Ricky Gervais won't host the Oscars unless he is given the freedom to say whatever he wants

Ricky's name has been in the frame for the 2019 Academy Awards but he thinks there's virtually no chance he'll get the gig and even if was offered the job he would only accept it if he was allowed to do it his way.

Speaking to BANG Showbiz at the 2018 Specsavers National Book Awards at The Royal Institution of Great Britain in London on Tuesday night (20.11.18), he said: "I think there's slim to no chance of it, if they said, like the Golden Globes said, 'You can do it and you can say what you want,' then I would do it, that would be amazing. But that will never happen, they will never let me do that. I wouldn't compromise, what's the point? So I would be seen by 300 million people doing something that I don't want to do. If they said, 'Do what you want.' Then I would that would be amazing."

Ricky was at the event to support his partner Jane Fallon, who was nominated for Popular Fiction Book of the Year for her novel 'Faking Friends'.

And Jane, 57, was relieved that Ricky wasn't hosting the National Book Awards because if he was she would be sure that he would make fun of her author peers and her.

She said: "He is fun when he's hosting, although he might insult people who I know. I suppose if he was presenting my award he might say I'd won even if I hadn't so that might have been good."

Ricky added: "It's good, I've got nothing to do tonight except drink, it's amazing ... I'm going to go and get drunk."

Jane did not win on the night, instead losing out in her category to Gail Honeyman, who took home the Popular Fiction Book of the Year for her tome 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine'.

Other winners at the ceremony - which was hosted by Zoe Ball - included Benedict Cumberbatch, who was honoured with the Audiobook of the Year accolade for his reading of Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli's philosophy of science book 'The Order of Time', and Philip Pullman, who was named UK Author of the Year for 'The Book of Dust'.

The biggest winner of the evening was doctor-turned-author Adam Kay who won three prizes for his medical diary 'This Is Going to Hurt'; New Writer of the Year, Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the Zoe Ball Book Club gong.