Not just another day in the office

As well as co-directing and co-writing, Gervais stars in Extras. He plays bitter and twisted Andy Millman, who left his day job five years ago to try to make it as an actor. However, he keeps losing out in auditions to Robert De Niro-sized stars and gets lumbered instead with tedious non-speaking parts. He mopes around the green room in a thunderous mood, grumbling to his fellow extra, Maggie (played by Scottish actress Ashley Jensen), about how the big stars on his movies just "got lucky". Gervais, most famous for playing David Brent, the egregious boss of a paper merchant, landed the likes of Samuel L Jackson, Ben Stiller, Kate Winslet and Patrick Stewart on the strength of their uniform love of The Office.

IN HIS DRESSING ROOM, 44-year-old Gervais is a far more cheerful proposition than his screen alter ego and makes for exhilarating company. Endowed with exquisite self-awareness, he is much cleverer. After all, David Brent could never have invented David Brent - he's too stupid.

Later, in a break between scenes, Merchant explains the subtleties of Gervais' humour. "It's all about adopting a persona for comic effect," says Merchant, who met Gervais eight years ago when he was Merchant's assistant at Xfm in London, where they worked up the character of "Seedy Boss", later to morph into Brent. "People don't understand that when he's doing stand-up or appearing on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Ricky's taking on a character. He did exactly the same with Brent."

Gervais remains refreshingly self-deprecating; he is more than happy to make himself the butt of his best gags. "Viewers can rest assured that in Extras I'm not the romantic lead. Other characters call me 'fatty', and we've cast tall actors opposite me so I look like a jumpy little fool. I have bad make-up and bad clothes. Don't worry - Andy Millman is no hero."

Andy may have quite a different role in life and no goatee, but is Gervais still not worried that critics will make comparisons between this character and Brent? The actor is quick to point out that apart from the fact that the same person is portraying them, there is nothing to link the two characters. "In Extras, I'm more Tim - everyone else is Brent. I'm Olly, and they're all Stans. I'm more like a Woody Allen or a Larry Sanders. You know how Woody Allen plays an intellectual who doesn't get the respect he thinks he deserves? Andy's like that. He thinks, 'I'm in the right. I should be king, but instead I'm surrounded by idiots'."

The performer, whose ludicrous MC Hammer-style dance as Brent became an instant cult classic, and who wowed a global audience by recreating it at Live 8 last week, urges audiences to judge the new series on its merits. "Enjoy it for what it is," he says. "It's no good being constantly worried that it's not The Office and fretting about people sitting there with crossed arms complaining that there's no funny dance. Having said that, if they don't like Extras, I will do a funny dance in the second series."

With a smile, Gervais reveals he has much in common with the curmudgeonly extra. "Andy is easily annoyed, easily bored and doesn't suffer fools. People used to say that I was like David Brent. But if I'm honest and you catch me with my guard down, I'm actually much more like Andy than David. He has a lot of lines I agree with. Extras is like a comic walk through my own personal Room 101."

Merchant concedes Gervais can be similarly cranky to work with. "I like to think I bring a certain level-headedness to the partnership. Ricky is a very good analyst, but not always in the heat of the moment. He has weird neuroses - other people and sounds bother him. He's either too hot or too cold or too hungry or not hungry enough. It's a rollercoaster of emotions with Ricky. I ease him through it. I hold his hand."

Extras provides a deliciously wry commentary on the self-obsession of actors, but is Gervais concerned that the media setting will alienate most viewers? "The Office had the backdrop of a paper merchant's," Gervais says, "but that was largely irrelevant to the main dramas of Tim and Dawn's will-they-won't-they relationship, Brent's mid-life crisis and Gareth's military complex. It's the same with Extras - it's about the characters and the setting just happens to be the media.

"I worked in an office for seven years and wrote about that, and I've worked in the media for eight years so now I've written about that. An English teacher in Reading used to say to me 'write what you know'. In fact, Flaubert said it first. If my English teacher had said it first, I suppose he'd have been a famous writer rather than a teacher."

The series also underlines the pitfalls inherent in a burning desire to become an overnight celebrity.

"I don't know why people seek fame," says Gervais, who leads a quiet life in central London with his partner of the past two decades, TV producer Jane Fallon. "For me, I know it's merely the upshot of what I do. I don't take coke, I don't hang around on the red carpet, I don't come out of China White with a slapper on my arm, and I don't phone the press to say, 'I've got a great story - my cat's ill!' That sort of behaviour is embarrassing."

In the four years since The Office became a global phenomenon, Gervais has viewed fame up close and personal - and he doesn't like what he sees. "When you go out, it's boring to have to worry about what you're wearing or what cereal you're buying. 'Oh, muesli. I thought he'd be a Golden Grahams man.' But I'm not Tom Cruise. People don't gasp when I walk down the street."

Growing up the youngest of four siblings in Reading, Gervais never seemed destined for star status. As a youngster, he harboured ambitions to be a marine biologist, a vet and then a tennis player. "I wasn't tall enough," he says with mock-regret, "but I can still beat Jonathan Ross. Make sure you put that in."

Now Gervais is glad he didn't make it when he was in his early 20s. "If the band [he managed Suede] had been successful then, I'd now be a 40-something bloke who used to be thin. As it is, my weight is now my greatest asset. I played a bad hand well."

Gervais, who last year won what for a Briton was an unprecedented two Golden Globes for The Office, is frequently asked to revive it. But he is sticking resolutely to the old showbiz adage: always leave 'em wanting more. "I feel like a parent making his kids go the dentist. They'd rather eat loads of chocolate, but they'll thank me in the long run. We've done Brent - now let's do something else. John Cleese doesn't still go around insulting the Germans. We should be allowed to move on."

The Office has given Gervais an enviably high profile in the US. He has been swamped with propositions from Hollywood, but apart from appearing in The Simpsons and as the voice of a pigeon in Valiant, he has turned everything else down, including a recent invitation to appear alongside Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 3.

But he has no regrets about passing on parts which other actors would sell their agents for. "When I'm offered these parts, I can always think of someone else who would do it better," he says. "And no one has ever said 'that fat British bloke has been in nine movies for three minutes each, let's offer him his own feature'."

Rejecting people only makes them want him all the more, he says. "People think that if you turn things down, you'll never be offered anything again. But in fact the opposite is true. The power of no is stronger than the power of yes."

Leaning back in his chair, he reflects that "because success came to me in my 30s, I've seen enough to know that money doesn't make you happy". What makes him happy is the sense of a job well done. "Of course, poverty is rubbish," Gervais says, "but the more you do things just for the money, the less proud of them you are. I want to be able to sleep at night with a clear conscience."

Extras starts on BBC2 on July 21