After too long playing second best, willStephen Merchant, the actor, please rise.
The Outlawsdrops in the US today (April 1st), a British series now available on Amazon Prime Video. Starring Christopher Walken and Stephen Merchant, the show focuses on a gaggle of offenders sentenced to community service (all there for separate crimes, newly dissected with each episode) who come across a mysterious bag of money. Funny and light, with a surprising edge and very good acting across the board, Stephen Merchant (as writer, director, and one of the cast) shotThe Outlawsin his hometown of Bristol, England.
After years of silly walk-ons and small appearances (most prominently inRicky Gervais shows), Stephen Merchant finally feels like he is in control and behind the wheel of his own career.
Stephen Merchant is One of The Outlaws
For a creative person so obviously seen at first glance for his elongated and gangly frame (Merchant stands at 6 ft 7 inches and is slim, making him look even taller), and more than willing to appropriately play up to it, his appearance masks an extremely talented writer and director having co-created the smash hitThe Office, followed byExtras. But Merchant’s acting career has meanwhile been one of very cautious steps.
For so long, it felt like Hollywood and TV just didn’t know what to do with the outwardly awkward performer. His roles felt like a variation on a theme, where his mocking, often snide characters would chime in with a quick one liner or barbed jab at another’s extent, when they weren’t aimed at himself. Wardrobe departments would place the actor in ridiculous choices (Click & Collectfeatured an elf costume,Hall Passa blazer and cravat), while his very scenes were framed against obligatory shorter (often female) fellow performers to make him look even more ridiculous when trying (and failing) to impress them.
Merchant’s series,Hello Ladies(based off his hit stand-up show, and a chance for the supporting player to finally shine on his own), was sporadically very funny, but felt like Merchant was merely playing himself. While having his trademark cheeky sensibility, it felt timid, safe. We had seen ‘the Englishman in the US,‘fish out of water TV showtoo many times already.
The Rock and a Hard Place
In 2010, pre-Dwayne Johnson global domination, Stephen Merchant would co-star as a sort of guardian angel toThe Rock in the movieThe Tooth Fairy. Much like Merchant at the time, this was a period before Dwayne Johnson was a through-and-through superstar, and still taking roles in whatever the hell he was given (including painful comedies with taglines like “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TOOTH”).
Related:Black Adam: Cast, Plot, and Everything Else We Know
Flash forward to 2019, and Merchant is directing his own feature film (without sharing the credit with anyone else), in the lighthearted comedy,Fighting With My Family. Itstarred Florence Pugh(Midsommar), Lena Headley (Game of Thrones), and most importantly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (who also produces).
Over an already impressively long career, Merchant has promoted himself to Numero Uno through his confidence and reliability as a writer/director (undoubtedly his strongest suits), and has the pull to trickle into the reel as an actor, as well. In the time after playing a tooth fairy in an unfunny family comedy, Stephen Merchant has gone on to voice two different robots (Portal 2andDream CORP LLC), a Nazi, a real-life murderer, and a mutant, respectively. “Varied” sums it up nicely.
A 6-Foot-7 Supporting Artist
At least from interviews, there is no obvious reason that Merchant and Gervais don’t work with each other anymore (no major fallout moment, or creative differences), with both of them still having nice things to say about one another.
In the ’00s, life was sweet for the creative team. With a radio show, three major series, a podcast, and multiple comedy relief sketches, all-around critical praise and BAFTAS flowed toward Merchant and Gervais. Like an English Wario and Waluigi, or an underweight Robin to Ricky Gervais’ podgy Batman, the two were inseparable co-conspirators mocking everyone—themselves, the British and US acting industry, and everyone else, their jokes on a bedrock of modern-day taboos. In an interview withJOE UKin 2019, Merchant said of his partnership with Gervais;
It’s always a pleasure to work with him, but we did a lot of stuff together. We did ten years, plus, of working very tightly with each other and I think that’s great but at some point it’s fun to do other things and so we haven’t broken up the band […] The band’s on hiatus.
Although both men seem entirely at peace and happy for one another, Merchant’s continued drive and braveness in playing intriguing roles in a multitude of genres makes, in turn, Gervais’ decision to keep looking back to flog the dead horse that is David Brent even more archaic.
Related:Christopher Walken Destroyed Original Banksy Art for The Outlaws
In not being involved inThe Office’s 2016 follow-up-cum-spin-off, “David Brent: Life on the Road,” there was a very loud silence, especially considering Brent is a character that Merchant co-created and nurtured. As far we can see,Life on the Roadincludes no mention or credit of Stephen Merchant, orThe Office. Earlier this year, in comparing the two’s current on-air TV shows and their competing performances, Ed Cumming wrote matter-of-factly forThe Independent, saying: “It’s not a surprise that the 6ft 7in tortoise has finally overtaken the hare.”
Stephen Merchant Pushes Himself as an Actor
After a long journey, giving Merchant the opportunity to finally roam as an actor has revealed an interesting and intriguing body of work. Merchant’s acting has been at its most rewarding and “all in” when his characters are not being directed or written by himself as well. TakeMerchant’s role in Taiki Waititi’sJojo Rabbitas a Nazi SS Officer, or his tremendously chipper and genuinely funny robot Wheatley in thePortal 2videogame.
When the casting news broke for Marvel/20th Century’sLogan, a swansong for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, the comic book world was curiously baffled by Merchant’s mysterious inclusion. Merchant played Caliban, a mutant able to track other mutants and unable to experience basic sunlight. Through adamantium-infused skeletons, the film showed a somber and downbeat take on a finale.
Unlike Merchant’s other additions in big movies, such asHot Fuzz(a one and a half scene cameo) andHall Pass, this was a character who directly affected the plot of the piece, who was intertwined with its main character’s journey. In a movie that is angry and fatigued, Merchant’s role added to the world. No gags, no awkward dates with a mismanaged member of the opposite sex, no pratfalls, just genuine acting. In a fantastically fictional world, his Caliban was lived-in and exhausted in a beautiful performance; hopefully hereturns as Caliban in the MCU, as Merchant would like.
The BBC seriesFour Lives,directed by David Blair, premiered this year and went one further in presenting Merchant as a real-life murderer. Unpacking the crimes of Stephen Port, his victims all young gay men, and the lives that are ruined as a result, Merchant’s physicality was utilized as a manipulator andshtummonster. The actor was quiet, scheming, and physically pale. He gawked and stooped, his eyes bulging from a grim skull, like last night’s defrosting fish left in the sink for the morning after.
Take the moment of Port peeling his hair from his scalp, revealing that it has been a toupee the whole time. It’s entirely lonesome and chilling, and is all down to Merchant’s portrayal. Stephen Port presented a different challenge that required equal parts sincerity (to the real world victims) and sinisterness.
The Outlaws, meanwhile, is a refreshingly brilliant short series from a talented performer creating on home turf. It’s also another addition to a resume of an actor who has gotten braver and more adventurous with his roles, and who has enough of a varied body of work of his own now without having to share the spotlight any longer. It’s wonderful to watch Merchant play robots, mutants, and murderers, and to see a performer known most basically for his tremendous height finally ‘stretch’ himself that bit further than with the usual, nondescript “co-written by” credit.
