Cuppacafe

While I know that all of you folks out there think that it is cool to be me, I just want you all to know that I also look upon others and sometimes wish I was them. Take in point, a young cousin of mine (young, Ha, he’s probably in his late 20s/early 30s, but at my advanced years, even Walt seems young to me).

At any rate, this cousin of mine (David Gere by name, and he’s the very talented son of my beloved Uncle’s late daughter), is (one of) my Hollywood connection(s) (I have others, but those are other stories, for another time). David is a talented writer, and wanna-be director. I remember a short article or a letter he wrote that got published when he was like 10 or 12. It was posted on my Uncle’s refrigerator and I read it and immediately hated the kid because, even though I was already published quite a number of times at that point, I couldn’t help thinking that he was already a much better writer than me.

Anyway, he’s had a couple of minor credits (minor to him perhaps, but way more than either you or I, so they are still plenty cool) in a couple of films (which you can read by going here). But, perhaps the coolest thing happened to him recently, when he answered a cattle call to appear in a crowd scene in War of The Worlds, when they were filming here in CT.

Well, even though he’s had my e-mail address for a number of years, this was — I believe — the first time he’s actually written to me (not that that’s an issue at all), and this is part of what he told me...

Hi, it's your cousin, David Gere.

I Found your e-mail from a long time ago. Wanted to tell you that I have a tiny cameo in War of the Worlds. I worked on the set for a day when it came to CT, then they pulled me when they found out I had my SAG card. At the end of the film, Cruise and daughter enter Boston, he asks an Army guy “What happened here...?” Next scene, he is walking with her, and I am immediately to his left walking with him. So after Cruise enters Boston and asks Army guy “What happened?” Look for me in next scene.

He went on to say that he was actually able to talk to Cruise several times between takes during the shoot. David’s story continues as he related part of those conversations...

Actually, he was REALLY cool, larger than life, I've never been star struck, but I was on those two days. He asked me if I wanted to be an actor, and I said no, a director. So he actually took the time to point out what they were doing behind the scenes, etc. He examined my make-up up close, asked me where I was from, asked me about CT, etc. At one point, Spielberg cut a scene abruptly, and ran over to Cruise and they debated over dialogue, so I was frozen next to these two icons, it was SURREAL.

I’ve included the two pictures that David sent me here as a mini-shrine to my very cool, and very talented cousin. So if you haven’t seen the flick yet (like me, and now that I know David is in the film, I’m glad I haven’t, so now I know to look for him), make sure you check him out as well.

The (very impressed) Perfesor

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2005 at 9:25 am and is filed under Movies, Shadow of the 14th Row. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.