Xtra-vision ventures into a strange and comic dimension where honesty is the only policy to investigate the making of The Invention of Lying.

"Believe it or not, I've cast myself as a tubby, middle-aged loser. It's a stretch," quips Ricky Gervais, the co-writer/director, producer and star of The Invention of Lying, available now on Blu-ray and DVD, exclusively from Xtra-vision.

In an alternate reality where lying - even the concept of a lie - does not exist, everyone is a realist. Life is straightforward and simple. There is no imagination, no fiction, nothing that isn't the absolute truth. So if you were the only person in the world who could lie, what would you do? This question intrigued Gervais. "I was really attracted to the idea," he states.

That idea first came to co-writer/director Matthew Robinson after a weekend spent watching episodes of The Twilight Zone and reading Harlan Ellison. "Somehow," he offers, "the combination of those two had given my brain the food for strange, large concepts."

"The concept was completely original," recalls producer Oly Obst.

Declares fellow producer Lynda Obst, "This notion that lying didn't exist and people said exactly what was on their minds as a matter of course was absolutely intriguing. What the world would be like if people utterly told the truth - completely unfiltered - was both hilarious and sort of philosophically fascinating to me."

With apologies to the film's star, Robinson describes Gervais' character Mark Bellison as "...a loser with no options who is less than averagely smart, less than averagely wealthy, less than averagely confident... less than average in every single area. At the same time," he continues, "if Mark is truly honest with himself, he'd have to admit he has a little bit of anger inside of him about his status in life. And he also has a little bit of life in him just waiting to come out. And we see that he has heart. So once he gets this power, once he learns to lie, it's not a huge jump for him to become a much more vibrant, full-of-life character."

As the film opens, Mark embarks on his first date with the beautiful Anna, the long-time object of his affection. "Anna is the cousin of Mark's best friend," relates Gervais. "She's gorgeous and Mark's had a crush on her for years, even though she's completely out of his league."

Playing the role of the genetically blessed Anna is Jennifer Garner, who thought the script was "...unlike anything I've ever read. I laughed out loud."

Oly Obst says of Garner, "She brings so much heart and so much goofiness to the role, and no pretence. Anna wears her heart on her sleeve and Jen's emotions just register on her face so quickly and perfectly."

"Often in acting, when you say a line you really mean something else," says Garner. "There's subtext. But because of the way this world is, subtext doesn't exist. You say exactly what you mean all the time. So it was just a matter of stripping away the normal actor tricks and trying to be as honest and clean and uncomplicated in the delivery as possible."

"Jen is an amazing comedienne," adds Lynda Obst. "Her timing and her deadpan performance as Anna just light up the screen."

In addition to being unlucky in life and in love, Mark is unlucky at work as well, a writer at Lecture Films Motion Picture Studios - We Film Someone Telling You About Things That Happened. "Mark writes for a film company, but in this world films are simply people reading historical facts or scientific facts on camera," notes Gervais. "Titles like The Invention of the Fork and things like that. Mark is lumbered with the 14th Century, and no one wants to see that. It's depressing. It's just the Black Plague. Then he gets fired. But when he discovers he can lie... he can tell the greatest stories ever told."

Complicating Mark's life further is professional and romantic rival Brad Kessler, played by Rob Lowe. "Brad is a jerk," says Gervais, "but he's got the jawline."

"Brad is the top dog," adds Lowe. "He's the best writer, he's the Alpha male. After Mark has been fired, Brad goes to him to say how badly he feels and that he just wanted Mark to know, before he left, that Brad also hates him. Because everybody tells the truth, unprompted. Brad is really Mark's nemesis throughout the movie, especially when it comes to Anna."

"Anna and Brad look so gorgeous together that from a genetic point of view it's truly intimidating to Mark," affirms Lynda Obst. "That he has to win Anna away from Brad is truly overwhelming."

"Rob Lowe is a great dramatic actor," says Oly Obst, "but he's also one of the funniest actors around."

Rounding out the cast are Arrested Development's Jeffrey Tambor and Jason Bateman, 30 Rock's Tina Fey, Superbad's Jonah Hill and Extras' Stephen Merchant and Shaun Williamson (a.k.a. Barry off EastEnders).

"Ricky's method of working is always the same," observes longtime collaborator Merchant. "Which is to do it as quickly as possible so he can get home and into his pyjamas."

"Working with this cast was such a pleasure," says Gervais. "I still can't believe my luck. I can't believe these people want to work with me. Truth is, I'm a bit of a chancer. I'm very lucky to be in this position and no one's found me out yet."

For the cast, being directed by both Gervais and Robinson - both making their feature film directing debuts - was a great experience. "They're very smart," notes Jonah Hill, "and they had a solid vision of the movie, so the work got done twice as fast."

"This experience would definitely make me want to work with two directors again," says Garner. "I think it makes a lot of sense. Directors have to answer a hundred thousand questions and these guys have each other to bounce things off of, and they definitely work as one mind."

"The most important thing I think about collaboration is the more you see eye to eye fundamentally, the fewer clashes and compromises there are," states Gervais.

Adds Robinson, "We had a rule from the beginning that only two yeses count, and one no is two nos."

"There's none of this tit-for-tat, 'I'll put that joke in if you put this joke in,'" confirms Gervais. "We discussed the shots; we were fans of the same things. The groundwork was done."

Jennifer Garner believes the movie "...has all the elements of a traditional, feel-good, make-you-laugh, make-you-cry romantic comedy. But it does all that from just a slightly different perspective."

"It's an improbable love story, it's not a traditional comedy," states Oly Obst. "You have to come at it from the side and hope to catch something really special."

Producer Lynda Obst agrees. "There are some really original ideas packed into this movie, including some about love and why you should pick one person over another, and that you can make your own choices and that each choice is equally valid."

"Not only do I think this is a laugh-out-loud comedy, but I believe the film makes you think and ask provocative questions afterward," remarks producer Dan Lin. "It resonates in a way that prompts discussion - what would the world really be like if everyone always told the truth?"

"Everything we do should be a comment on the world. Everything," concludes Gervais. "I think this movie is a funny way to make people reconsider their first impressions of others, and how we might feel if we really knew what people were thinking about us."