JAIME CLARKE is the author of the novel WE’RE SO FAMOUS, the editor of DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME: CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS ON THE FILMS OF JOHN HUGHES and co-founder of Post Road , a national literary magazine.
~~Thanks to Jaime Clarke for writing our blog’s first Guest Post. More to come!~~
DESPERATELY SEEKING PACINO
Eric Rivas, aspiring actor, was born in Brooklyn and when I meet him I’m at Joe Allen, a friendly Broadway bar and restaurant where nervous Hollywood actors are known to knock back a whiskey and soda before a Broadway debut. I’m soliciting an opinion on fame from the bartender, George, himself an aspiring actor, when Mr. Rivas leans over and says. “Being famous means you’re more than everybody else.”
In New York, Conversation Interruptus is a common disease among the people. There is always someone trying to aggressively insert themselves into your life. But Mr. Rivas’s words come down with such an authority it begs further exploration. Wait until you find out what he is doing at Joe Allen.
We talk for a moment before awkwardly backing up and introducing ourselves. You can’t cross the street in Manhattan without passing an entire cast of aspiring actors, so the fact that Eric longs to see himself on the silver screen is in keeping with the wish-upon-a-star mentality that draws amateur thespians the world over to the Big City of Dreams. But it’s the method to this particular actor’s madness that is intriguing. Eric Rivas believes the key to his career is in rubbing shoulders with the famous, most specifically the shoulders of Academy Award-winning actor Al Pacino. (more…)
