Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais (/dʒərˈveɪz/; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, voice actor, film director, producer, musician, screenwriter, and radio presenter. Gervais worked initially in the music industry, attempting a career as a pop star in the 1980s with Seona Dancing and working as the manager of a then-unknown Suede before turning to comedy. In 2000, he was given a Channel 4 talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais, and then achieved greater mainstream fame a year later with his BBC television series The Office. It was followed by Extras in 2005. He co-wrote and co-directed both series with Stephen Merchant. In addition to writing and directing the shows, Gervais played the lead roles of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras. Gervais has also starred in the Hollywood films Ghost Town, The Invention of Lying and Muppets Most Wanted. He has performed on four sell-out stand-up comedy tours, written the best-selling Flanimals book series and starred with Merchant and Karl Pilkington in the most downloaded podcast in the world as of March 2009, The Ricky Gervais Show. More recently, he hosted the Golden Globe Awards consecutively between 2010 and 2012. Gervais has won seven BAFTA Awards, five British Comedy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Emmy Awards and the 2006 Rose d'Or, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. In 2007 he was voted the 11th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups and again in the updated 2010 list as the 3rd greatest stand-up comic. In 2010 he was named on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people.