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Stephen Merchant: No time for worries
British comedian Stephen Merchant has no time to be nervous
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British comedian Stephen Merchant has no time to be nervous.
Merchant, who has just taken the plunge to star in his own show on one of the most prominent cable TV networks, is best known for his collaborations with British comedy luminary Ricky Gervais.
Alongside Gervais, he was the co-writer and co-director of the popular sitcom The Office; the co-writer, co-director and a co-star of Extras; and as the co-host of The Ricky Gervais Show.
But in the comedy series Hello Ladies, which premiers in Indonesia on Monday, 8:30 p.m. on HBO, he's calling all shots.
'I guess when I stop to think about it, I am nervous. But the show is just so hard; I am so busy making it. I don't have time to stop and be nervous,' the 38-year-old said in a telephone interview from London.
'Writing is exhausting; filming is consuming. You're just busy getting the scene shot and script finished. Do I get nervous doing it? I guess so, but I just dive in and see how I fare.'
Hello Ladies tells the misadventures of gangly Brit Stuart Pritchard ' played by Merchant ' as he searches for the woman of his dreams amid the dazzling nightlife of Los Angeles. Pritchard is obsessed with infiltrating the glamorous world of beautiful people, attempts to be charming and to not look so desperate, but fails because the scene ' and his approach toward it ' denies him entry.
The series was adapted from his stand-up routine of the same name. Much of the tales are borrowed from Merchant's own life, and that of his co-writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky. Together, the trio pooled pitiful dating stories from their past experiences.
Merchant said that if the show could provide a lesson for singles out there, it would be: don't try so hard.
'Whenever the three of us are sharing dating-disaster stories, it's always because we are trying too hard, that's where we went wrong. We tried too hard to get into a nightclub; to be something we're not: to be James Bond when we aren't,' he said.
Since he was a kid, Merchant, who was born in Bristol, England, has been obsessed with comedy, writing and radio. He enrolled at the University of Warwick in Coventry, where he studied film and literature and led his own comedy and music radio show.
'When I was younger, comedy was my hobby. It was what I watched and wrote. I spent a lot my youth in a dark room watching TV comedy,' said the comedian, whose show The Office has been adapted into versions for American, French, German, Canadian and Norwegian audiences, earning him Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Awards, British Comedy Awards and Emmy Awards.
Merchant stopped for a moment when he was asked about whether he had other hobbies outside of entertainment.
'I made my hobby into my career. So I guess I don't really have a hobby in the sense of making model railways or playing tennis,' he says.
'However, I am interested in watching people. Now I quite like the idea of seeing what real people are doing. I don't stand there in the park staring at people. I meet people and talk to them, have a beer with them.'
He said that although he had a great time in Los Angeles for his latest project, he had no plans to move away from his homeland.
'I actually just came back from LA, I was there since March. I arrive in London on Sunday (Oct. 13), I already got a cold,' he said.
'I never had a cold the entire time I was in LA. Maybe that is enough reason to say goodbye to London, because I'm sick of the bloody cold. But I wouldn't turn my back on the country.'
