Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe tell the truth about 'The Invention of Lying'

Now that Ricky Gervais has hosted the 2010 Golden Globe Awards, millions of people who didn’t really know who was before are probably now more aware of who he is: one of the funniest people in the world. Gervais made his feature-film directorial debut with 2009’s "The Invention of Lying" (he co-wrote and co-directed the comedy with Matthew Robinson), which tells the story of lovable loser Mark Bellison (played by Gervais) who lives in a world where lies don’t exist — until Mark mysteriously develops the power to lie. Mark then starts using his ability to make himself more attractive to the woman of his dreams, Anna McDoogles (played by Jennifer Garner) — much to the frustration of a conceited former co-worker named Brad Kessler (played by Rob Lowe), who is Mark’s rival for Anna’s affections.

"The Invention of Lying" (released January 19 on DVD and Blu-ray) had its world premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, where two press conferences were held for the film on September 14, the day of the movie’s premiere. (The first press conference took place at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, while the second press conference was at the Sutton Place Hotel.) Here’s what Gervais, Lowe, Garner and Robinson had to say during the second press conference.

Can you imagine what kind of coverage you’d be getting at the Toronto International Film Festival if we lived in the truth-telling world that’s shown in "The Invention of Lying"?

Gervais: Well, the thing is, as pointed out in the film, there’d be no art as such. There wouldn’t fictional TV to enjoy. There wouldn’t be any of those things. What we explore whether only truth is as good as the choice we make every day whether to tell the truth or not.

And a world without any lies at all is not a good world, because it’s artless and because there are no white lies, no flattery. I think what makes us human is those choices. It wouldn’t be a very nice world at all, particularly for someone like Mark. He’s at the bottom of the pile. He knows he’s a loser but he doesn’t need to be told every day. It would obviously be [a] very different [world].

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Rob Lowe, Jennifer Garner, Matthew Robinson and Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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How did you decide what to put and what not to put in "The Invention of Lying" world?

Gervais: When you’re writing and directing something, there are choices, so we had to think long and hard about what would be made. Case in point: Because fiction doesn’t exist, our readers are literally reading facts. They’re entertaining or educational. Like Napoleon, the invention of the fork, mathematics. The one that we didn’t have was the Holocaust. We thought, "There wouldn’t be a Holocaust, because racism is built on lies." So it’s those little things, the minutiae of what would or wouldn’t happen that excite us when we create this fictional universe.

Is "The Invention of Lying" a farce, a satire or just a regular comedy? And can you talk about how you use the concept of religion in this movie, even though it’s not a religious movie?

Gervais: I think it is all those things. It is a farce; it is a high-concept comedy. I’ve always used the comedy genre as a Trojan horse to deliver bigger ideas. "The Office" was a sitcom but we explored things like midlife crisis and making a difference and wasting your life. "Extras" started off as a satire of the entertainment industry, and it turned out to be a thing about friendship.

I wouldn’t say that ["The Invention of Lying"] is a religious film. I’d say it’s a philosophical movie that certainly deals with those ideas. The reason we did that was because we thought of everything that may or may not happen, and it came around was the spark was the lovely lie that I [as Mark Bellison] tell [Mark’s] mother when she’s dying to make her feel better about where she’s going, because she doesn’t want to enter into a world of nothingness.

I am an atheist, but this isn’t an atheist propaganda movie by any means. I love films that assume the opposite [of what I believe]. They assume there is a God, and I love things like "The Bishop’s Wife" and "It’s a Wonderful Life." I don’t enter the movie theater saying, "Oh, my faith has been challenged."

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Fionnula Flanagan, Ricky Gervais and Jason Bateman in "The Invention of Lying"

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Robinson: We never set out to tackle any of those issues that you see in the film, such as religion or even advertising. We wanted to track the character of Mark Bellison, and it seemed like a natural curveball to throw in how he would deal with death, and the wildfire that inspire by what he tells his mother. So we never set out to tackle those things. We just wanted to naturally track what a loser would do, in that world, with the gift of lying. It was the most natural way to go.

