Now that Ricky Gervais is a big Hollywood star, he won’t be inconvenienced by dogs or put off by dead, multicolored kittens. At the red carpet for last night’s screening of Ghost Town, his first leading romantic role, Gervais expounded on the joys of being himself: “When I did Night at the Museum, the director came over and asked, ‘Is the trailer okay?’ I went, ‘It’s amazing, the trailer is bigger than my hotel room.’ And he went, ‘Do you want a bigger hotel room?’ That’s the sort of respect I want.â€
He didn’t get it from his canine co-star, a Great Dane, in Ghost Town. “The last scene we shot was with the dog. The dog was late. The dog’s keeping me waiting for an hour! The dog just wandered in, like nothing happened. I gave it a dirty look. You can see the tension on camera.†Gervais claims that even before he was headlining large-budget films in the U.S., he’d “always demanded to be treated like a princess.†“On my very first chat show,†he told us, “they had kittens for me. 100 kittens. All dyed the colors of the rainbow. It was really bad. A lot of them died. It’s not true. Please don’t print that! Please don’t print that I kill cats for fun. I don’t. I love cats!â€
Related: Seeing Ghosts: Ricky Gervais [NYM]