Gervais and Co. make progress on This Side of the Truth

Ricky Gervais is a demanding director. He’s a man of all seasons who likes his scenes fresh and his wasabe strong. Yet he has a more refined side, too; he drinks milky tea and prefers dishes that used to have less legs rather than more. The crabs somewhere around week eight just didn’t cut it. What’ll Mr. Gervais be having this evening? Why, chicken and ‘mash. It does a body good.

“I consider Gervais a handsome man because he gives people rides in horse-drawn carriages,” co-star John Hodgman writes on the blog for Gervais' directorial debut, This Side of the Truth. “I consider him a genius because he does it FOR MONEY. Also, he has a brilliant comic mind. His eyepatch is hilarious, and not just for the usual reasons (lack of eye).”

Things seem to be going well based on the week-by-week rundown on his internationally acclaimed blog. The Christopher Guest bit alone could make the film worth it. Plus, since we last wrote on the status of the film, Patrick Stewart has been confirmed to narrate, Louis CK shaved off his beard for the part and the largest scene of the film, which includes hundreds of extras, is now in the can.

Most recently, Gervais received the LA Bafta for his episode of Extras that featured Daniel Radcliffe. His eighth Bafta to date, Gervais keeps them on his mantel next to the casualties of the ongoing Nerf battle (chipped vases, teeth and the like). Pictured above is Gervais, Tina Fey and Rob Lowe barreling toward the camera, thirsty for foam-dart vengeance.

(On an only-barely-tangentially-related note, if you've visited Paste HQ in the last few weeks, the photo above is hauntingly familiar. Nerf battles run rampant around these parts. Rampant!)

In other news concerning the man who foisted The Office on the world, Variety recently compiled a list of the next Ricky Gervaises. He discussed the precociousness of this amusing title on the blog.

“I don't think that I'm quite done being the first Ricky Gervais yet,” he writes. “I haven't started my US tour yet. Ghost Town, my first lead in a Hollywood film isn't even released until September. I'm halfway through my directorial debut. If these are all flops no one will want to be the next Ricky fucking Gervais.”

Perhaps, but based on the behind the scenes notes he makes, filming sounds like it is going incredibly well. To read more about the wasabe incident, Pat Benatar or why the sky is blue, get bloggy at your leisure.

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