Gervais: You could also add something else: It’s a farce, it’s a satire, it’s a rom com, it’s high-concept comedy. I think it’s a superhero movie as well, because with his great power comes great responsibility. And his initial thing is, "This is great fun. I can do anything." But then he realizes he can save a kid’s life who’s contemplating suicide.

Robinson: It’s the comedic "Matrix."

Gervais: Yeah, and we needed to cast someone who looked a bit like Keanu Reeves. That’s why I got the part. And it’s nice to explore what [Mark Bellison] will or won’t do with this. You find out he’s a nice guy because there are things he could do but he doesn’t. He gets three chances to lie to Anna, and he doesn’t lie … He says, "It wouldn’t count."

And he’s only trying to do good. He’s only telling white lies. I think it makes you think about how often you lie. And I think if you’re a decent person, then you can call yourself an honest person who tells white lies every day to save people’s feelings.

Robinson: And also lying’s gotten a bad rap. I think this film champions lying. Without lying, there’s no potential. There’s no self-deceit that can tell you that you’re more than poor and a loser. And I think that’s most important kind of a lie. Without the lie, we’re all stuck in how we’re born. We can never see anything outside of that.

Gervais: There’s another strange sort of model that I thought of: Mark Bellison is more like the American Dream, and everyone around him is much more British. They’re cynics and they’re just stuck with their lot. Americans are told they can be the next president of the United States. English people are told, "It won’t happen to you. Don’t bother."

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Rob Lowe at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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Ricky, Jennifer and Rob, what’s the best or worst lie you’ve ever heard about yourselves?

Lowe: I think that vicious, horrible rumor about me and Ben Affleck. I just want to say categorically that Ben and I are not secretly married.

Garner: Is that what we’re going with now? OK. Are you coming back to Boston with me or not?

Lowe: Yes. Yes.

Garner: I would like to also like to say that the rumor that Ben Affleck and I are married is also false. Ricky?

Gervais: I am Ben Affleck!

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Jennifer Garner, Martin Starr and Rob Lowe in "The Invention of Lying"

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Rob and Jennifer, in which situations do you think its OK to lie?

Garner: To save somebody’s feelings, of course. To smooth the transition to say hello to somebody, you don’t need to stop and have an entire conversation, you can say, "Nice to see you." If somebody says, "How are you?," I think it’s acceptable to say, "Fine," even if you’re not, if you don’t know them very well. And to let little kids feel more important than they are. Like letting them win at a game occasionally to help them build their self-confidence.

Lowe: Those are good. The umbrella that I live under is that you must be truthful with everyone except when to do so would injure them or others.

At the MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West had a fit of honesty when he got on stage and told Taylor Swift that he thought Beyoncé should’ve won …

Lowe: Did you say he had a fit of publicity?

A fit of honesty and publicity. Do you feel, as celebrities, that you have more of a platform or a responsibility to be honest in the media?

Garner: That’s not honesty; that’s just bad manners.

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Jennifer Garner at the Los Angeles premiere of "The Invention of Lying"

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The Kanye West thing?

Garner: Yes. You can choose to be civil or not be civil. What is the point of going through the day and think it’s cool to wear your honesty on your sleeve at the expense of everyone around you?

Lowe: Also, the guy who said during [Barack] Obama’s speech, "You lie!" By the way, that should be our ad [for "The Invention of Lying"]. That should be the ad we run. Regardless of how you feel about civil discourse, you just don’t do that on the floor of Congress. You just don’t do it.

But that’s the great debate: When is it appropriate? When is it inappropriate? That’s what’s great about this movie: It’s people talking about stuff like this. And to be talking about anything after a comedy these days is shocking enough in and of itself. So I love that this movie has something to say.

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Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

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Ricky, when you were writing "The Invention of Lying," did you have to figure out if the characters would be honest and sometimes keep the truth to themselves or if they would blurt out the truth involuntarily?

Gervais: It depends, really. That was a choice we had, but we couldn’t …

Robinson: If there was an elephant in the room you had to address and anything you felt self-conscious of or embarrassed by had to be expressed.

Gervais: Yeah. We had to make them voice it, or else it was just in our heads as writers.

Robinson: You don’t say everything you think in this world.

