Martin Freeman has opened up about Ricky Gervais' shenanigans on The Office set.

The Sherlock actor appeared on People TV's Couchsurfing, which sees famous faces look back on previous roles before hitting the big time.

For Freeman, who has since appeared in films such as The Hobbit, Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther, it was a throwback to the classic and much-adapted British comedy The Office, which ran from 2001 to 2003.

And, according to him, series protagonist and writer Gervais was renowned for breaking character – and breaking the character of everyone else – on set.

"Ricky was absolutely terrible because I think he saw it as a badge of honour that if you weren't laughing, he wasn't doing his job," Freeman said.

"So, if you weren't corpsing and ruining a scene, then he wasn't happy.

"I had to sort of remind him several times, 'This is your show. We got to finish by six. We're not going to finish it.' He was obsessed with being a child who made people laugh."

During the same interview, Freeman shared some of this favourite memories from the set.

"When we did the read-through for this episode, when Ricky got his guitar out and actually started to sing it around the read-through table, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen," he added.

"I was helpless. It was a really joyful memory doing this."

The Office is available to watch on Netflix.

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