From comedy to drama - Gervais a man of many talents

Ricky Gervais (left) and Stephen Merchant. Photo / Supplied by Sony Pictures

With their award-winning series The Office, its acclaimed follow-up Extras and record-breaking podcasts, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have become one of the most successful British comedy acts in history, with their shows aired all across the world. So, with their debut movie, Cemetery Junction, you'd presume they'd stick to their winning formula and deliver more of the same.

But they haven't. Consequently, Cemetery Junction - as its title suggests - isn't a constant stream of tasteless jokes or tactless skits, despite boasting moments of daft humour and deft one-liners.

Instead, it's an amusing, bittersweet tale of three inseparable friends stuck in dead-end jobs in a deadbeat town, caught on the cusp of adolescence and adulthood, who daydream of escaping their ordinary world in everyday, 1970s England.

"It's our coming-of-age film. It's about those moments when you stand at the crossroads and are suddenly confronted, at a young age, with decisions that could impact the rest of your life," said Gervais. "It's about waking up, at 65, and realising you never met the love of your life or wrote the novel you wanted to, because you took one path instead of another."

Merchant added: "A lot of what we've done before has been about people who are middle-aged and the decisions they've made which led to them getting stuck where they are. Those themes have always interested us, but this time we wanted to explore it from a new perspective - from adolescence - because we'd been knocking around the idea of a coming-of-age film for a while."

If their detour from brazen comedy to understated drama is a surprise, so too is the inspiration for Cemetery Junction: the evocative Bruce Springsteen track Thunder Road.

"Whenever we hear that song, we always picture a small town that's typically blue collar but has a certain sense of romance about it," said Merchant, smiling. "At the same time, there's an underlying desire to escape [from] it."

Gervais said: "That song just lends itself to a film plot. But the more we thought about it, the more we wondered why those types of feelgood films about escaping a stifling place, driving across the country and starting a new life haven't been done in Britain before. It's as if America has a monopoly on them.

"I think we've always felt slightly ashamed to do that kind of 'feelgood cinema' in England, because it's seen as selling out or being untrue to the cynical British spirit," he reasoned. "But, to us, there didn't seem any reason why you shouldn't import that sort of romanticism and Hollywood gloss into a film. That's why we've done our own version of a feelgood, escape movie - an English take on Saturday Night Fever and Rebel Without a Cause."

The only snag with their craftily hatched plan was finding actors who could portray the affable, aspirational James Dean-inspired lead character, Freddie; his enigmatic John Travolta-based man-about-town best friend, Bruce; and their lovable loser sidekick, Snork.

"It was a nightmare," conceded Gervais. "I was panicking because we saw thousands of young actors and there didn't seem to be a single 23-year-old, in England, who could do it. I kept thinking, 'Where are our John Travoltas, our Steve McQueens and our James Deans?' It's weird because our rock stars, like Liam Gallagher or Richard Ashcroft, have that swagger, but our actors just don't.

"The other scary thing we noticed about the thousands of actors we saw was that half were either remarkably posh, like Hugh Grant, so will probably end up playing Mr Darcy one day; and the rest were gritty Eastender-types, like Jason Statham, talking with a cockney accent. There didn't seem to be anything in between."

Eventually Gervais and Merchant got lucky, unearthing three exciting newcomers: Tom Hughes as Bruce, Christian Cooke as Freddie and Jack Doolan as Snork. Together they've bonded both off-screen as well as on, forming an irresistible, inseparable pact.

"When we first met, I knew straight away that the dynamic between us was right," said Doolan. "Tom and Christian had just worked together, so they were already on the same wavelength. Then, after the first audition, we just started hanging out together and really gelled."

As close-knit as they are offscreen, onscreen the threads of their friendship slowly unravel when Freddie ditches his factory job for a middle-class career as an insurance rep, starts courting his boss' daughter and questioning his cronies' nightly ritual of getting drunk, picking fights and pursuing girls.

With cameos from Merchant and Gervais, as Freddie's father, Cemetery Junction has its fair share of comedic moments, but it's essentially an uncomplicated, uplifting tale about harbouring big dreams in a small town. Consequently, unlike their earlier comedy capers, it's remarkable for the very fact it's so extraordinarily ordinary.

"Yeah, it could be anywhere, any time or any town," said Gervais, laughing. "But that's because it doesn't matter where or when it's set; it's a universal story about stifled ambition and trying to escape."

"There are a lot of dark British films around, so it's great they've done a film that's bright and colourful, has broad themes and a universal message," said Cooke enthusiastically, reflecting on his character's transition from dreamer to doer. "The characters are pretty universal too: you've got the cool guy, the sensitive guy and the geek, so audiences can really relate to them. I think that's why the film works."

Indeed it does, just like everything else Gervais and Merchant have previously toyed with. So, what's their secret?

"I don't know. Maybe it's just luck? We certainly don't have a masterplan or worry about something being a stepping stone to something else," said Gervais. "We take everything we do seriously, though, and want it to be perfect - in the sense that we're happy with it and feel it's the best we could do. That's because we do worry about our legacy: we want to be able to look back in 25 years and be proud of everything we've done.

"Also, we've always tried to make sure that what we do is true to life and universal. I think that's why The Office was such a success because, despite appearing so quintessentially English and parochial, it's actually about universal themes, like boy meets girl, finding a decent job and making a difference.

"It doesn't matter where you are or what time you're in, it's the same for everyone: we're the same wherever we go.

"Hmm, that's not a bad lyric - I might give that to Stevie Wonder or Paul McCartney."

LOWDOWN

Who: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant from The Office, Extras and elsewhere.
What: Their movie Cemetery Junction.
When: Opens at cinemas on Thursday.