The former managing editor of the 'Roast' hits it big in Hollywood after acting as an extra for the latest Natalie Portman flick.
By CHETT MURCHILLDAVID BRINN with his new friends, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Kirsten Dunst and another guy.(photo credit: REUTERS)
The former managing editor of The Jerusalem Roast is toast of the town in Hollywood after being discovered as an extra in a Natalie Portman film.Two months ago David Brinn was enjoying his job at the Roast, but he now is living his longtime dream to be in show business after a happenstance encounter with a casting agent in the Holy City. Brinn had initially signed on as an extra to play a British policeman in the period drama A Tale of Love and Darkness, Natalie Portman’s latest film, an adaptation of the Amos Oz novel.“One day I was on the set eating a tuna sandwich and this guy comes over and says ‘Have you ever acted before,’” Brinn explains. “The next I know I’m being flown to California and shown around Studio City. Turns out they needed someone to play Nils Lofgren in the new biopic of Neil Young, Prairie Wind.”It was a chance of a lifetime that could not be passed up.Now Brinn is the toast of Hollywood, hanging out with Tom Cruise, Miley Cyrus and Jack Nicholson. According to director Martin Scorsese, who produced the movie on Young, “It’s as if he has been acting his whole life; he is a true original. We wanted to go with someone authentic for this movie, and it just shows what show business has been missing all these years. We’ve been trying to hire actors, when we need to be trying to hire real people.”Speaking from his new estate in the Palisades, Brinn says he still recalls his days at the Roast fondly. “Really, all the work I did there was just preparation for this moment. In my time at the newspaper I got to interview lots of these great people, and I peeked behind the curtain and realized that they are just like you and me. So when my time came to be famous, it was an easy transition.”
