Funnyman Ricky Gervais has praised rockers Richard Ashcroft and Liam Gallagher for giving him inspiration for one of his films.

During a Q&A at the Soho Hotel in London for the DVD release of Cemetery Junction, directors Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant admitted Liam, 37, and Richard, 38, were the inspirations behind the comedy-drama.

Gervais, 49, found that actors fell into two categories, half that play society types and half that play violent wife-beating roles.
But the Extras star worked with Stephen to make their characters different and more like rock stars.

He said: 'We didn't want it to be one those really gritty 'isn't England a bit depressing and crap and normal' films.

'We wanted it to be a bit more glorious and evoke those possibly false memories of every day being sunny and brilliant and fun, that's how I remember my childhood.'

Ricky added: 'We cast about a thousand people to try and find these Jimmy Deans and John Travoltas - half of them will be Mr Darcy one day, and the other half will be going, 'You f****** slags.'

'So we had to look to our rock stars like Richard Ashcroft and Liam Gallagher, that's where we rule the world.'

Stephen added: 'This country's always been very good at making rock stars, and rock stars are unashamedly cool but somehow British films are less like that, it's like we're a little bit more embarrassed to be like that.

'We need to be self-conscious and make things seem gloomier and grittier but that wasn't my experience of growing up, everything seemed very cool to me.'