Ricky Gervais is setting the record straight on his previous comments regarding The Office being canceled today. In a recent interview with the BBC, the actor celebrated the sitcom turning 20 years old by making a joke suggesting that the show wouldn’t last very long in today’s climate with some of his offensive humor. “I mean now it would be canceled. I’m looking forward to when they pick out one thing and try to cancel it,” he said in the interview. “Someone said they might try to cancel it one day, and I say, ‘Good, let them cancel it. I’ve been paid!’”
On Friday, Gervais set out to clarify that statement after multiple outlets reported that the comedian said his version of the office wouldn’t survive today. “Just to be clear, I did not say The Office would be cancelled if it were made today. That makes no sense,” he wrote on Twitter. “It’s still around. This is my actual quote. ‘Someone said they might try to cancel it one day, and I said, “Good, let them cancel it. I’ve been paid!” Clearly a joke.”
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Just to be clear, I did not say The Office would be cancelled if it were made today. That makes no sense. It’s still around. This is my actual quote. “Someone said they might try to cancel it one day, and I said, ‘Good, let them cancel it. I’ve been paid!’” Clearly a joke.
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) July 9, 2021
Written, created, and directed by Gervais alongside Stephen Merchant, the U.K. series only ran for two seasons. It produced an incredibly successful U.S. version starring Steve Carrell at NBC. Gervais starred in the show as office manager David Brent, a leader with good intentions but not much intellectual wit, causing him to make various mistakes and offensive jokes. Though, Gervais never made a cameo in the American show. “In The Office, the audience are encouraged to identify not with the ignorant Brent, but with the characters Dawn [Lucy Davis] and Tim [Martin Freeman], and the victims of Brent’s ill-conceived comments are never racial or gendered caricatures, rather they are ordinary, intelligent people,” he told the BBC.
