A telephone interview, a menu and an uncooperative man

Telephone Interview With Jobcentre Plus 21/04/09 by Rob Auton

Actor, writer, director Zach Braff on how he never gets tired of meeting stars:

"My friend invited me to go to dinner with Al Pacino. Al Pacino is like a god to me. I was so excited. I took it very seriously because I pictured us in the corner, candle-lit dinner, my friend and Al Pacino. I get there and it’s like a 12-person dinner at a hotel. Al’s at the far end and I’m sitting, pouting at my end of the table.

So I’m just staring at him and finally, at one moment, everyone gets up to go smoke. And I realise I’m the only person left with Al Pacino. So, I go: ‘This is my moment, come on Zach, you have to have courage you’ve got to go do this.’ I went and sat across from him and he was so sweet, and he asked me about my work and I, of course, asked him about being Al Pacino. And then at a certain point, he looks around and he reaches in his pocket and he pulls out a tiny action figure of Albert Einstein. And he goes: ‘Do you see this? I carry this in my pocket every single day. A friend gave it to me and it’s in my pocket every single day.’ And I’m like: ‘O…OK.’ And he goes: ‘Say hello to my little friend!’

Then, people start coming back and he put it in his pocket like it never happened."

A La Carte by Erin Bolens

The man was incredibly uncooperative. The kind of bloke who, when sitting on a bus watching a potential passenger explain to the driver that they were twenty pence short, would shout “I’ve got some spare change!” but refuse to hand it over.

He was the kind of bloke who, when asked by a shorter, fellow customer in a supermarket to reach the cereal from the top shelf for her, would do so but put the box in his own trolley before walking away.

He was the kind of bloke who would record TV programmes when requested to do so and then stop the recording three minutes before the end of the show.

One day, when looking in the mirror before going to work, the man was so uncooperative he refused to get his reflection dressed or comb its hair and proceeded to undermine its confidence and slap its face.

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