Today’s interview is with Matthew Robinson, who co-wrote and co-directed (with the star of the movie Ricky Gervais) the current release The Invention of Lying. How did the movie come to pass?

After toiling fairly fruitlessly for a decade as a scripter in L.A., he hit his career nadir and went to his ideas file in search of rescue. What jumped out was a year-old skit he’d penned the morning after watching a Twilight Zone marathon. It focused on a doughy schmo on a date with a fox in a world where no one could lie. Thirteen days later, he had a finished script for The Invention of Lying.

Which brings us back to Robinson’s real-life fairy tale. After writing his script, he got it to producer Lynda Obst, who said she’d try to get it to his comedic hero, Ricky Gervais.

“I had put it out of my head because I didn’t want to be heartbroken when he didn’t respond,” recounts Robinson. “I’m in the 11 a.m. showing of Grindhouse at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on a Friday and I accidentally leave my phone on. I see this really long number so I pick it up, and it’s Ricky Gervais. He’s saying things that you’d be embarrassed to admit to people that you’d dreamed of Ricky Gervais saying to you.”

In this excerpt from the interview, Robinson talks about the process of writing with Ricky Gervais:

On a mechanical level, how would you guys write? Would you sit in a room together or would you e-mail?

We did all the writing in rooms together. I went to England a few times he came here a few times, and we would outline scenes together and then I would go off and write them up. But by the time I left we would have 90 percent of the dialogue. He’s really great at sitting in silence for a few moments then popping up and having the whole scene ready and acting everybody’s part out in front of you. My job at that point was to type as fast as humanly possible.

Did you come from away from this experience with any lessons that you think are worth mentioning?

The main thing that I really learned from Ricky was integrity. Not that I didn’t have it before, but I really learned the importance of the ability to block out the rest of the world and really focus in on what you want to see on the screen. I would think the main ethos behind his creativity is confidence and trust in yourself, to only be concerned with what you would wait three days in the rain to see.

The interview can be found here at the WGA website. Here’s the trailer to the movie The Invention of Lying: