Ricky Gervais: After Life’s Diane Morgan defends actor's controversial playground bully scene

Ricky Gervais’ co-star Diane Morgan has defended a controversial scene in Netflix’s After Life which triggered complains from some viewers.

The actress stuck up for the 60-year old comedian and actor from Reading during a recent interview, seconded by co-stars Jo Hartley and Tony Way.

Heart-wrenching series After Life landed on the streaming platform in 2019 and quickly became a hit with viewers, reports the Express.

READ MORE: Primary school wants to use playground as Park and Ride

For three seasons it explored dark themes though a comedy lens, focusing on the process of grief and coping with life after the loss of a loved one.

The series follows Ricky Gervais' character Tony Johnson, a journalist who contemplated taking his own life after his wife Lisa (played by Kerry Godliman) died following a battle with breast cancer.

Tony decides he would rather live long enough to punish the world by saying and doing whatever he likes.

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The pilot episode of the series caused a stir as some viewers complained about a scene where Tony hit back at a kid who labelled him a “pedo.”

In the scene, he walked past a school where the children happened to be in the playground.

After spotting his nephew amongst the other children Tony said: “Hi George,” to which the youngster responded: “Hi.”

As he continued walking past the school gate, another child proceeded to shout “pedo” at Tony for talking to George.

This stopped him in his tracks and led Tony to respond: “I’m not a pedo and if I was you’d be safe, you tubby, little c***.”

After the scene aired a number of viewers complained, threatened to switch off and labelled the actor inappropriate.

Gervais’ co-star Diane Morgan recently defended the scene during an interview and stated: “If you just saw that scene, you’d think it was a funny scene.

“But because you know it comes out of anger, he just doesn't care anymore and this grief, he goes through anger and he’d given up.”

The actress continued: “He just said ‘I don’t care if I offend people anymore, I don’t care I’m just going to say what I think.’

“So if you see it in context, it's brilliant because you see every stage of grief and he’s got to go there.”

Jo Hartley, who plays June in the show, added: “We push it for it to be that effective afterwards.

“It’s to show the reasons why because we all do things in anger and we do things when we’re blind to feeling sad and angry."

The actress added: “That’s what we have to see, life is like that and then some, it's not always happy.”

Lenny’s Tony Way shared: “Also, it shows the evolution of the character as well because I don’t think the character in season three would do that.

“The character’s understanding it’s not all about him and there are people with other issues too and it's probably better to help them than have a go.”

However it didn’t stop there, after finding out the same child was bullying his nephew, Tony proceeded to threaten the boy with a hammer.

After Life seasons 1-3 are available to stream on Netflix.

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