Matthew Robinson (writer)

• 1. Introduction

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  Matthew Robinson was born on the 26th of May 1978, and by his early thirties he had managed to co-create a film that asked one of the stranger philosophical questions in modern comedy: what would the world look like if no one had ever learned to lie? That film, The Invention of Lying, reached cinemas in 2009 and brought Robinson into a collaboration with one of Britain's most recognizable comic minds. But the path to that moment was not a straight line. It ran through a satirical hip-hop group mocking rap excess, through a Hollywood script list that surfaces the most promising unproduced work of any given year, and through an unsolicited package mailed to a comedian in England. What made Robinson's original script compelling enough to cross an ocean? And how does a writer who started out performing under the name Matty Boom end up reworking a Star Wars spin-off? Those questions point toward a career that has stayed stubbornly hard to pin down.

• 2. Matty Boom and The Trilambs

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  Before any screenplay credit existed, Robinson was performing in a satirical hip-hop group called The Trilambs. His stage name was Matty Boom, and the group's target was the culture surrounding rap itself, specifically the glorification of materialism, misogyny, and homophobia. The Trilambs released their only album, It Wasn't Not Funny, in 2001, a title that captures the group's deliberately sideways tone. A second release followed in the form of a six-song EP titled The Jacket Smasher EP. The two releases together represent a short but pointed chapter, one in which Robinson was already practicing the kind of comic deflation he would later apply to much larger subjects.

• 3. The Script That Crossed an Ocean

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  Robinson's breakthrough in film began with a script he called This Side of Truth. In 2007 that script appeared on the official Black List, the annual Hollywood survey that identifies the most-liked unproduced screenplays circulating in the industry. Producer Lynda Obst joined Robinson in sending the script to the English comedian Ricky Gervais, without any prior connection or introduction. Gervais responded with genuine enthusiasm. He eventually flew Robinson to London to retool the material together, a collaboration that transformed the script into The Invention of Lying. Robinson's original spark had been a single skit about two people on a date who cannot lie. He expanded that premise through additional sketches and then shaped the accumulated material into a full feature. The finished film came out in 2009, with Robinson co-directing alongside Gervais and also appearing on screen in a small role credited as Person Number Four.

• 4. A Career in Revision

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  Monster Trucks, released in 2016, shows a different side of how Robinson's work moves through the film industry. Robinson wrote the original script, but the shooting version was credited to Derek Connolly and two other writers. Robinson received a story credit, the acknowledgment given when the underlying idea survives even if the words do not. A reported assignment on the 7th of December 2016 added more scale: Greg Berlanti was set to direct a revamped version of the musical The Little Shop of Horrors, with Robinson writing the screenplay. In March 2019 came a report that Robinson would rewrite the sequel to Edge of Tomorrow, the 2014 science fiction film. That same month he was linked to Rogue Squadron, a planned Star Wars spin-off, though that project was cancelled in March 2023. Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Love and Monsters both carry Robinson's writing credit in his filmography, the former from 2019 and the latter from 2020.

• 5. Seven Years of Get Up On This

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  Robinson built a parallel life in podcasting alongside his screenwriting work. With Jensen Karp, he co-hosted Get Up On This, a show built around the premise of introducing a guest to things the hosts believe they should know about. The two also ran Get Up Off This, described as a podcast within a podcast, focused on things people should stop liking and on alternatives to replace them. The show launched in August 2011 and ran until October 2018, producing 371 episodes across that stretch. When Robinson and Karp stepped back, they chose Ali Segel and Erin Mallory Long as their replacements. On the 22nd of March 2019, Robinson launched a separate series called Game Brain: A Board Game Podcast, turning his attention to tabletop games and the guests who play them.

• 6. Personal Life

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  Robinson married actress Rachel Germaine on the 23rd of January 2016. Their son, Strider Myer Robinson, was born on the 29th of December 2017. A daughter, Joni Isley Robinson, followed on the 15th of October 2019. His filmography lists two projects in production beyond the works already released: a 2025 film titled Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, and a 2026 project called The Last House, which was still filming at the time his credits were compiled.