Hosting the Golden Globe Awards has become his “extreme sport,” Ricky Gervais said Friday, a couple of days before his third crack at the annual trophy show on NBC. Appearing at Winter TV Press Tour 2012, Gervais insisted that he stands by every joke he did last year, and he does not care what people think of his performace as host of the 2011 Globes.
According to Gervais, he got nothing against any of those people in the room adding that he has worked with many of them and that he admires most of them. He said that what he said before as just gags, and he is not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings or give them a bad night or undermine the moral fabric of America. Many TV critics seemed surprised that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association asked Gervais back, after the shellacking he gave celebrities last January as he hosted this most fawning of awards ceremonies. Gervais said that he accepted the HFPA’s first invitation because he thought it would be good exposure and he accepted the second invitation because he thought he could do better while vowing it would be his last time.
However, he accepted a third time because he kept reading reports that said he will never be invited back after last year’s brouhaha. According to him, he did it to annoy them. On the other hand, Gervais also said he dropped a line to Johnny Depp to apologize for his Globe ceremony cracks about Depp and about “The Tourist,” Depp’s flick with Angelina Jolie. Gervais wanted Depp to appear on “Life’s Too Short,” which stars 3-foot-6-actor Warwick Davis as a pretty despicable, down-and-out little person desperately trying to hustle his way back into the biz.
Some of the most senior TV executives in America are feeling more than a little nervous about Ricky Gervais’s third turn as host of the prestigious Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood on Sunday night. Executives at the major broadcaster NBC, which will screen the awards live for five hours in primetime, reportedly have insisted on a ‘seven-second delay’. The delay lets Dick Clark, the award show’s legendary 83-year-old producer, cut comments about celebs in attendance that are deemed too close-to-the-bone to broadcast. Gervais has spent the last ten days writing more cutting quips for this weekend’s show, which will screen live on digital channel E!
Most interest in the UK will focus on the hit ITV drama Downton Abbey, nominated for four awards. An insider explains that NBC loves Ricky because he increased the ratings but they know he wants to create headlines again and they can’t take the risk broadcasting something inappropriate. Meanwhile, Gervais has tweeted about his Globes game plan in the days leading up to the show saying that he keeps on having to write new jokes as he picks his victims, he means targets, he means presenters to introduce. He added that some great people have confirmed. He even assured Twitter followers that he will be drinking lager, ad-libbing and speaking his mind. According to him, no one knows what he is going to say until he say it adding that it was his only stipulation to host again.