Martin Freeman Admits He Was 'Annoyed' At Ricky Gervais' Claim About The Office

Martin Freeman has something to get off his chest about his time appearing in The Office.

The Love Actually star played Tim in the original British sitcom, which ran for two seasons in the early 2000s, ending with a two-part Christmas special.

It’s now been 25 years since The Office premiered on the BBC, and to mark the occasion, Martin and his co-star Mackenzie Crook recently took part in a one-off BBC special reflecting on their time on set.

During the conversation, the Sherlock actor recalled how creators Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were always quick to dismiss the suggestion there was any improvisation in the game-changing mockumentary, which Martin has a different view on.

“When it became the monster that it did, and people would say it sounded improvised, then understandably, Ricky and Stephen went, ‘No, none of it’s improvised’, which is not true,” he said.

Martin continued: “What slightly annoyed me at the time – but only slightly, at the time – is when the scripts were published, they weren’t the scripts. They were the transcriptions of what had been on television.

“So, that annoyed me a little bit, because… well… anyone who knows any of us knows that that line came from you in that moment, that line came from me…”

The Marvel cast member praised Ricky and Stephen’s “brilliant” writing, but pointed out that the original scripts were “loose”, which allowed the cast to play with the material somewhat.

“I can understand why there was a little bit of protection about that, because otherwise people would’ve gone, ‘Hey, you just rock up and you just make it all up’, which clearly was not the case,” he added.

“The writing on it that they did was brilliant. But you only need to know us a little bit or know the process of it. We’re also in there, you know? It doesn’t mean it’s a co-credit. Doesn’t mean [the whole show was] improvised, but it’s nicely loose.”

HuffPost UK has contacted Ricky Gervais’ team for comment.

Ricky previously told The Independent that he was invited to take part in the BBC’s special, but turned it down as he was “not available” at the time.

A video in which Ricky shares his own memories of working on The Office has since been uploaded to the comedian’s YouTube page.

During a new interview with Empire about the show, the After Life creator also claimed: “It was so important [for the cast] to be naturalistic. Some people thought The Office was ad-libbed. And that’s a testament to the actors, making it look like they came up with it off the top of their heads.”