RICKY ON HIS FRANTIC

RICKY Gervais turns 65 in June and could be forgiven for feeling exhausted with a workload that includes a new tour and animation series while also in the running for a Golden Globe.

- BY MARC BAKER

The comedian admits he tires more easily these days but also told of his love of napping, or “taking a Churchill”.

He said: “I don’t know what it will be like for people to see me at 70.

“I’m already sort of grumpy and I shuffle around.”

However, he added: “I’m a big napper. I was once offered the part of Winston Churchill. I turned it down as it would have been terrible.

“It would have been three hours in makeup and puffing a cigar.

“Funnily enough, Churchill famously took a nap every day. Even during the war, he’d get full pyjamas between the sheets. We call it ‘taking a Churchill’.

“I took a Churchill this morning.”

With his busy lifestyle, Ricky likes to travel by private jet when possible and turn his gigs into 48-hour breaks.

He said: “I do the most luxurious tour possible. I do two or three nights away at the most and four nights home.”

Sometimes his partner of 43 years, Jane Fallon, goes with him.

He said: “She comes to all the good places. She comes to America, Canada, all the lovely places in Europe. I make it a little weekend break.

“So I’ll play Prague Arena and we'll go the night before, we’ll have dinner, we’ll walk around all day, and then I’ll pop to the arena and do a gig, and then we fly home. So it’s like 46 hours of holiday and two hours of work.”

Six years after Ricky Gervais tore into Hollywood's elite as host of the Golden Globes, he has been nominated for a gong for his new Netflix show, Mortality.