With a barrel-load of Hollywood A-Listers appearing as cameos in the new series of Extras, we got Ricky Gervais' lowdown on his famous co stars...

Ricky on choosing his Extras guest roles:

"It's a slight chicken-and-egg situation. We have ideas for storylines with someone in mind, so we approach them with the idea before we get too far down the line. If we wrote the whole script and then they were unable to do the show for some reason, it would be a waste of time. We're lucky stars say 'yes'. They really get what we're doing and get stuck in. Some of them have been fans of The Office or Extras so they trust us and trust that we have respect for everyone. I think that's very important in comedy."

Ricky on Daniel Radcliffe:

"Daniel was great - very very professional and he competely got everything we wanted him to. He was a fan of The Office and the first series of Extras. The great thing about him is that he hasn't done anything much except Harry Potter so you've got this megastar who's been in some of the biggest films of the last 10 years but no one really knows what he's like."

Ricky on David Bowie:

"I've been a huge fan of David Bowie for 25 years and he's a true genius. As a failed pop star myself, I really believe he puts the 'art' into music. He's so original, yet when you meet him, he's so approachable and down to earth it's hard to believe it's the same man who was Starman. Writing a song with him was surreal. I was songwriting with Bowie. How amazing is that?"

Ricky on Chris Martin:
"Chris is a very charming, pleasant man. He's a sensitive soul but he's also very funny. People think they know what Chris Martin is like so, of course, we played with that idea. I had dinner with Chris and he was telling me how he was going to play the part. He really got into it. Which was great."

Ricky on Sir Ian McKellen:

"Some of the hardest scenes were with Sir Ian, purely because he's such a hugely respected thespian and he's working alongside a couple of chancers. Sir Ian is famous for never 'corpsing' but there we were, with a combined age of 100, spending most of the time giggling."

Ricky on Orlando Bloom:

"Orlando was a very happy and funny guy although he did admit he was a bit nervous when we started filming. I think it was quite liberating for him to play a part completely opposite to the 'sexiest male' image he has. He's really a serious actor so I think that must be hard sometimes. We've made his character quite egotistical and vain which is the complete opposite to Orlando in reality."

17 January 2007