"You look at it on a map and think ‘All right, we can probably do that in three or four days.’  Then, after a day’s driving for 10 or 11 hours, you’ve only gone 300 miles and you’ve got to travel 2,000 miles.

"We did nothing but drive from eight in the morning until nine or ten at night.  Then there was the weather.  When we got to Nevada, it started snowing, and it continued for the rest of the trip. 

"In certain parts of Wyoming and Colorado, it got so cold the beer would freeze inside the fridge and the shampoo in the bottles."  Frost laughs: "I think we killed the RV."
 
They wove several of their experiences from the trip into the script. "We actually went to a place called the Little A’Le’Inn, and the incident in the film with the meatheads happened to us," recalls Pegg. 

"There were these two guys who came in who were perhaps not quite as threatening as the characters in the movie, but they certainly made the atmosphere turn cold.  The bird hitting the windshield also happened. 

"Every day there was a new experience.  We had a real adventure.  It was vital and brilliant fun, and we never could have written the movie without it."

Since it was a bit difficult to locate an actual extraterrestrial to take the trip with them, the duo came up with a suitable substitute.  One of Pegg’s friends sculpted a bust of an alien and called him Paul. 

"All the photos they sent were framed in such a way that Paul looked like he was with them," says producer Park. "That inspired them, brought it to life.  They suddenly thought, ‘You know, this could really work.’"
 
Once the excursion was over, Pegg and Frost watched more than 50 movies about aliens and about road trips. "Then we just sat opposite one another and banged it out, line by line," recalls Frost. 

"For a time Simon went off to do How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, and since we needed a draft of the script, I went away for a couple of weeks and wrote a big 180-page script.  When Simon returned, we took that behemoth and completely deconstructed it. 

"We kept what was good, and what was bad was elbowed.  Simon had a big monitor so I could see what he was typing.  We discussed every single line, sometimes for hours."
 
What emerged was a comedy-adventure that is actually about more than one visitor who’s far from home. "In one respect, everyone in this film is slightly alien," says Pegg. "That was a key factor in the writing: this idea of people not being where they belong and learning to live where they don’t belong."
 
The search for a director began and ended when Greg Mottola was proposed.  At the time, Mottola’s only theatrical release was The Daytrippers, an independent film that Park and Pegg both hugely admired. 

But he also had a new movie in the wings called Superbad, and when the comedy was screened for them, they knew they had their man. "Greg’s films have a certain feel, a certain lightness of touch," commends Pegg. "He is able to bring indie feel to a more mainstream film." 
 
Mottola first met Pegg at a hotel restaurant in New York City the day that Superbad opened.  Pegg walked him through their concept for Paul and Mottola responded to Pegg and Frost’s story breakdown of ordinary, interesting people who find themselves in an extraordinary situation.

He offers: "Nick and Simon have created smart, interesting characters and I find them really appealing as performers. 

"Together, they have that special chemistry that is endlessly enjoyable to watch.  I think it’s because they’re close friends and that they make each other laugh effortlessly."
 
Six months later, Mottola received the script for Paul.  He recalls: "Just as Shaun of the Dead is about zombies and Hot Fuzz is about action movies, this was an homage to late ’70s science-fiction films and the genre of science fiction in general. 

"This was something that had tremendous nostalgia for me.  They were writing about it from the inside as two fans of the genre."

He decided to join the production because of his gut instinct about the material.  Mottola says: "My operating principle is that when I want to make a film, when I read a script to try and decide whether to throw my hat in the ring, I have to feel that it’s something that I am uniquely qualified to do... that I have a way of doing it that would be different than the other guy."

Big Talk and Working Title’s subsequent meetings with Mottola only confirmed their belief that he was the right choice to craft both a comedy, as well as an actioner in which the sequences were very choreographed. "It was clear that he got the kind of film we wanted to make," says Park. 

"Another thing that sold us on Greg is that he’s incredibly visual.  He wanted to make Paul in a very Spielberg-like manner, and the way he talked about it, we just knew that he got it. 

"Once we’d met Greg, we never met with anyone else.  He was very interested in character, and that was very important to us."

Paul is out now.

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