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“I make sure everything is honest,” Gervais said when we spoke to him. “I don’t think I say anything too harmful. I think I can face them afterwards.”

It’s usually, Gervais said, “an affectionate ribbing.”

“When I made fun of Johnny Depp’s movie (The Tourist at the 2011 ceremony) and I asked him, ‘Have you watched The Tourist and he said no, the crowd loved it.’ So I think they’re in on it.”

The biggest challenge as host, Gervais said, is the Golden Globes is not “a spectator sport.”

“There are 200 million people watching the Golden Globes and there’s nothing in it for them,” he said. “They’re not winning awards and they’re not millionaires, so why are they watching? Hopefully, I’m (the reason). I play that outsider where a guy sitting at home drinking a beer can laugh. We do that all the time. We bite the hand that feeds us. We take the mickey out of our boss.

“So what do I do? I tease NBC, the Hollywood Foreign Press and I tease all those people in the room who are the most privileged on the planet.”

It’s good, he added, having a job where you can get drunk and say whatever you like.

And, really, isn’t that what we all want? Don’t we all wish we could just say what’s really on our minds? We cloak our day-to-day in niceties and behind-the-back jokes. Look no further than what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught doing to President Trump at the NATO summit in London last month.

“You know what? I admire a lot of them and I’m friends with a lot of them,” Gervais conceded. “But if I go out there and start saying, ‘Oh, hi George Clooney,’ it would be nauseating. Who cares? I tease my mates and family more than I tease those people in that room.

“It isn’t that bad,” he said pausing for effect. “It’s ridiculous.”

The 77th annual Golden Globe Awards air Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and CTV.