Introducing Roughneck Vinnie
Something rather odd happened to me this morning. I suppose I knew it was coming. I had read about this kind of thing happening to people like me. People who examine their moustache in the reflection of an office window. I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. Not that I didn't feel I was ready. I was. I am. It was just...unexpected.
I, Jonathan Lee, was asked to appear in a film. Or at least that is what I assumed I was being asked when the bloke started talking to me about The Hot Potato, "a 'caper' movie in the great British tradition of The Italian Job and The Wrong Arm of the Law". I assumed he was lining me up for the part of Roughneck Vinnie, a gangster living the high life in Fulham, driven by thoughts of revenge over his stolen bicycle. But, as I snapped back to reality from thoughts of red carpets and appearances on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, I realised that the bloke still hadn't mentioned Roughneck Vinnie. He hadn't even mentioned bicycles. In fact he wasn't talking about the plot at all. He was talking about money. And rather than talking about how much he was going to pay me, he seemed to be asking me how much I was prepared to give him. I bet Jason Statham never had to put up with this crap.
After telling me that he would love it if I gave him a few thousand pounds (or "get involved" as he phrased it) the bloke walked away, leaving me very much alone with my thoughts, moustache and an envelope. I opened the envelope to find the above. The Hot Potato cast list. A list, I think we can all agree, I should be on. It's not a bad list. Ray Winstone is on it. He's quite good. As is Michael Clarke Duncan. The thing is all these people aren't really in the cast at all. They are just reading the script. Which, I assume, basically means the script has been posted to their agents. I was more than a little disappointed. I was quite a lot disappointed. I don't want to invest in something that can't guarantee me Ray Winstone. Especially something called The Hot Potato which brings back painful memories of primary school music lessons. Lessons in which we had to pass a tambourine around in a circle and if the music stopped when we held it we had to stand up and make some sort of rhythmical routine. No. If you are going to make such approaches to me on Victoria Street you are going to need a better film name, have Ray Winstone confirmed and signed up (or a photo of Sandra Bullock that I can keep) and guarantee me the safe return of my bicycle. I don't think that is too much to ask.
