the United States. Gervais and Merchant are producers of the American version, and they also co-wrote the episode "The Convict" for the show's third season. The show is currently airing on Adult Swim on Fridays, and prior to the show's airing, Gervais appears as himself talking about the episode that will air in moments. In one of those segments, Gervais claimed the episode "Training" to be his favourite.
Extras
Extras had its debut on the BBC on 21 July 2005; it received its premiere on HBO in the United States in September 2005. Written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the sitcom ran for twelve episodes and starred Gervais as Andy Millman, a
background artist. Millman is more self-aware and intentionally humorous than Gervais's
The Office character David Brent.
Guest stars on the first series of Extras include Ross Kemp, Les Dennis, Patrick Stewart, Vinnie Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet, and Francesca Martinez. A second series began on 14 September 2006 in the UK and featured appearances by Daniel Radcliffe, Dame Diana Rigg, Orlando Bloom, Sir Ian McKellen, Chris Martin, Keith Chegwin, Robert Lindsay, Warwick Davis, Ronnie Corbett, Stephen Fry, Richard Briers, Patricia Potter, Sophia Myles, Moira Stuart, David Bowie, Kate Winslet, Robert De Niro, and Jonathan Ross.
at Live 8 in July 2005.]]
A Christmas special of Extras aired on 27 December 2007 in the UK and on 16 December 2007 in the US, featuring guest appearances by George Michael, Clive Owen, Gordon Ramsay, Jonathan Ross, and David Tennant.
On 10 June 2006, Gervais and Merchant were seen in a specially filmed promotional sketch for Extras 2 in the middle of BBC One's World Cup football coverage. This time, Gervais did not perform his famous dance. Instead, Merchant did a take-off of the Crouch Dance, recently popularised by England striker Peter Crouch.
Some have suggested that Gervais is influenced by Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Larry Sanders Show in making Extras, particularly in the format of celebrities making fools of themselves or subverting their public personas, and in the Gervais joke of someone making inappropriate remarks in front of a member of a minority. He has interviewed both Larry David and Garry Shandling, creators of these shows, on Ricky Gervais Meets... .
Extras was awarded the Golden Globe award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy on 14 January 2008.
In February 2007, British ventriloquist Keith Harris refused an invitation to appear on the second series of Extras, claiming that Gervais "wanted me to be a racist bigot" and describing the script as "pure filth". When asked about Harris's refusal on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Gervais claimed that Harris simply "didn't get it". Keith Chegwin, who assumed the role offered to Harris, said "the people who didn't get it probably think Johnny Depp really is a pirate."
The Ricky Gervais Show (HBO / Channel 4 Animated Series)
The Ricky Gervais Show is an animated TV show that debuted on US cable network HBO on 19 February 2010. In the UK, the first season began airing on 23 April 2010 on Channel Four. The show was developed using original podcast recordings from The Ricky Gervais Show starring Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. After receiving a loyal and enthusiastic following in the US, Cable channel HBO recommissioned the show for a second season, due to air in 2011.
The original audio show was broadcast in November 2001 on radio station Xfm, and aired in weekly periods for months at a time throughout 2002, 2003, 2004, and mid-2005. In November 2005, Guardian Unlimited offered the show as a podcast series of 12 shows. Throughout January and February 2006, the podcast was consistently ranked the number one podcast in the world; it appeared in the 2007 Guinness World Record for the world's most downloaded podcast, having gained an average of 261,670 downloads per episode during its first month. According to the BBC, by September 2006, the podcasts of the series had been downloaded "nearly 8 million" times.
Stand-up comedy
Gervais made a few attempts at
stand-up in the late 1990s, but his first successful show took place at the Cafe Royal, as part of the
2001 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Titled
Rubbernecker, the show also featured
Jimmy Carr,
Robin Ince, and
Stephen Merchant.
Gervais later toured the UK in 2003 with his stand-up show Animals. The Politics tour followed a year later. Both of these shows were recorded for release on DVD and television broadcast. The third part of the themed live trilogy, Fame, took place in 2007. It started in Glasgow in January and ended in Sheffield in April. Blackpool reported selling out of tickets within 45 minutes of them going on sale. More dates were added.