Gervais: We show that in a few instances where people just said things just because it was overwhelming. But mainly, it was showing in this world, because they didn’t know the concept of lying, whatever Mark said, they would take on total face value. They would never question it, even in the face of other evidence, because lying [to them] was impossible, lying was inconceivable. So that was the fun we had with it.

Robinson: Also, we never walked the line of showing you something that was reality and changing that. We never said, "You have brown eyes" when you actually have green. We didn’t want to cross that line. It’s not a Jedi mind trick.

Gervais: Yeah. There was one point of contention that lasted right up until the filming, which was when he cheats at the casino. "That machine’s just paid out" is a good one, but we wanted to do something where [Mark] had seen where he’d seen it wasn’t on the number but he had to look away, because it was too much of a mine field and to see something that was totally opposed to what he said. Every little piece of information we thought about for hours and hours to make our artistic decisions.

Robinson: We may have screwed up a few times.

Gervias: Oh, God! But that’s the fun of it.

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Ricky Gervais (center) and Matthew Robinson (third from right) on the set of "The Invention of Lying"

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Was it deliberate not to have the word "lie" mentioned in the movie?

Gervais: Oh, yeah, of course, because it would be redundant. I think it would be a bit smug for Mark to coin a word that we know in our world. There was no point for it because it was a concept that didn’t exist.

Robinson: This is the early days of lying. Maybe later on in life, they would’ve come up with the term.

Gervais: This is day one for lying.

Do you think screenwriting in film doesn’t get as much respect as screenwriting in television?

Gervias: Well, firstly, the reason I started being in stuff and directing or producing anything was to protect the writing. I see the writing as the DNA, and all the rest is just bringing up the kid. It’s always to protect that. I’d say that television in the last 10 years has beaten films, in terms of it being an art factory. Things like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" are audacious pieces of drama. They just keep coming back and back.

But then I look at screenwriting like Billy Wilder, and I think it’s sublime. I don’t know how he does it. It’s a piece of art … It’s just remarkable. I’m in awe of the auteur, particularly writing. It’s the last thing I would give up of everything I do.

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Jennifer Garner and Ashton Kutcher in "Valentine's Day"

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Jennifer, your next movie is "Valentine’s Day." What do you think about the invention of Valentine’s Day?

Garner: There are different ways to look at that. We can look at it cynically and say that it’s completely commercial. We can look at it romantically and say it’s a day to celebrate love. And how lovely is that? So that’s what I’m going to go with. [She says jokingly] And I invented Valentine’s Day. It’s crazy! I was young.

Can you talk more about constructing this imaginary world where people don’t lie?

Gervais: The world was so important. There could be nothing by accident. This was rather like doing animation, in the sense that when you’re watching animation and leaf falls from a tree, you suddenly realize that’s not a mistake. That took someone two weeks to do. And that’s how we thought about the background, everything we placed, the signs.

But then we pulled back. We only [focused on] that in the first few moments of the movie, or else it would get wearying. We didn’t want people to go, "Is there a joke here? Is there a gag here?’ So we sort of stripped that away and let people accept the world once we’d done the difficult bit of presenting the world. And to be honest, I think the film is explained when [Anna] opens that door and says that amazing first line of a character in any movie. I think you understand exactly what the world’s about.

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Jeffrey Tambor and Ricky Gervais in "The Invention of Lying"

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Most films have a subtext. Was it difficult for the actors to play characters that can’t lie?

Gervais: There’s no subtext.

Garner: It was a challenge to get used to, because you can’t help but want to twist something and give it a bit of irony or a bit of sarcasm. If you committed to it, it was very freeing to just be completely straight all the time.

Gervais: It was guilt-free as well, because these people, these characters weren’t being nasty; it was their nature. It’s like saying a lion’s cruel because it kills antelopes. It does it without a moral issue. And these people are in this world where they’re products of their surroundings.

Robinson: There’s only one character in this film that’s allowed to react to people saying things and be embarrassed or shocked, and that’s [Mark Bellison]. Before he invented the lie, he was already on that track. There’s something different about him.

Gervais: There’s a hint of sarcasm.

