Ricky Gervais is penning a new Netflix series about a suicidal man 

Ricky Gervais is penning a new Netflix series about a suicidal man

The Life on The Road star will play the lead character in the six-part series

Ricky Gervais is taking on another Netflix project, penning a six-part series about a suicidal man.

“I don’t know whether it’s a comedy or more of a six-part story.” Gervais told The Evening Standard. “It’s like a series that’s adapted from a novel, I just haven’t written the novel.”

Gervais, who last worked with Netflix on film Special Correspondents, will take on the lead role in the new series himself.

“It’s a guy whose wife has died and he is in the depths of depression and he nearly kills himself” he explained. “But the reason he doesn’t is that the dog is hungry, so that saves him for a while. He thinks about his crappy job, he works for a free newspaper.”

The irony of telling such a tale to a journalist from a free newspaper like the Evening Standard wasn’t lost on Gervais either.

Sharing further details about the new show’s leading man, Gervais said the character’s determination to take his own life at some point in the future is the thing that gets him through the day.

“He’s not scared of a mugger because they can’t kill his wife, he doesn’t give a f***, they can’t hurt him any more”, Gervais continued. “This new-found thing liberates him. It’s dark but it’s funny and he gets embroiled with people he would never mix with in the underworld. It’s like he lives two lives.”

Gervais also confirmed that Game of Thrones star Tony and Life on The Road’s Tom Basden will both star alongside him in the series in unspecified roles.

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