With the Emmy announcements inching closer, one for your consideration caught me off guard. Patrick Dempsey is not a Lead Actor this year. He is throwing his name into the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category. Why is Patrick Dempsey announcing that he is a supporting character? I think several storylines this season of Grey's Anatomy (especially his breakdown and his proposal) are lead actor moments.

Is Patrick Dempsey scared of his competitors? Probably. ABC wants to get an Emmy in any form or fashion and they are probably clearing the path for Lost or Brothers and Sisters to make a stab for lead.

That's the major revelation from this Ricky Gervais interview in the latest issue of Esquire. Which is probably going to bum out fans of NBC's The Office and the original, hoping for a David Brent guest-spot on the show.

Gervais talks about his role in the new Ben Stiller comedy A Night At The Museum (which also stars Robin Williams, which pretty much means I won't go to see it in the theaters and will only see it on DVD if I read that Williams is only in it for a few minutes), his favorite comics (none are British!), why you have to be a complete fascist when creating art, and why he wouldn't have done the plot with Jim moving to the other Dunder-Mifflin office to get away from Pam.

The second season of HBO's Extras starts on January 14.

Quick but good Q and A with Harry Shearer over at The Boston Globe. Shearer, the voice of Mr. Burns, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, and others on The Simpsons, talks about his many years on the show, how they film the episodes, and even gets a little bit into the mistakes some of the writers have made to the characters over the years, stuff that he has spoken out about. He cites two examples: one from this season, where Ned Flanders tried to get creationism taught in the schools and there was a joke about the name Jesus Christ that Shearer felt Ned Flanders would never say, and the whole "Seymour Skinner isn't really Seymour Skinner" plotline. He thinks it was a horrible mistake that even the writers don't want to talk about now.

Shearer can be seen in the new movie For Your Consideration, and has a new book out, Not Enough Indians, a comic novel about how a depressed town tries to become an Indian reservation so they can open up a casino.

Add Ricky Gervais to the list of cool kids who get to star in Christopher Guest films (This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman). Gervais, creator and star of The Office and Extras, will make his big screen debut in Guest's new movie, For Your Consideration. It's about the cast of an indie flick that starts to get high hopes when their movie gets internet buzz and rumors fly about possible nominations. The movie stars the usual Guest actors, including Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey and Fred Willard. Gervais and American The Office actor John Krasinski also have roles. Interestingly, Christopher Guest changed up his format for his new movie. It's not his typical, improvised 'mockumentary', but it's being called "a movie within a movie", with lots of scripted scenes. It's the first movie role for Gervais, who said he accepted the part because "Christopher Guest is the single biggest influence on my comedy."

For Your Consideration hits theaters in November.

Emmy voting began on June 4th, which explains all the Battlestar Galactica advertisements I've seen all over the web on industry pages lately. SciFi is campaigning pretty heavily for Emmy nominations for its highest-rated show. It has shipped the entire season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD to voting members of the academy (supposedly, some of those DVDs are for sale now on EBay).

The Los Angeles Times website, The Envelope, has a full list of television shows that are campaigning for Emmys by purchasing ads in industry magazines, on websites, and by sending DVDs to members. Interestingly, canceled shows like Alias and Arrested Development haven't even bothered to ask 'for your consideration' this year.

Emmy nominees will be announced July 6.