Newsnight Review's panel saw Animals during its Bloomsbury run and covered it in January 2003. They were not favourable, with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop being the most explicit in his criticism. After this, Gervais closed each show by calling Hislop an "ugly little pug-faced cunt". Further coverage on Newsnight Review has been overwhelmingly favourable, with the panelists playing themselves in promos for the second series of Extras. Panel regulars Germaine Greer, Mark Kermode, and Mark Lawson also appeared as themselves reviewing When The Whistle Blows in a series episode. Critic Mark Lawson is a great admirer of Gervais and Merchant, having interviewed them extensively for television, print Front Row, and the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Fame was the subject of some controversy in January 2007, when Gervais told a story, ostensibly about how people will do anything to become famous, to a Scottish audience. The story referred to a question asked of Gervais five years earlier by a reporter: what could someone do to become famous like you? To which he replied, "Go out and kill a prostitute". He followed up with the punchline, "I won't do that bit in Ipswich", referring to the December 2006 murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich. The joke drew criticism from the father of victim Tania Nicol: "These days, they want to make a joke out of anything. I feel he’s just being uncaring, quite honestly". Gervais defended himself: "I do want people to know that that happened five years ago and is not related to anything now. That is the problem with comedy, a joke that is funny today can be a terrible faux pas tomorrow".
He has performed stand-up in the U.S. three times—he performed two warm-up shows at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center and headlined David Bowie's High Line Festival in May 2007.
Gervais's latest show is entitled Science, with an eleven date tour that commenced in August 2009 at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow.
The DVD for this show was released on 15 November 2010.
In November 2009, he headlined the sixth annual New York Comedy Festival at Carnegie Hall, New York.
On the This Morning show Gervais revealed that he had already began writing his fifth stand up routine and is titled People.
DVD releases
Books
Flanimals
Gervais released a children's book in 2004,
Flanimals (illustrated by his friend Rob Steen), which depicted nonsense animals. After the success of this book, he released its sequel
More Flanimals in 2005, with
Flanimals of the Deep coming the next year. A new Flanimals book,
Day of the Bletching, was released in October 2007.
Flanimals: Pop Up is to be published later this year.
There is a wide range of Flanimals merchandise available, including dolls and gift cards. A six-part Flanimals TV series has been commissioned by ITV, although Gervais had previously claimed signing a Hollywood movie deal so that a franchise could be developed. "That way it stands a chance of being the next Dr. Seuss or Mr. Men".
Other books
The Office scripts have been released in book form, with Series 1 issued in 2002, and the remaining episodes following in 2003.
In late 2006, the Extras script book was released, as well as The World of Karl Pilkington presented by Gervais and Merchant. These were essentially transcripts of Xfm/podcast routines performed by the three.
Film
Gervais's film career has included small roles as the voice of a
pigeon in 2005's
Valiant, as a
studio executive in 2006's
For Your Consideration, as
museum director Dr. McPhee in 2006's
Night at the Museum and its sequel
, and as "Ferdy the Fence" in the 2007 film
Stardust. His role in
Night at the Museum has proven to be one of Gervais's most popular roles, with the movie
grossing $570 million worldwide.
Gervais starred in Ghost Town, which was released on 19 September 2008, and was in Lowell, Massachusetts during May 2008 filming his next project, The Invention of Lying, starring himself, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, and Jason Bateman, with appearances by Louis C.K., Tina Fey, Jeffrey Tambor, Roz Ryan, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Edward Norton. The comedy, released in 2009, was co-written and co-directed by Gervais and Matt Robinson. The film was released in April 2010.
Other appearances
On 2 July 2005, Gervais appeared at the
Live 8 event held in
Hyde Park, London, where he performed his famous dance. He produced a series of short films for the cause, linked acts from the studio with
Jonathan Ross, and also introduced the group
R.E.M..
Gervais also has a role in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, as himself, appearing in his role as a comedian in a comedy club, and as an interviewee on radio station We Know The Truth. For this, a special 3-minute act was written, recorded and fully motion-captured.
Boxing
In 2002, Gervais took part in a
charity boxing match against
entrepreneur Grant Bovey — known largely by the public due to his relationship with TV personality
Anthea Turner. On his Saturday afternoon radio show on
Xfm London Gervais and partners Merchant and Pilkington had discussions on both Gervais's attitude towards boxing and training in general, as well as his likelihood of victory against Bovey. Initially, Merchant had questions as to why Gervais was participating in the event, due to his dislike of slight pain and his inexperience with fitness in general.
In the weeks before the event was scheduled to take place both Merchant and Pilkington voiced their doubts as to his fitness due to illness which he had suffered weeks before the event, humorously, by stating that both they and Gervais's family had written up a petition to the BBC stating "Please do not let this man box."
Gervais was trained for the three-round contest by famous boxing trainer brothers Frank and Eugene Maloney, at their Fight Factory gymnasium. It was the second televised charity boxing match, the first being Bob Mortimer against Les Dennis, for Comic Relief. The fight was televised by the BBC, and Gervais came out on top by a split decision verdict. Gervais later said that the experience was the 'most difficult thing' he had ever done. He donated his £5,000 prize money to the training of a Macmillan nurse.
