Another Sarah Palin Offer: Guest-Star Stint On 'Extras'
Gervais Wants GOP VP Nominee For Upcoming Special
By Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 11/8/2008 5:14:00 AM
Gov. Sarah Palin has been inundated with post-election interview requests, according to the Associated Press, and, as of last Friday, hadn't agreed to do any of them: Larry King, Oprah, Barbara Walters.
But if she's willing to keep poking fun at her image, a la Saturday Night Live, British funnyman Ricky Gervais has an offer she might want to consider.
Gervais, in New York last week plugging his Nov. 15 standup special on HBO (click here for MCN 's review) wants to do another special edition of his HBO series Extras. He and writing partner Stephen Merchant have already started working on it. News reports from the U.K. have it earmarked for late next year on BBC 1.
Gervais and Merchant created the original The Office, on the BBC and then BBC America, and when that series was over, it was over. Not so with Extras. “We left it quite open-ended. We didn't tie it up in a ribbon like we did The Office,” Gervais said in a Q&A session at the Paley Center for Media after a Nov. 6 screening of the standup special.
(HBO and the BBC co-produced Extras. HBO Entertainment president Sue Naegle told the Wire: “He's welcome back anytime. We're always interested in being in business with Ricky Gervais.”)
Extras was about actor Andy Millman's (Gervais) trying to make it in Hollywood. Famous people — David Bowie, Daniel Radcliffe, Kate Winslet — came on as guest stars, usually lampooning their own personae.
“There's loads of people we didn't get around to,” Gervais told a questioner about Extras. Madonna couldn't make it because of her touring schedule. “I've got my sights set on Al Pacino,” he added. “We could do so much with him.”
Asked then about the U.S. election, Gervais said he had “never been interested in anything as much as this election. I just got caught up, like everyone else. I'm not even that interested in British politics. But it was Barack Obama. The first time I saw him, I thought he was so charismatic. I was excited that, obviously, he'd be the first black President of the United States. Then [there was] the whole him-versus-Hillary [race].
“And then Sarah Palin,” the comedian continued. Pause. “Amazing. In fact, forget Al Pacino. I want her.”
Gervais was on the BBC and BBC America's Election Night coverage and was asked (in a video on BBCA's Web site) whom David Brent, his bad-boss character on The Office, would have supported. Answer: Obama.
For what it's worth, Gervais would have, too. “I think America did the right thing,” he said.
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It's just more left-wing crap
Ross Bartlett - 11/8/2008 4:40:00 PM EST
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