Ricky Gervais is ready to star in Netflix’s ‘Alley Cats’.
“I hope you like cats and swear,” he told an audience in Annecy. Before the screening of the first two episodes, viewers serenaded him by singing Happy Birthday. ”
On the show, the comedian and creator of “The Office” and “After Life” decided to focus on Britain’s feral cats. Gervais explained why he wanted to try animation as follows:
“There are so many reasons. You don’t have to do hair and makeup, you don’t have to get up early. You can just sit in a chair and do this forever.” Cats are also “perfect creatures.” “They’re very independent and very small. They think they’re lions,” he laughed.
“But this is a sitcom. I don’t even like the term ‘adult animation’ because it’s a family of cats. Same with sitcoms.”
“Write it and then just play. It’s just fun. There are no limits.”
Viewers were thrilled with the hilarious new series.
“Sometimes I thought, ‘Can I do this?!'”
He wanted the actors to keep things realistic when voicing the characters.
“It’s recorded quite differently than the average (for animation). We were in the room at the same time, filming. I told them, ‘Don’t be funny.’ Everything is realistic except for the cat talking. I said, “Think of them as a person sitting on the couch watching TV.”
He said this while looking at a photo of the team at work. “They look like a gorgeous orchestra, but they’re about to say ‘fuck it’.”
Mr. Gervais also showed the audience his first drawing of one of his cats, Gus. They “let his attitude stand.”
“Sitcoms are about the characters. If you love them, you can watch them do nothing. You can spend hours watching Homer Simpson read something. I told everyone, ‘If people love these cats, we’ve made it.'”
He added, “The fact that someone is making an animated version of that absolute nonsense is already funny in itself.”
“I don’t know how we did it. Not only did it do exactly what I wanted in my head, but it looked easy. It was fun! There was one thing that took me three tries. There was a dance at the end, and I had to figure out the best way for these cats to dance.”
“You don’t have to do a lot to make it a little different,” he added.
Still, it was a “huge learning curve” for Gervais.
“I had to learn quickly, but I kept everything in my wheelhouse.”
He also talked about using The Smiths’ “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” in one scene.
“What I love most about this job is how I can convey emotion.”
“This song is very existential and uplifting. Everything I’ve done is a little bit existential, and in the case of cats it’s exaggerated, because cats’ lives are so short. And I needed permission, so I had to write a nice letter to Morrissey and Johnny Marr, and they both said yes.”
“I like pathos. In any fiction, you create your own heroes and villains as a soul role-play. That’s all there is to it. I was never interested in, ‘Oh, that was a great dolly shot.'” Do I believe the actor? Am I interested in these characters? There has to be a bigger picture in everything you do. Otherwise, we don’t care. ”
Death is very present in the play “by design”.
“I want people to survive on them, and they do. I just want them to love cats,” he said.
“I also have to say how great Netflix is, because I want a season two. They commissioned a production based on the idea, ‘There are cats and they swear a lot.’ ‘What happens?’ ‘Nothing happens.’
The show is “very British”, but only on a “trivial level”.
“‘The Office’ was also supposed to be British, but the themes are universal.[In the original version]they put a staple in jelly, but in the French version it was cheese. That’s how it translated! I’ve always been interested in human nature. The joke is that I’m not a fan, but I like being honest about it. Dramas hide the flaws of the hero, but comedy exaggerates them. It says, ‘We’re all idiots.’ I love humanity and I love bringing it out. ”
Provided by Netflix
