“Greenlight – German Genius”
Series with Kida Ramadan and Ricky Gervais
From left to right: Cüneyt Kaya, Kida Khodr Ramadan, Angélique Kommer, Detlev Buck and Quirin Berg while shooting “Greenlight – German Genius”.
© © Warner TV Comedy / W&B Television / Julian Baumann
“Greenlight – German Genius” wants to be the German “Extras”. How good that Kida Ramadan and Ricky Gervais are doing something together.
What a tiny tweet can bear fruit for creative purposes. A good two and a half years ago, the British star Ricky Gervais (60) congratulated his German actor Kida Khodr Ramadan (45) on his “masterpiece” called “4 Blocks”. Now the two of them have put together the eight-part Warner TV Comedy production entitled “Greenlight – German Genius”, which, according to a press release, has been underway in Berlin since November 25th.
The series will come up with a lot of meta-humor, both Ramadan and Gervais play fictional versions of themselves in a guest appearance. “Greenlight – German Genius” is based on Gervais’ series “Extras”, with which he celebrated his breakthrough and in which he was able to persuade numerous world stars to self-deprecating guest appearances. These include Ben Stiller (55), Sir Patrick Stewart (81) and the late David Bowie (1947-2016). In an equally self-deprecating way, “Greenlight” now wants to tear apart the German TV landscape.
The content of the series says in detail: “Actor Kida Ramadan no longer wants to play the same roles forever, but finally wants to create something of his own. There is a tweet from Ricky Gervais, who celebrates his portrayal of the clan chief Toni Hamady in ‘4 Blocks’, just right. Kida uses the contact and convinces Ricky to give him the rights for a German adaptation of his series ‘Extras’. Too bad that there are hardly any international stars in this country and the Germans are not exactly known for their humor. “
Stars need to be able to laugh at themselves
The premise shows that the German stars who make guest appearances in “Greenlight – German Genius” will primarily have the talent not to take themselves too seriously. The field of participants can be shown in any case: Frederick Lau, Tom Schilling, Olli Schulz, Heike Makatsch, Maria Furtwängler, Wim Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, and Kurt Krömer, to name just a few, become distorted versions of theirs in the eight times 30 minutes play yourself.
By the way, Ramadan had already announced in the year of Gervais’ tweet (2019) that a great collaboration was pending. At the time, he posted a video on Instagram alongside the British comedian aka his “big brother” and said: “Wait a minute. We have something to do together.”
In the meantime he has gone up again in this regard. He wrote about a shared picture: “The cat is out of the bag. ‘Greenlight’ is currently being shot, it will be wild and big, swear to you. Ricky Gervais is at the start.” and also the US site “Variety” has already taken up the promising project.