Stephen Merchant
Stephen James Merchant is an English comedian, writer, director, and actor. He was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office, and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras and Life's Too Short alongside Ricky Gervais. With Gervais and Karl Pilkington, he hosted The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook, and television formats; the radio version won a bronze Sony Award. He also provided the voice of the robotic "Intelligence Dampening Sphere" Wheatley in the video games Portal 2 and Lego Dimensions. Merchant co-developed the Sky One travel documentary series An Idiot Abroad and co-created Lip Sync Battle.
Merchant has performed as a stand-up comedian, which led to him writing and starring in the HBO series Hello Ladies, based on his stand-up material. He starred in his first play, Richard Bean's The Mentalists, at London's Wyndham's Theatre in 2015. He wrote and directed the film Fighting with My Family in 2019, and starred in, co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed the comedy crime series The Outlaws. He also appeared as the mutant Caliban in the superhero film Logan, a Nazi Gestapo leader in the comedy-drama film Jojo Rabbit, and as the serial killer Stephen Port in the 2022 television drama Four Lives.
Merchant has received numerous accolades, including a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, four British Comedy Awards, and the Rose d'Or.
Early life and education
Stephen James Merchant was born in the Hanham suburb of Bristol on 24 November 1974, the son of nursery nurse Jane Elaine and plumber and builder Ronald John Merchant. He attended Hanham Secondary School and later the University of Warwick in Coventry from 1993 to 1996, where he graduated with a BA in Film and Literature with a 2:1. He worked as a film reviewer on the student radio station Radio Warwick, where he began his broadcasting career. His group there included film critic James King. A number of tapes of The Steve Show were rediscovered and have been published on various Merchant fan sites.Merchant was inspired to get into comedy by John Cleese. In 2019, he said that he had never met Cleese, but that his parents had recently met him on a cruise and asked him to sign a book for Merchant; they also recorded a voicemail message on the phone in their cabin, which consisted of Cleese saying: "Hello there, Mr and Mrs Merchant, I'd be more than happy to sign your book. I was just wondering is your Stephen Merchant the same Stephen Merchant who collaborated with Ricky Gervais on The Office? Because I'm an enormous fan and please pass on my best regards." On hearing this, Merchant said, "I don't feel I need to meet him now. That's all I needed."
Career
Early career
Merchant began his career performing stand-up comedy at Bristol's Comedy Box, while he "bummed around for a year or so, temping in a series of tedious day jobs." At the comedy venue, he recalled: "The first week I did really well. The second week I died on my arse. I realised that stand-up was not that easy after all." He also appeared as a contestant on a 1997 episode of the TV game show Blockbusters and worked for a short time as a DJ for Radio Caroline.Merchant met Ricky Gervais in 1997 when Gervais, hired Merchant as his assistant. Gervais later said that he had called Merchant for an interview because it was the first CV handed to him. Merchant and Gervais hosted a Saturday afternoon radio show together from January to August 1998, when both of them left XFM as it was bought by the Capital Radio Group. In the same year, Merchant was a finalist at The Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards.
Merchant worked for seven months at XFM 104.9. The Saturday show never had a large audience. Gervais said: "It's a tinpot radio station... It's not even the biggest radio station in the building." He created the features 'Hip Hop Hooray', 'Make Ricky Gervais Laugh' and 'Song for the Ladies'. After leaving XFM, Merchant began a production course at the BBC. As part of his coursework, he enlisted Gervais to perform in a 30-minute short film, "Seedy Boss", which became the earliest inspiration for their mock documentary The Office. They collaborated on a sitcom pilot called Golden Years featuring a manager suffering a mid-life crisis. It aired on Channel 4's Comedy Lab series in September 1998, but the show failed to find further success.
''The Office'' and return to XFM
In mid-2001, BBC Two aired the first series of The Office, co-written and co-directed by Merchant and Gervais and starring the latter as paper sales office manager David Brent; the show initially received low ratings. Beginning in September 2001, Merchant and Gervais returned to XFM as co-hosts of The Ricky Gervais Show, another Saturday afternoon programme, which led to their fruitful relationship with producer Karl Pilkington.They took a break from the radio show in mid-2002 in order to film the second series of The Office, which aired that year; in addition to writing and directing the show, Merchant made a cameo performance in the episode "Charity" as a friend of Gareth Keenan's character and known by the name Oggy or Oggmonster. Merchant's father also appeared in multiple episodes as an office handyman named Gordon. Merchant also directed a sitcom pilot called The Last Chancers, which aired on Comedy Lab in November 2002 and became a five-part series broadcast in December on E4.
Merchant and Gervais continued to host The Ricky Gervais Show through 2003, taking another break to film The Office Christmas special, which aired that December. The radio show went off the air indefinitely in January 2004. During 2004, Merchant appeared in a recurring role as a chef on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and in a cameo on Green Wing, and served as a script associate on the Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker sitcom Nathan Barley. The same year, The Office aired in the U.S. to critical acclaim. It went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy which both Merchant and Gervais accepted. This was followed in 2005 by a 4th series of the radio show, consisting of six episodes.
U.S. series of ''The Office''
In March 2005, the American version of The Office premiered, with Merchant and Gervais credited as executive producers. They co-wrote the third-season episode "The Convict", and Merchant directed the fifth-season episode "Customer Survey".Podcast series
In December 2005, with sponsorship by The Guardian, Merchant, Gervais, and Pilkington began recording a weekly podcast. Throughout its first series, it was consistently ranked the most popular in the world, and was certified as the most-downloaded of all time by Guinness World Records. Two more series and three special installments were recorded in 2006, with the final episode released on Christmas Eve. In late 2008, they recorded four more podcasts and began a series of audiobooks examining Pilkington's perspective on various subjects.''Extras''
In July 2005, following a brief return of the XFM radio show, Gervais and Merchant's new sitcom Extras premiered on BBC Two. It features Merchant in a supporting role as Darren Lamb, the incompetent agent to struggling actor Andy Millman, played by Gervais. Series 2 of Extras aired in late 2006, followed by a Christmas special in December 2007; all three installments aired on HBO in the United States. Merchant won a 2006 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance as Lamb, and the series won a Rose d'Or for Best Sitcom in 2006 and a Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2008.''The Steve Show''
In January 2007, Merchant began hosting his own radio show on BBC 6 Music, airing weekly on Sunday afternoons. Instead of comedy, The Steve Show focused on toast and music, particularly "new music", defined by Merchant as "music you've not heard before." Many of the songs on the show were suggested by listeners or co-presenters. It also featured several of his friends, including his housemate, his childhood friend, and actor Rufus Gerrard-Wright. A spring search for a "she-J" resulted in the addition of former Byker Grove actor Sammy T. Dobson joining the ensemble. "The Steve Show" aired for four series and concluded in May 2009.Stand-up
Merchant began performing stand-up comedy in the late 1990s to critical success, though he decided to focus more on his work with writing partner Ricky Gervais after the success of The Office. He appeared in a revue, called Rubbernecker, at the Café Royal, as part of the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe, alongside Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Robin Ince.Merchant returned to stand-up with a nationwide tour of the United Kingdom in September 2011, under the title Hello Ladies. The tour, which ended in New York, was later released on DVD. In late 2012, it continued in Australia and New Zealand. Merchant performed his first-ever stand-up tour of Scandinavia in October 2014, performing in 11 different cities as part of a European festival circuit. In an interview with Marc Maron, Merchant listed Eddie Izzard, Stewart Lee, Ross Noble and Jimmy Carr as stand-up comedians he admired and John Cleese as his main comedic influence.