4th July 2016 | for Creatives | reaching your audience, Ricky Gervais, creative freedom, comedy writing |
"The reason I deal in taboo subjects is because it's more exciting, and because I also think that a comedian's job isn't just to make people laugh, it's to make them think. And I think that if you take them through territory they haven't been before, they're quite nervous, but when they come out the other end, 'Wow,' you know, they had the best rollercoaster ride ever because it was a bit scary and they didn't die. And that's the lovely thing, you know? (Laughs.) That's better than a gentle ride that you knew you weren't going to die on, but it wasn't that good either."
"I was used to uniting an audience with humour; this time, I wanted to unite an audience with humanity."
"As long as I can get exactly what's in my head with minimum compromise, I don't care where it's going. I don't care if, in five years' time, they've discovered telepathy, that I can just have ideas and blink and people get them all around the world. You know, we don't know what the medium's going to be, so I'll have whatever delivers the purest idea that I have to the most people."
"As an artist, you want as many people to see your work as possible with no compromise. .... I don't want to .... have it watered down, and follow a soap opera, and have all the edges filed down and have someone interfere. .... Delivering the exact thing that I made ... that's so important to me, you know, that's, I said, the ideal of the most beautiful and purest thing. And it's how little it can be ruined from your brain to the observer. And that's the way you do everything yourself, really, because, you know, I've probably only produced and directed to protect my writing, the idea, you know?"
"I'm inspired when I literally can't put a book down. I'll leave the dishes in the sink. I'll bore friends and family talking about people they don't know and situations they've never read. In short, I'm pitching to everyone around me. If a book connects with me to that extent, it will connect with others. The biggest seller of books is still word of mouth, and the most successful books are those people can't stop talkinga about, agents included."
"I want to be able to express all the currents that flow inside me. To have that agility to reach a state of otherness and yet express my own internal truth at the same time."
Don't miss a single, riveting word! Be the first to hear of new releases, special promotions, and other news and nifty things...