Virginia Sherwood/NBCRicky Gervais is a giver.
Whether he's giving hell to Hollywood's A-listers or giving a quote confirming that he is, indeed, a very wealthy man, the guy just won't stop whether you want him to or not.
Case in point: The comedian and controversial Golden Globes host wrote an Academy Awards opening on his website for James Franco and Anne Hathaway to use during this Sunday's telecast.
And it's classic Gervais, with jokes about cancer, eating disorders, child abduction, Mel Gibson and, of course, ….
Lots of jokes about Ricky Gervais.
Sticking to the theme that Hollywood would rather congratulate itself than be ridiculed by an "ugly," "fat" British comic, the sketch ping pongs between the hosts gushing over themselves and heaping buckets of abuse upon The Office originator.
"You can all relax because Ricky Gervais is in London," says Hathaway in the script, "He's doing some charity work. Yeah, he's visiting orphans with cancer. He's telling them what bald little losers they are."
"Yeah, cos he's rude, right?" quips Gervais' Franco.
You get the idea. The rest of the script seems designed to show that Gervais will neither apologize for his hosting style nor abdicate his role as the MC of the moment. Because anything else would be, as his Franco suggests, unbearable.
"You probably know me from 127 Hours where I play a man trapped in an enclosed space who decides he would rather cut his own arm off than stay where he was. Now that sounds 'way out' but wait till half way through this f--king ceremony and you'll start to identify with him," says the phony Franco.
And as much as Gervais enjoys letting the hot air out of the proceedings, his script underscores the idea that he's just not understood by his detractors.
His Hathaway asks, "Yeah, why doesn't he get his teeth straightened and bleached like everyone else in Hollywood?"
"It's a good question, Anne. For the same reason he doesn't have Botox or suck up to important producers—there's something wrong with him," says his Franco.
Maybe, but it's nothing $80 million can't take care of, right?