Cru Jones Society

 

 It’s almost the end of the summer blockbusters at your local movie theater. But never fear Hollywood is already working on the next batch to fill your summer nights next year. There are talks about making one based on your life. Before these talks can go any further, we have to cast the lead role, and we have left that up to you. So this week we want to know: who would play you in the movie of your life? As always our answers our first, then yours, then next week’s question. Now grab the director and let’s hit the casting couch.

 

Dagger: How to answer this question without self-delusion, aggrandizement, or effacement… Choosing an actor to play you reveals a lot about one’s self-perception and level of esteem. Choose someone uber-famous and good-looking, and you risk deluding yourself or outright lying about who you are (“I think I’m equal parts Zac Efron and George Clooney!”). Choose a character actor typically cast in “ugly” roles, and you’re basically flagellating yourself in public and proclaiming “I have low self worth!” to everyone. You sort of have to balance how you perceive yourself with how you think everyone else views you in order for your choice to ring true in the least. It’s a weird question.

After giving this careful thought, I choose Jason Segel. Although I’m not nearly tall enough to be a Jason Segel character, but he seems to strike the right balance between boisterous and reserved, ball-busting and sensitive, sarcastic and sincere. His character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which he also wrote) is a successful composer who works a soul-sucking job creating the score for a procedural crime drama. He’s really good at it, but mostly fucking hates it. His real passion lies in creating a romantic musical about Dracula performed by puppets. Sound like anyone you know? I’m great at writing strategic communications outreach plans for my clients, but often fucking hate it. My real passion is writing this ridiculous shit for you all.

Beyond Sarah Marshall, and on a superficial level, I like to think we’re pretty similar. I read an interview with Segel where he rides a scooter most everywhere in Los Angeles, smokes, and isn’t opposed to knocking back a few beers at the drop of a hat. His other characters drop in weird non-sequitirs you never see coming (My favorite from Knocked Up: “You wanna know who I want to get pregnant? Felicity Huffman. Ever since I saw Transamerica, I can’t get her out of my mind.”), is brutally sensitive when it comes to relationships, and knows perfectly how to playfully needle someone just for the sake of his own amusement. That’s basically how I think of myself.

I’m sure he’d be thrilled to read this, but I am the role Jason Segel is born to play.

 

Hart: It’s no secret that I am not a little guy. And I have an uncle who used to tell me that I looked like John Candy. I always found John Candy to be funny, so didn’t think much of it at the time. But as I got older and was posed this question, I think John Candy would be a good choice to play me.

Candy has rather optimistic demeanor and always seems like the token jolly fat guy. Overall I think that fits me. He and I both have a way of being extremely frightening when we get really angry. I think a part of this comes from the fact that we are not often seen angry so there is the shock factor mixed with the actual angriness that makes it so much more frightening.

I think the main reason I would choose John Candy is for his likeability. There is something about John Candy that draws people to him. I have only met one person who doesn’t like John Candy and that was Dagger’s weirdo college friend Carl. I feel like I have that same kind of charisma that Candy possessed, just that all around good guy that people like.

But since John Candy has passed away, I want a Muppet version of me, voiced by Frank Oz, in the lead role.

The general theme here is we would all be played by comedic actors and actresses. So all of our life movies should at least be fun to watch.

 

F-U-Natalie: This is a good question. First I thought about the celebrities that people have told me I look like. Kate Winslett – too British. Julianne Moore – too old. And then it came to me. Isla Fisher. She’s about my age, talented and funny. Cause let’s face it, my life is a romantic comedy. Plus she’s hot. I would cast her.

 

Flickerbock: This was another easy confession for me. Mostly because, in all of my 26 years, I have only been compared to 2 people, ever. So I will throw them both out there and let you decide.

Norm MacDonald – I don’t really hear it and if I make an attempt at mimicking him, I know I fail miserably. Despite this failure at intentional impersonation, several people have told me that I sound like this comedic genius. Not a bad person to sound like, unless you find slurring and mumbling to be a bad thing. Which I don’t, so we are cool.

