Doing works more often than asking

Ricky Gervais:

. . . pitching [The Office] would have been difficult. If I’d sent off the script it would still be in an executive’s drawer. ‘Bloke who’s never written, directed or acted before plays a bloke who thinks he’s funny but isn’t, makes bad jokes, touches his tie and looks at the camera.’ Doesn’t exactly jump off the page, does it? So what we did was make our own pilot; we shot it in a day. I went back to my old office and shot it with mates who still worked there in the background. When you show that to an executive they suddenly know what you mean.</p>