Ricky Gervais: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

3. Mark Bellison - The Invention Of Lying

The only thing worse than Ricky Gervais playing Ricky Gervais is when Ricky Gervais plays Ricky Gervais in a movie directed by Ricky Gervais. His directorial debut was a pretty irritating film as it was, with a rather idiotic concept that was incredibly poorly explained - there’s a difference between lying and not saying the first thing to pop into your head.

But Gervais as the lead makes it insufferable. There’s an unlikeable smugness that builds and builds until, at the end, when he’s pretending to be a deceitful Moses with Pizza Hut tablets, you just want to smack the guy in the face.

Characterisation aside, it's just a performance where the rambling commentary on the world around him that Gervais has made his go-to just doesn’t work.