Vince Vaughn – I have been told that I sound like Vince as well, but in a completely different manner. Whereas people think that my voice actually sounds like Norm, people have told me that my manner of speaking closely resembles one of the many ridiculous, long-winded, over-the-top monologues in any of his movies. You know exactly what I am talking about. “Janice, I apologize to you if I don’t seem real eager to jump into a forced awkward intimate situation that people like to call dating. I don’t like the feeling. You’re sitting there, you’re wondering do I have food on my face, am I eating, am I talking too much, are they talking enough, am I interested I’m not really interested, should I play like I’m interested but I’m not that interested but I think she might be interested but do I want to be interested but now she’s not interested? So all of the sudden I’m getting, I’m starting to get interested… And when am I supposed to kiss her? Do I have to wait for the door cause then it’s awkward, it’s like well goodnight. Do you do like that ass-out hug? Where you like, you hug each other like this and your ass sticks out cause you’re trying not to get too close or do you just go right in and kiss them on the lips or don’t kiss them at all? It’s very difficult trying to read the situation. And all the while you’re just really wondering are we gonna get hopped up enough to make some bad decisions? Perhaps play a little game called ‘just the tip’. Just for a second, just to see how it feels. Or, ouch, ouch you’re on my hair. . .OK, can you, can you put that so he can’t see it? Thank you. Hey, Janice… great talk.”

 

Jitterrawks: I have given this topic a lot of thought throughout my life.  I do question regularly if anyone would watch the movie of my life.  This is why the only way I can die is from an exploding shark attack…that way, no matter how dull parts of the movie were, there is a good end.  The part that is most troublesome to me is who would play the role.  It has to be someone fun, exciting, and would be okay with dying in an exploding shark attack when the stunts go horribly wrong (part of the media machine that this film is).  I figure, Sarah Silverman would do.  She’s funny, has a similar sense of humor, and while I love her, many people would be drawn to seeing her actually blow up in the reenactment my death.  So, she doesn’t quite look like me, is Jewish and taller/skinnier than me…but I figure that she’s friends with most of Hollywood that I love, so in a way, it would allow for the likes of Adam Carrolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Liam Lynch to all get to know me.

 

Deuce: Well, I mulled this confession over and my first thought was obviously Will Smith but he’s really busy lately and I don’t know if the studio could afford him. Next on my thought path was Robert Redford circa 1960. I feel like his ability to be blond and to display tenderness and manliness at the same time would be spot on to recreate the greatest epic never written, “Deuce: A Life of Awesomeness.” But with the lack of a time machine (or any Bombastium, for my Duck Tales fans out there), I decided I needed to choose a present day actor. After some discussions with others, I was able to narrow my candidate list to a current actor that I felt would portray my charismatic nature, my humor, my happy and simple demeanor and of course my innate nerd tendencies. That actor is Neil Patrick Harris. NPH is a great mix of all the things that an actor needs to be in order to fully portray the greatness that is Deuce.

As an aside, Mrs. Deuce would apparently like the role of Deuce portrayed by Gerard Butler and she would play as herself in the film.

Pretty good choices all around. It will be interesting to see who we choose to play our friends in our movies. If Dagger is played by Jason Segel in his movie that probably means if Hart shows up he’ll be played by Jonah Hill. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Now before our movies start, there are bound to be commercials because that is capitalism at its finest. Most of them suck the old pocket rocket, and do it with gusto. However, there are one or two that come along every so often that are excellent. We want to know, what commercial had an effect on you? Tell us an especially good one that you still like to this day.

We want to know more about all our readers. So don’t hold back. If you haven’t confessed, or it’s been awhile, or even if you did it last week, we want to hear from you. Don’t be shy and send us your response, along with your posting name to staff@crujonessociety.com and we’ll put them up next week.

Dagger & Hart