themusic
01-26-2004, 05:56 AM
Ricky Gervais, the co-creator of TV hit The Office, has made history as the first British actor to win a TV comedy acting award at the Golden Globes.
The Office is also the first UK sitcom to win the best comedy prize.
The 42-year old ended up beating Matt LeBlanc - Joey in the hit US comedy Friends, who Gervais had tipped to beat him.
And The Office itself won the best comedy prize, ahead of US show such as Sex and the City and Will and Grace.
When he and fellow office stars Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis took to the stage to take the prize, Gervais looked absolutely overwhelmed.
"Obviously we didn't expect this," he said, wide-eyed. "They told me to thank people, I said 'We're not going to win anyway'." The first people he thanked were the "Hollywood Foreign Press", the Globe's voters.
"I'm not from these parts... I'm from a little place called England. We used to run the world before you," he joked on stage.
Accepting the second prize of the night - his own award for best actor in a comedy - the Reading-born comic said: "Two. Books ends. Excellent. You need the set, one looks... y'know."
Its success is all the more surprising given that the show - where Gervais stars as incompetent office manager David Brent - is only shown in the US on BBC America and not on one of the major networks.
The show is being remade in the US - Gervais recently said he had found the actor to play the US David Brent, but did not say who. The new series will do much to raise his profile.
The comedian made his way down the Golden Globes red carpet virtually unrecognised. "I don't think we've really made much impression in America," he told reporters before the awards were announced.
Last week he had downplayed his own chances in interviews.
He told BBC News Online: "It would be good to lose. I need my come-uppance and Matt LeBlanc is the man to do it - it's character building."
Gervais' Globes triumph comes just days after a BBC blunder that almost saw the comedian overlooked in eligibility for nominations in the forthcoming Baftas awards.
But even before the Golden Globes, the comedian was being lauded as the first of a new wave of British comedians poised for success in the States.
Eddie Izzard, the cast of the League of Gentlemen, Irish comic Dylan Moran and his Black Books co-star Bill Bailey are all being tipped to make headway in the US in the coming year.
They are being marketed to US audiences in a package tour of UK and Irish talent playing live shows at venues around the nation.
Izzard in particular has already received good notices from the critics for his stand-up show - in which he pokes fun at the American people.
Historically, British comedy has had mixed success in the US. TV hits have included Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous and Til Death Us Do Part.
The Office is also the first UK sitcom to win the best comedy prize.
The 42-year old ended up beating Matt LeBlanc - Joey in the hit US comedy Friends, who Gervais had tipped to beat him.
And The Office itself won the best comedy prize, ahead of US show such as Sex and the City and Will and Grace.
When he and fellow office stars Martin Freeman and Lucy Davis took to the stage to take the prize, Gervais looked absolutely overwhelmed.
"Obviously we didn't expect this," he said, wide-eyed. "They told me to thank people, I said 'We're not going to win anyway'." The first people he thanked were the "Hollywood Foreign Press", the Globe's voters.
"I'm not from these parts... I'm from a little place called England. We used to run the world before you," he joked on stage.
Accepting the second prize of the night - his own award for best actor in a comedy - the Reading-born comic said: "Two. Books ends. Excellent. You need the set, one looks... y'know."
Its success is all the more surprising given that the show - where Gervais stars as incompetent office manager David Brent - is only shown in the US on BBC America and not on one of the major networks.
The show is being remade in the US - Gervais recently said he had found the actor to play the US David Brent, but did not say who. The new series will do much to raise his profile.
The comedian made his way down the Golden Globes red carpet virtually unrecognised. "I don't think we've really made much impression in America," he told reporters before the awards were announced.
Last week he had downplayed his own chances in interviews.
He told BBC News Online: "It would be good to lose. I need my come-uppance and Matt LeBlanc is the man to do it - it's character building."
Gervais' Globes triumph comes just days after a BBC blunder that almost saw the comedian overlooked in eligibility for nominations in the forthcoming Baftas awards.
But even before the Golden Globes, the comedian was being lauded as the first of a new wave of British comedians poised for success in the States.
Eddie Izzard, the cast of the League of Gentlemen, Irish comic Dylan Moran and his Black Books co-star Bill Bailey are all being tipped to make headway in the US in the coming year.
They are being marketed to US audiences in a package tour of UK and Irish talent playing live shows at venues around the nation.
Izzard in particular has already received good notices from the critics for his stand-up show - in which he pokes fun at the American people.
Historically, British comedy has had mixed success in the US. TV hits have included Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous and Til Death Us Do Part.