An excerpt from Dave Dyer’s forthcoming fictional autobiography called “A Life I Could’ve Had…”
“Without question, Ben was the reason I had agreed to going out that night. Not because I liked him, but because I respected him. Any actor who can weather the shit storm known as “Gigli” and rebound with a masterpiece like “Jersey Girl” demanded to be observed and learned from. I wasn’t interested in what he could teach me about gambling. I’d seen “Hooper” enough times to know I could probably teach him a thing or two about taking chances. I wanted to absorb his skills as a master of persuasion; watch the way he worked a room and pick up whatever I could by osmosis. I mean, how else do you convince the guy who played ‘Tony Soprano’ to sign on to what would surely be a straight-to-video turd like ‘Surviving Christmas’ without having the ability to charm the balls off a bull? I needed to learn from the master and I needed to learn fast. I had just convinced the Weinstein Brothers to give me $20 million so I could remake “Star Wars” as a 19th century period piece set in the woods of Northern Maine and I had yet to secure a cast.”
