NETFLIX’S After Life cast have revealed how Ricky Gervais would sabotage them with major mischief on the set of season two.
The hit series returned for a second outing on the streaming service today, and sees Ricky once again play widower Tony.
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While the series deals with serious issues such as death and grief, the atmosphere on set was far from subdued.
In fact, Ricky’s co-stars Joe Wilkinson and Mandeep Dhillon revealed the comedian, 58, would go out of his way to make them break character and laugh while filming.
Speaking to The Sun Online, Joe said: “It’s sort of [like], once he’s made your ‘corpse’ he can relax.
“You’re like a play thing for him, he’ll want to make your job slightly harder for you.
“It’s a project which is insane, he’s only making his job harder but he gets so much joy in making your life harder.
Mandeep added: “It’s always on your close up.”
Joe continued: “When he’s not in a scene he’s laughing his head off, so he’s there to balls it up in some ways, which inadvertently makes it a joy and makes you better, weirdly.
“He’s very aware of what he does, I think one of his strengths is having you enjoy the process and then he gets the most out of you.
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“It’s a clever thing to do but he does also enjoy winding you up and I’m very open about how much he likes winding us up.”
Meanwhile Tony Way – who plays Lenny – revealed Ricky was chuckling away behind the camera during his character’s awkward sex scene in season two.
He said: “That scene was a lot of fun but there was a lot of laughing, you’d think you had a handle on it and say ‘right we can get through this’ then you’d hear from the other side of the studio Ricky about to build up into his sort of cackle.”
Ricky himself admitted to sabotaging filming, telling The Sun Online: “The psychiatrist scenes were done in one day, I wasn’t even in them and I ruined every take [laughing].”
After Life season two is available to stream on Netflix now.