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Stephen James Merchant (born 24 November 1974) is an English comedian, actor, director, and writer. He was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office (2001–2003), and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras (2005–2007) and Life's Too Short (2011–2013) alongside Ricky Gervais. With Gervais and Karl Pilkington, he hosted The Ricky Gervais Show in its radio, podcast, audiobook, and television formats; the radio version won a bronze Sony Award. He also provided the voice of the robotic "Intelligence Dampening Sphere" Wheatley in the 2011 video game Portal 2. Merchant co-developed the Sky One travel documentary series An Idiot Abroad (2010–2012) and co-created Lip Sync Battle (2015–present). Merchant has performed as a stand-up comedian, which led to him writing and starring in the HBO series Hello Ladies (2013–2014), based on his stand-up material. He starred in his first play, Richard Bean's The Mentalists, at London's Wyndham's Theatre in 2015. He wrote and directed the films Cemetery Junction in 2010 and Fighting with My Family in 2019, and starred in, co-wrote, co-produced, and co-directed the comedy crime series The Outlaws (2021–present). He also appeared as the mutant Caliban in the superhero film Logan (2017), a Nazi Gestapo leader in the comedy-drama film Jojo Rabbit (2019), and as the serial killer Stephen Port in the 2022 television drama Four Lives. He has received numerous accolades, including a Peabody Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, four British Comedy Awards, and the Rose d'Or. Early life Stephen James Merchant was born in the Hanham suburb of Bristol on 24 November 1974, the son of nursery nurse Jane Elaine (née Hibbs) and plumber and builder Ronald John Merchant. He attended Hanham Secondary School and later the University of Warwick in Coventry from 1993 to 1996, where he graduated with a BA in Film and Literature with a 2:1. He worked as a film reviewer on the student radio station Radio Warwick, where he began his broadcasting career. His group there included film critic James King. A number of tapes of The Steve Show have been rediscovered and distributed on various Merchant fan sites. Merchant was inspired to get into comedy by John Cleese. In 2019, he claimed that he had never met Cleese, but that his parents had recently met him on a cruise and asked him to sign a book for Merchant; they also recorded a voicemail message on the phone in their cabin, which consisted of Cleese saying: "Hello there, Mr and Mrs Merchant, I'd be more than happy to sign your book. I was just wondering is your Stephen Merchant the same Stephen Merchant who collaborated with Ricky Gervais on The Office? Because I'm an enormous fan and please pass on my best regards." On hearing this, Merchant said, "I don't feel I need to meet him now. That's all I needed." Career Early career Merchant began his career performing stand-up comedy at Bristol's Comedy Box, where, he recalled: "The first week I did really well. The second week I died on my arse. I realised that stand-up was not that easy after all." He also appeared as a contestant on a 1997 episode of the TV game show Blockbusters and worked for a short time as a DJ for Radio Caroline. Merchant met Ricky Gervais for the first time in 1997 when Gervais (in the position Head of Speech at the radio station XFM London), hired Merchant as his assistant. Gervais later said that he had called Merchant for an interview because it was the first CV handed to him. Merchant and Gervais hosted a Saturday afternoon radio show together from January through to August 1998, when both of them left XFM as it was bought by the Capital Radio Group. In the same year, Merchant was a finalist at the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards. Merchant worked for seven months at XFM 104.9. The Saturday show never had a large audience. Gervais said: "It's a tinpot radio station... It's not even the biggest radio station in the building." He created the features 'Hip Hop Hooray', 'Make Ricky Gervais Laugh' and 'Song for the Ladies'. After leaving XFM, Merchant began a production course at the BBC. As part of his coursework, he enlisted Gervais to perform in a 30-minute short film, "Seedy Boss", which became the earliest inspiration for their mock documentary The Office. They collaborated on a sitcom pilot called Golden Years featuring a manager suffering a mid-life crisis. It aired on Channel 4's Comedy Lab series in September 1998, but the show failed to find further success. The Office and return to XFM In mid-2001, BBC Two aired the first series of The Office, co-written and co-directed by Merchant and Gervais and starring the latter as paper sales office manager David Brent; the show initially received low ratings. Beginning in September 2001, Merchant and Gervais returned to XFM as co-hosts of The Ricky Gervais Show, another Saturday afternoon programme, which led to their fruitful relationship with producer Karl Pilkington. They took a break from the radio show in mid-2002 in order to film the second series of The Office, which aired that year; in addition to writing and directing the show, Merchant made a cameo performance in the episode "Charity" as a friend of Gareth Keenan's character and known by the name Oggy or Oggmonster. Merchant's father also appeared in multiple episodes as an office handyman named Gordon. Merchant also directed a sitcom pilot called The Last Chancers, which aired on Comedy Lab in November 2002 and became a five-part series broadcast in December on E4. Merchant and Gervais continued to host The Ricky Gervais Show through 2003, taking another break to film The Office Christmas special, which aired that December. The radio show went off the air indefinitely in January 2004. During 2004, Merchant appeared in a recurring role as a chef on Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and in a cameo on Green Wing, and served as a script associate on the Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker sitcom Nathan Barley. The same year, The Office aired in the U.S. to critical acclaim. It went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy which both Merchant and Gervais accepted. This was followed in 2005 by a 4th series of the radio show, consisting of six episodes. U.S. series of The Office In March 2005, the American version of The Office premiered, with Merchant and Gervais credited as executive producers. They co-wrote the third-season episode "The Convict", and Merchant directed the fifth-season episode "Customer Survey". Podcast series In December 2005, with sponsorship by The Guardian, Merchant, Gervais, and Pilkington began recording a weekly podcast (also called The Ricky Gervais Show). Throughout its first series (through 20 February 2006), it was consistently ranked the most popular in the world, and was certified as the most-downloaded of all time by Guinness World Records. Two more series and three special installments (the .... Discover the Stephen James popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Stephen James books.