T.J. Miller Shares the Jokes that Didn’t Air About Ricky Gervais

T.J. Miller is having an explosive year. He’s starring in one of the funniest shows on television, Silicon Valley; he just aired a Super Bowl commercial that ranked high among the best ads in the game; he received critical love after hosting the Critics Choice awards, and he’s got a big role in the next gigantic blockbuster, Deadpool, which is getting gigantic heat with a sequel already in the works.

On Tuesday T.J. Miller sat down with Ron Bennington at the SiriusXM studios in New York City in front of a studio audience to tape an episode of Unmasked. Miller was out promoting Deadpool which opens this Friday, February 12. It was a fascinating hour- a must listen for any fan or student of comedy- that you’ll be able to hear when it premieres on SiriusXM’s this Friday. During the hour Miller explained the idea behind Deadpool and how excited he was to have been in a project that he felt really meshed with his own comedic sensibilities; he revealed some details about the two movies he wrote, and his idea for a new non-profit he’s excited about that concerns the world of advertising…. and teased a new upcoming HBO hour stand up special, and you’ll want to hear every minute of it. And he talked about Ricky Gervais.

Mostly what he wanted to say was “Fuck you Ricky Gervais,” taking care to say it not once, but twice. The topic rolled around to Gervais when Miller was talking about his recent gig hosting the Critics Choice Awards. You may remember we predicted that Miller was going to be the awards show host wild man this year, and he did indeed show the rest of the award shows up with a hilarious and highly irreverent performance (read more about that here). Miller told Bennington that when they offered him the gig and told him he could set the tone of the show and “do his thing,” he was thrilled. He said, “once I realized that, I was like ‘I’m going to go fucking nuts and see what happens.” And he did, and it was well received in the room, and in the media.

T.J. was critical of Gervais’ infamous method of hosting the Golden Globes by essentially roasting Hollywood. “It made me realize you don’t have to ‘Ricky Gervais’ it. You don’t have to be like ‘Hollywood sucks’ and ‘you all are whining babies.’ Everyone knows that. You don’t have to keep telling people that over and over.”

Miller said he realized it’s okay to celebrate Hollywood. “Culturally America is at the forefront and our media is globally influential and these award shows, although we can make fun of them for being empty and ridiculous, we also should say that these people worked their whole lives to make content and make movies and television that are important to people. So lets celebrate them. Its okay for us all to get drunk and congratulate each other like, let it go. So….Fuck you Ricky Gervais.”

During the Critics Choice awards, Miller had jabbed Gervais a bit, saying he wasn’t planning to “Gervais” the ceremony, and remarked ‘how abrasive do you have to be to make fun of Mel Gibson’? But on Tuesday he told Bennington that he was sorry he didn’t get to make all the jokes he wanted to. “I wanted to make all these other jokes that I didn’t get to make so I’ll do them here, for you guys, for free.”

“I made the joke about how awful of a person do you have to be to make us all feel bad for Mel Gibson,” he said. “Like that is so real. But I love the idea that nobody makes fun of him. Because what was he in? Mel Gibson was in Lethal Weapon. I know he’s fucked it up but, don’t get down on him. He’s a great American actor from the lexicon of American Cinema. And then Ricky Gervais (pronouncing it Gervay and sometimes Ger-vay-ees) was in Ghost Town. Yeah, really, go ahead and laugh. The only thing funny about it was that he was in it. And Ghost Town was less a movie and more a description of the theaters in which it played.”

Miller continued, “And then The Invention of Lying?” he said, referring to another Gervais film. “I’ll invent a lie. Ricky Gervais has done anything interesting since The Office. There’s a lie right there.”

And there was more, he said, adding, “so I really wanted to attack him almost as much as the teeth on the lower part of his mouth are trying to attack the upper part of his mouth. He’s just an awful little pugish man who needs to stop yelling at Hollywood which gave him a chance and it didn’t work and now he’s the Hollywood Foreign Press’ jester? Like, fuck him. Sorry, can you tell I have a couple of opinions on Ricky Gervais?”

And finally, “Nobody even knows how to pronounce his last name including him. What’s going on. He has a french last name, but he’s a little puggish Brit. I don’t get it.”

Miller said he has never met Gervais, and doesn’t care to. “I mean, I don’t know what…the only thing I can say to him, I’ve said twice on your show already.”

Unmasked with T.J. Miller will premiere on SiriusXM RawDog Comedy Channel 99 this Friday at 2pm et and replay throughout the weekend. Listen to a clip from the Unmasked below.

The Unmasked series is hosted by Ron Bennington, and documents the careers of the very best comedy writers, directors, filmmakers, actors, screenwriters, satirists, political comedians, comedic musicians and of course, stand up comedians in the business, with over 125 episodes so far. Past Unmasked guests have included Joan Rivers, Bob Newhart, Amy Schumer, Dan Aykroyd, Simon Pegg, Tracy Morgan, Paul Feig, Jim Jefferies, Gilbert Gottfried, Bobcat Goldthwait, Louis C.K., David Brenner, Patrice O’Neal and over 100 more comedy greats.

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