Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant would be incomplete without Karl Pilkington, the bread to their peanut butter and jelly, the paprika to their salt and pepper, the reluctant apothecary to their Romeo and Juliet. In this interview with the star of An Idiot Abroad, Pilkington describes the process of becoming friends with Ricky Gervais when producing his radio show:
I was making Ricky a tea, and he hit me on the head with a mobile phone. I said, “What’d you do that for?†And he said, “Ah, I just wanted to see what it sounded like.†I think that was him testing me out, really. That was him doing an interview. I don’t know if he did the same to Steve. He probably couldn’t reach his head. But it felt like that’s the point when he thought, “Yeah, I can get on with Karl.†’Cause I let him hit me on the head. After that, he put a tin lid on my head.
The Vegemite to Ricky and Stephen’s ketchup and mustard goes on to talk about how he’s better at home repair than his bosses and why he’s no hurry to film An Idiot Abroad Christmas special with Warwick Davis riding in his bike basket, despite that being something everyone in the universe wants to see.