Wired.com presents the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. And here is your host, David Barr-Kirtley.

Hello and welcome to episode 140 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.

Our guest today is Terry Tachell.

She was nominated for an Oscar for her work on District 9, which she co-wrote with her husband

Director Neil Blomkemp.

They also work together on the new film Chappy

about a police robot that becomes sentient

and must learn to survive on the mean streets of Johannesburg.

And now here's our interview with Terry

Tachell. All right so we're here with Terry Tachell. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, excited to be here. Okay and so this new film is called Chappy.

So how did you guys come up with the idea?

Well, Neil actually came up with the idea and we live in this house where we're kind of constantly pitching ideas non-stop.

Everyone wakes up with a different idea.

Our daughter pitched songs.

We pitched story ideas.

And usually, they're good.

They're interesting.

But this one, the second he told me the idea it struck me as

the absolute gold and something that I had to work on with him.

Okay and so what is the idea? The idea that he pitched me was that a robot is become sentient, basically childlike and

has to grow and evolve and is kidnapped by gangsters.

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