Concert for Diana and Live Earth
On 1 July 2007, Gervais performed at the
Concert for Diana in
Wembley Stadium, a music event celebrating the life of the late
Princess of Wales. Towards the end of the event — after a pre-recorded introduction from
Ben Stiller - Gervais appeared along with fellow
Office star
Mackenzie Crook. They performed
Freelove Freeway, a song previously heard in the fourth episode of series one of
The Office. Due to a technical problem, Gervais then had to fill time until he was able to re-introduce
Elton John to close the show, so he did the
David Brent dance again, as well as singing the "Little Fat Man" song as performed by
David Bowie in episode two of the second series of
Extras.
On 7 July 2007, Gervais appeared at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London. Gervais introduced Rob Reiner appearing in the guise of spoof film director Marty Di Bergi, who in turn introduced Spinal Tap. At the start of the concert, Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles, who was acting as compère for part of the event, announced that Gervais would be appearing and performing an 'extended 25-minute set', which ultimately failed to happen. It is unclear whether this was meant as a joke, perhaps referring to the time Gervais had to fill at the Concert for Diana the previous Sunday, or if it was simply cut because of time constraints, but in an off-stage segment later Moyles actually expressed disappointment that it had not occurred. Gervais himself however did reference his appearance at the Diana concert the previous week, saying, 'Now listen, we're running late, so I'm gonna be off this stage in 30 seconds, whether Elton John is fucking ready or not,' making him one of a number of people to swear on live TV at the event.
In July 2007, following Gervais's appearance at the memorial concert for Diana, Princess of Wales, The Guardian ran a column by Daily Mirror television critic Jim Shelley entitled "Call Me Crazy... But Has Ricky Gervais Lost It?" The following week, The Guardian noted that Gervais had responded with "an exhilaratingly foul-mouthed tirade" on his website, concluding with the words, "Yes I am resting on my fucking laurels you cunt!" In this video Gervais mocked Jim Shelley typing the words "Resting on his laurels" as Gervais jokingly lashed out by stating he was resting on his laurels and that he was not going to make another show for television, quipping "What's the point? What is there to beat?".
Personal life
Gervais currently lives in
Hampstead, having moved from
Bloomsbury, with his girlfriend of 28 years, producer and screenwriter
Jane Fallon. He says they chose not to legally marry because "there’s no point in us having an actual ceremony before the eyes of God because there is no God" or have children because they "didn’t fancy dedicating 16 years of our lives. And there are too many children, of course".
In August 2008, they bought a second home on the
Upper East Side of
Manhattan in New York City.
Gervais is a fervent supporter of animal rights, and has been a fan of wildlife documentaries since he was a child. He has spoken out against fox hunting and bull fighting, and has even written to Gordon Brown urging him to stop the use of black bear fur as caps for the Foot Guards.
He told Kirsty Young that he is an atheist during a 2007 interview for Desert Island Discs, later stating he lost his faith at age eight, and in June 2008 he became an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In December 2010, he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal defending his lack of faith. He is also a close friend of American comedian Jon Stewart and is a frequent guest on his programme, The Daily Show.
His main friends are fellow The Office and Extras co-writer and co-director and podcaster, Stephen Merchant; fellow The Ricky Gervais Show star, Karl Pilkington; Flanimals' illustrator Rob Steen; and comedian and warm-up act, Robin Ince.
Accolades
Gervais has received many awards for his work on
The Office, most notably two
Golden Globes (one for acting, one for the show itself), as well as numerous
British Academy Television Awards and
British Comedy Awards, amongst others.
Gervais received an honorary award at the annual Rose d'Or ceremony in Switzerland on 29 April 2006. The award is given to "an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the global entertainment business".
On 16 September 2007, Gervais won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role of Andy Millman on Extras.
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Interviews
Time Magazine (2008). Renaissance Man: Ricky Gervais by Joel Stein
The Independent, et al. (2005). Ricky Gervais: My life as a superstar Electronic Version Independent News Media: United Kingdom
The Guardian Newspaper, et al. (2005). "Second Coming" Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007: United Kingdom
External links
in 2004
Ricky Gervais at the Oxonian Society video
Behind the scenes of The Office on BBC
Ricky Gervais's video interview on Big Think
Category:1961 births
Category:Living people
Category:20th-century actors
Category:21st-century actors
Category:20th-century writers
Category:21st-century writers
Category:Alumni of University College London
Category:BAFTA winners (people)
Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (television) winners
Category:British people of French-Canadian descent
Category:English atheists
Category:English comedians
Category:English comedy writers
Category:English film actors
Category:English film directors
Category:English people of Canadian descent
Category:English people of French descent
Category:English podcasters
Category:English radio DJs
Category:English radio personalities
Category:English screenwriters
Category:English television actors
Category:English television directors
Category:English television producers
Category:English television writers
Category:English voice actors
Category:Emmy Award winners
Category:People from Reading, Berkshire
Category:The Office (U.S. TV series)
Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners