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Jennifer Garner and Ricky Gervais at the Los Angeles premiere of "The Invention of Lying"

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Ricky, you spend so much time making other people laugh. What makes you laugh?

Gervais: Everything. Everything. I’d rather be the bloke laughing at other people. I don’t need to make people laugh. I surround myself with funny people. I laugh all the time. The actors will confirm that I ruin the takes. No one else ruins the takes. I do. If someone says something funny, I laugh. Even if it’s the 15th time that They’ve said it, I think, "That’s funny," and I laugh and I ruin the take. I’ve always been attracted to humor and funny people in general. It’s a joy to make people laugh, but it’s not as fun as laughing yourself.

Garner: Ricky’s the ultimate fan. If you say something that makes him laugh, the sun shines, because there’s no more benediction of your line reading than for Ricky to blow your take.

Lowe: And then also in life, if you say something funny, he shrieks and then he repeats it. [He says, imitating Gervais’ British accent,] "He just said monkey! Monkey, he said!" [He goes back to his regular voice] I like the replay of it. The replay is good.

Gervais: I like Rob Lowe shouting "monkey."

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Ricky Gervais, Rob Lowe, Jennifer Garner, Louis C.K. and Jonah Hill at the Los Angeles premiere of "The Invention of Lying"

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Rob and Jennifer, how did you get involved in "The Invention of Lying?"

Lowe: Ricky and I share the same agent, and he put us on the phone. It was like a blind date on the phone, and we sort of made each other laugh. And then I met with Matt [Robinson] and we were talking abut the idea …

Robinson: I made him do "Tommy Boy" lines for, like, 30 minutes.

Lowe: Literally, just when you think he’s a bright, up-and-coming, bright auteur, you need to know that "Tommy Boy" is his favorite movie. Let’s just get that out on the table.

Gervais: We needed a genetically perfect nemesis. Look at the jawline. It’s ridiculous! It’s like it’s fake! It’s like someone drew it. It’s too sharp. It’s perfect.

I’d worked with Jennifer before in "Alias," and what nailed it for me was the fact that in real life and her public image are one in the same. She doesn’t swear. She says things like "darn" and "dang it." I asked her what’s her favorite swear word, and she sad, "rats." I said, "That’s not a swear word."

Garner: He’s full of baloney!

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Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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Gervais: Now, that [comment] is really rude for her. She’ll feel bad about that for a little bit, that fact that she "swore" with baloney. But we really wanted to play with that, and we were very conscious of that we needed someone to say all these nasty things but you would still like.

Robinson: We also needed a great comedic actress.

Gervais: Exactly. We knew she could do that but it was all toward that line. The only [other] person who could do that line would be Martha Stewart, wouldn’t it? That would be more shocking than you.

Garner: She wasn’t available. You know my dog’s name is Martha Stewart.

Gervais: She loves Martha Stewart. It’s her favorite ex-convict, isn’t it? Nelson Mandela is second.

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Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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Ricky, how that you’re becoming more known in Hollywood, do people lie to you more? Can you tell when people are lying to you?

Gervais: That’s a difficult one. I don’t really play the Hollywood game as such. I’m not really an actor for hire … I sort of create my work, really. I own my own labor. I don’t feel like I’m part of that mill yet, and I don’t know if I ever will be. And I don’t think I ever will be. I don’t know if I could be, I don’t know if I want to be.

I still see myself as a bit of a cottage industry. Do you know what I mean? Being in a room creating stuff and seeing if anyone wants it, as opposed to going to work for someone. I think that’s what it feels like for me, and it felt like that for us in this film — that we were doing something that’s ours an seeing if anyone wants to show it. I’ve always been like that.

Where did you get the idea for "The Invention of Lying"?

Gervais: That idea was Matt [Robinson’s]. He had watched a marathon of "The Twilight Zone." It was one of those things here I thought, "This must have been done before." It just seemed too good. All the best high-concept [films] is just one idea. It does it in the title. That’s how simplistic it is. But then we complicated things. We tried to do a few things with this film, and I think we pulled it off.

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Stephanie March and Ricky Gervais in "The Invention of Lying"

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Ricky, lot of the humor in this movie pokes fun at your physicality ...

Gervais: If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

Is there ever a point where you think that it’s too much of a beating on your ego?

Gervais: No, I love it. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve got no ego at all or such a big ego that I know nothing can hurt me.

Robinson: I‘d have to pull him back in writing sessions …

Gervais: Someone insulting me makes me laugh. Someone insulting me, just saying it to my face, just straight. The things that Rob [Lowe] and Tina Fey said to me [in "The Invention of Lying"], I ruined so many takes, because they did it with such venom. It’s like they meant it … I think it’s primal. You know when you play peek-a-boo? I still find that funny … So one of the big things is me being beaten up. Yeah, I love that.

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Rob Lowe and Jennifer Garner at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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Rob and Jennifer, did you ever lie on your résumé in the beginning of your careers?

Garner: No.

Lowe: No, me neither. I started so young that concept of a résumé was even [strange] …

Garner: A lot of Denison University. I had summer stock all over the country. The Georgia Shakespeare Festival, the Timberlake Playhouse.

Lowe: That’s so great. What was your favorite production? "Annie Get Your Gun?
 

Garner: I did do "Annie Get Your Gun."

Lowe: I knew it!

Garner: "Nunsense 2!"

Lowe: Oh, God!

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Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

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Billy Wilder’s movies a had a mix of humor and sentimentality. How did you find that balance in your writing?

Gervais: You try to make characters you care about, and I think realism helps. Even though this is a high concept, the characters have got to be real ... I think comedy and drama — because they’re the same thing, really — is about empathy. It’s as simple as that. I can’t find someone funny whom I don’t like. Hitler told great jokes. I didn’t find it funny at all.

Laurel and Hardy nailed it a hundred years ago. They had empathy. They were precarious. You wanted to hug them. And then people like Bob Hope, Woody Allen, they were lovable, even though they were sometimes saying terrible things and acting arrogantly and above it all, you liked them because you identified with them. I think that’s the fundamental thing. You can go anywhere you like as long as you’re following a character that the audience likes and understands.

Robinson: Billy Wilder made it possible. He told all writers and directors that anything could be funny. [Wilder’s 1960 film] "The Apartment" culminates in an attempted suicide, and by the end of the film, you’re laughing and crying. And if he could do that. it’s a call to writers that nothing is off the table. There can be comedy and heart in anything.

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Ricky Gervais at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival press conference for "The Invention of Lying"

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Ricky, you’ve done stand-up comedy, TV shows and movies. What do you like doing the most? And what do you want to do that you haven’t done yet?

Gervais: Of all the disciplines involved in making anything — TV, film or anything I do — the writing, as I said, is the most valuable commodity. I do like doing it all. I like film and TV and radio. Probably my favorite thing is the podcast I do with Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington, just because you’re not trying to be funny. It’s me and Steve enjoying a real person: Karl Pilkington, who is like Homer Simpson. So it’s more a celebration of our friendship. We feel like a couple of high-school guys who’ve found a caveman and thawed him out. We take him around like a freak in a sideshow in the Wild West.

Robinson: Is Karl going to hear this?

Gervais: He won’t care. And he won’t fully understand either. So I like that, because there’s no discipline. It’s just blokes sitting down and having a chat. And I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you’ve known for years, in a pub. That’s as funny as you get, and so the aim is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn’t be listening but they are. And I think if you can get close to being relaxed … See, funny bones, to me, are more important than funny lines.

Going back to the people you do and don’t like, if a comedian is just not likable and doing the lines, you could read them yourself. Whereas if someone [you like] shambles out, and they tell you what a bad day they’ve had, they don’t have to say anything. I love them. I want to hug them because they’ve been through something. And it comes back to empathy, always empathy.

Hitler telling jokes, by the way, was a joke. He didn’t really tell jokes, and if he did, I wouldn’t find them funny, because of all the other sh*t he did. Let’s clear that up straight away! [He laughs.]

Photo credits: Photos #1, 13, 18: Reuters. Photos #2, 14: Getty Images. Photos #4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 16, 17: AP. All other photos: Warner Bros. Pictures.