Ricky Gervais Roasts Golden Globes for Snubbing Female Directors: 'That's Bad'

Ricky Gervais has something to say about the lack of female filmmakers nominated in the Best Director of a Motion Picture category during the 2020 Golden Globes.

The 58-year-old comedian took a dig at the all-male roster of nominees during Sunday’s night broadcast of the star-studded ceremony, addressing the backlash that has been surrounding the award ever since the nominations were announced last year.

“A lot of controversy about our next category: No female directors were nominated this year. Not one,” he said before introducing the presenters for the award. “I mean, that’s bad.”

Gervais then went on to say that he spoke with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to remedy the situation, joking that executives will stop hiring women to direct movies in general.

“I’ve had a word with the Hollywood Foreign Press, and they’ve guaranteed that will never happen again,” he joked. “Working with all the major studios, they’ve agreed to go back the way things were a few years ago when they didn’t even hire women directors, and that will solve the problem.”

He quipped, “You’re welcome.”

Sam Mendes ended up taking home the top honor for helming 1917, beating out Boon Joon-ho (Parasite), Martin Scorsese (The Irishman), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) and Todd Phillips (Joker).

When the nominations were first announced, many noted that Greta Gerwig, who directed 2019’s Little Women, was unfortunately left out of the list despite her work being universally praised by critics.

Little Women stars Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen spoke about Gerwig’s snub on the Today show in December, saying the cast was a bit surprised when the filmmaker didn’t receive a Golden Globes nod.

“I think we were all just a bit totally shocked, really,” Pugh, 24, said.

“She has made one of the best movies of the year,” Ronan, 25, added. “And I think Laura [Dern] made a really good point yesterday in that, in a way, it’s sort of vital for something like this to happen because it reminds us of how far, obviously, we still need to go.”

She continued, “She’s a really, really brilliant filmmaker and we wouldn’t be here without her. We’ve talked about how we’re sort of inextricably linked, our performances rely so much on one another, but Greta is the one who brought us together and she’s the mastermind behind the whole thing.”

Gerwig also missed out on a Globes nomination in 2018 for Lady Bird, which earned her a Best Director nod at the Oscars just a few weeks later.

It wasn’t until 1983 that a woman was nominated for the best director award at the Globes, when Barbra Streisand won for Yentl. She was nominated again in 1991 for The Prince of Tides and remains the only woman to have actually won the honor.

The other women who have been nominated are Jane Campion (1993’s The Piano), Sofia Coppola (2003’s Lost in Translation), Kathryn Bigelow (2008’s The Hurt Locker and 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty) and Ava DuVernay (2014’s Selma).

The 77th Annual Golden Globe Awards ceremony air live on NBC from the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Sunday, Jan. 5 starting at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.