Monday, August 02, 2004

Don't judge a man by his nose

The Times interviews Jason Biggs, of American Pie fame, who provides an amusing anecdote about how he was hired to star in Woody Allen's new film, Anything Else:
Because of his colouring, prominent nose (less prominent in real life) and, presumably, because he has played a Levinstein, he was taken by Allen to be Jewish, whereas, in fact, he is an Italian Roman Catholic from New Jersey.
“We filmed over the summer and Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) was approaching. He asked if I was doing anything for the holiday. I had to think about whether or not I should tell him. I was like ‘How far into filming are we? If he learns I’m not Jewish, can he fire me and reshoot this stuff or is that too expensive?’ I crunched the numbers, carried the ones and figured out that perhaps it was too far into the film. And, of course, I wanted to be honest with him. I was like ‘Woody, I’m actually not Jewish’. He couldn’t believe it, but he took it much better than I expected. I thought he was going to grill me for ever and he turned it into a running joke for the rest of the film. So it was fine.”


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