14 DAY TRIAL // Director, producer, screenwriter and actor Judd Apatow is the latest industry man to blast British comedian Ricky Gervais for the jokes he included in his routine at last Sunday’s Golden Globes 2011.
Apatow hosted the Producers Guild Awards over the weekend and, during the ceremony, he made sure he had ample time to speak his mind on Gervais and the Globes, The Hollywood Reporter says.
As it turns out, Gervais did a bad job because he had no right to do many of the jokes he did.
“What did you think of Ricky Gervais? I didn’t like him. I thought he was mean,” Apatow, whose directorial credits include “Funny People,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” began by saying.
The only joke from Gervais’ repertoire at the Globes that Apatow liked was that about Charlie Sheen, because the actor is the easiest target at the moment.
The rest was just rubbish and Gervais’ way of being mean to Hollywood, Apatow said.
“He had that joke about the guy on Lost. He said he ate everybody else. Let’s be honest – Ricky Gervais just lost weight. Even now he’s four pounds away from not being allowed to do a joke like that. Did he lose weight just to make fat jokes? You think that’s how mean he is?” the director and producer pointed out.
The Tim Allen joke was, again, uncalled for, because, Apatow said, everybody would look bad next to Tom Hanks. Plus, Allen is by far a better selling actor than Gervais could ever dream to become.
Speaking of being a box office hit, Gervais is in no position to trash movies like “The Tourist” when few people actually saw his comedy “The Invention of Lying.”
“Ricky says the characters were two-dimensional. Then he says he hasn’t seen The Tourist. So as a comedian, that’s not fair, is it? To make jokes about a movie you haven’t seen,” Apatow said.
“I can’t do a joke about The Invention of Lying because I haven’t seen it. You haven’t seen it. None of us have seen it. So the joke would not work,” the director added.