Before their careers changed in recent years, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant co-wrote well-known comedies like The Office and Extras.
Stephen Merchant says he is living a “separate life” to Ricky Gervais despite the pair forming a strong working relationship together. Stephen, 51, and 64-year-old Ricky co-wrote hit comedies such as the Office, Extras and Life’s Too Short.
They later co-hosted Karl Pilkington’s comedy An Idiot Abroad alongside comedian Karl Pilkington before co-producing Sky One’s An Idiot Abroad. However, Stephen claims that these days he doesn’t speak to Ricky much.
He says the pair realised they “couldn’t compete” with the Office and saw their careers moving in different directions. Stephen has since starred in films such as Gnomeo and Juliet and Fighting With My Family, while Ricky created Afterlife, starred in a host of films, and recently released his Netflix special, Mortality.
Speaking to The Times, Stephen said: “We’re not in touch a great deal these days but even at our closest we were living quite separate lives.
Ricky once said that he was 13 or 14 years older than me, so he discovered his favorite comfortable chair as I was discovering my favorite nightclub.
Stephen claims that Stephen now spends the majority of his days writing scripts and developing his upcoming stand-up routine from his London home. He claims that projects include “an action thriller, a sci-fi thing, and a rom-com.”
However, the actress has previously denied that the two had a relationship. He said in a 2022 interview with the Independent that “people immediately assume it’s “knives out” when people stop working as closely as they once did.
After After Life’s release, there was more talk of a potential rift between the two. When a character is “watching old home movies of dead child/wife,” Stephen said that this was his least favorite scene in a TV show.
Fans assumed it was a subtle remark about his ex-partner. However, Stephen claimed he hadn’t seen the television series, which follows Tony Johnson’s unraveling life after his beloved wife passes away.
Why would I ask Stephen, “Why would I?” I thought it was a strange idea to me to tweet something and then make an abstract critique of Ricky’s show.
After The Office’s early success, Stephen admits that he felt like he was “confronting himself.” And he hasn’t seen any of the other international remakes, despite admitting to having seen some of the American remakes, which feature Steve Carell.
He makes the joke that Noel Gallagher isn’t listening to all of the Wonderwall covers he does.
He recently got a question on the Neal Brennan podcast about what is the “secret sauce” behind the pair’s success. What I had in those days was that I was very focused on the mechanics of storytelling, the plotting, and the structure.
“I had chosen movies and TV apart to see how it worked because I had studied film at university.” I wasn’t particularly experienced at that time; instead, I thought Ricky had a more instinctive sense of humor, where he would simply blurt out fantastic funny stuff.
