Ricky Gervais is having another go at fame.
Not his own, obviously. He's fairly secure in that department, having created and starred in the original British TV version of the "The Office," which was adapted into a giant hit in America. Add to that the cult shows "Extras" and "Derek," movies, podcasts, stand-up specials and his Golden Globes hosting forays.
In his Globes monologues, Gervais has no problem targeting Hollywood and the stars in the ballroom, making for some uneasy moments.
"I don't get it," he says. "The best one is when they thank God for the award. That's my favorite. So there's an earthquake, a tsunami and thousands of kids dying of famine, but God is worried about some actor winning a Golden Globe."
On Friday, Netflix released "Special Correspondents," the first of two Gervais films this year. The second, "Life on the Road," comes out in theaters in August, bringing back his "Office" character, David Brent.
"Special Correspondents" was originally going to be a studio release, but when Netflix offered him creative freedom, Gervais went with them.
"I'm not interested in knockabout comedy, gross-outs for 14-year-olds," he says. "That is the great thing about Netflix. I don't have to worry about bringing every idiot along and then have the film taken out of the cinema by Sunday."
The comedy stars Eric Bana and Gervais as radio journalists named Frank and Ian, respectively. After missing their flight to a Latin American country facing civil unrest, the pair hole up over a Spanish restaurant in Queens and issue fake war reports. When people think rebels have kidnapped them, the two are forced to head for the real war zone.
Gervais wrote and directed the film, which is a remake of the 2009 French comedy "Envoyés Très Spéciaux," which he says he "de-Frenched" a bit and changed the characters.
Vera Farmiga plays Ian's unhappy wife, Eleanor. When her husband goes missing and is supposedly being held for ransom, she finds herself in the spotlight, something she desperately craved. Seizing the opportunity, Eleanor writes a song called "Dollar for a Hero." After she performs it on a talk show, money starts pouring in, and she becomes famous.
Gervais says he wrote Eleanor as sort of a villain — "self-centered and opportunistic." "What I didn't realize until I saw Vera doing it was that she was also making the character likable. In a weird way, you loved her saying those cruel things to me because she did it with such verve."
When Farmiga performs "Dollar for a Hero," it's done with such sincerity that audiences can be moved even while laughing. Gervais wrote the song fairly straight, letting the satire speak for itself.
"It's actually a quite rousing, beautiful patriotic song without the context," he says. "That being, it's sung by a narcissist doing it for her own gains."
Gervais thinks Eleanor is everything that's wrong with today's society.
"In the last 10 years, we've seen people do nothing to be famous except live their lives like an open wound," he says. "Soon there will be a show called, 'Celebrity Enema.' "
He cites a survey of kids who were asked what they wanted to be. "They said famous — not a pop star, not a footballer. But famous."
Then he brought up the British citizen who took a selfie with the hijacker of the Egyptian plane he was on.
"This is like a spoof I'd put in 'Extras,' " Gervais says. "You know there's nothing as strange as the truth." Adding, "The world is much more screwed up than satirists even suggest."
"Special Correspondents," though, isn't all satire.
"There is a bit of humanity in my comedy," the writer-director says. "There's no real venom in what I do, because comedy at its best, I think, is really saying is that we're all idiots, but it's all right. You can always redeem yourself."
He calls the film an old-fashioned road movie — "almost Bob Hope and Bing Crosby bickering or Laurel and Hardy" — and then worries he's equating himself to the greats.
"That's just my ambition," he says. "My aim in the film was to be old-fashioned witty.
With Netflix, Gervais thinks you will see "the return of the auteur "and not get the same homogenized movie."
While directing his first film, "The Invention of Lying," he says he asked Christopher Guest ("Spinal Tap," "Best in Show") — who Gervais described as something of a mentor — whether he should do a focus-group screening of the film.
"He said to me, 'Why do that?' Because if you listen to them in the edit, then you might as well write it with them.'"
Nevertheless, with "Special Correspondents," the comedian felt he went to "big school." "I wasn't out of my comfort zone, but it did feel like more of a proper Hollywood movie than I usually do."
Over the years Gervais has turned down opportunities, more concerned with doing his own thing. When as unknowns he and Stephen Merchant first pitched "The Office" to the BBC, he insisted that he star and direct it. It was so low budget they agreed.
For "Life on the Road," we will meet office manager David Brent 15 years down the line as he pursues a lifelong dream of being a singer-songwriter. On "The Office," he sang and played guitar for his co-workers on songs like "Free Love Freeway."
"It was a long time coming," says Gervais, but because the financing for "Special Correspondents" and "Road" came together around the same time, he found himself doing them back to back and with post-production and pre-productions overlapping. "It was crazy; I will never do that again."
In the early '80s, Gervais began his career as part of a pop group called Seona Dancing. The video is still out there. People started digging it up when he became famous. "The worst thing was how serious I took it," he says with a laugh, "whereas now I have a get-out clause. I have irony on my side."
Later, he managed bands before hitting it big with "The Office" at nearly 40.
To get ready for "Road," Gervais did some gigs as Brent, and in 2013 he put out a series of humorous YouTube videos called "Learn Guitar With David Brent."
Though he's still finishing up work on "Road," the comedian already has a new stand-up tour, saying hosting the "Globes" this year gave him an itch to return to it after six years.
"I know it's hard work, and I have to get a good act together, but I get a little adrenaline rush when I come up with a good routine," he says. "Then I run home and ask my girlfriend (his longtime partner Jane Fallon), 'What you think about this?' And she'll say, 'Please don't say that in public,' and then I know it's good."
At this point, Gervais, 54, says, "I nearly got old-bloke rights. I can say anything I want now."
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