The PS effect

I may have mentioned this before, but there are three things that people are VERY concerned with here in Los Angeles.

1. Height
2. Age
3. Which celebrity you look like

I have overheard many in-depth conversations about celebrities and how people are mad or flattered, happy or sad depending on what celebrity people think they look like. In Chicago I was rarely compared to any celebrities. People just did not care. In L.A. people think I am a dead ringer as a younger version of a certain celebrity. At least twice a week, people say that I look like him.

Patrick Swayze

I don’t see it. My friends and family don’t see it. But apparently everyone else does. If I am having a conversation with a stranger on set, it always comes up. One girl on Dr. Vegas refers to me as “Swayze” even though I have told her my name repeatedly.

The best story happened when I was working on “Dr. Vegas” a couple of months ago. I was just sitting alone, reading at a table, and there were a couple of older women sitting at the same table as I. After a couple of hours, the older woman sitting right next to me kind of leaned into me and quietly began to speak to me. She had an accent that I would guess to be Italian.

Woman: “Excuse me, you look like the man from the dancing movie.”

I knew instantly what she was talking about.

Bryan: “Patrick Swayze”?

Woman: “Yes, yes, you look just like him. Are you his son or nephew?”

Bryan: “No, I’m not related to him.”

Woman: "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. You look just like him. From the
Dancing movie.”

Bryan: “Dirty Dancing.”

Woman: “Yes, yes, the Dirty Dancing. I was sitting here thinking you must
be his son, you look so much like him. I wanted to ask you sooner
but I was scared to talk to you.”

Then she turns to the other ladies at the table.

Woman: “Everyone, doesn’t he look like the Patrick Swayze?”

Everyone: “YEAH”

Woman: “You are going to be a mega-star, the Patrick Swayze is getting to
old to be sexy, you can take his parts. You are my mega-star.”

She continued to call me “My Mega-Star” for the rest of the day. She also told me that I was going to get many parts and be famous because I looked like the Patrick Swayze. When my age came up, she couldn’t believe that I was thirty. Then she started talking about her 24 year old daughter and how she thinks she needs to date older men. I was just waiting for her to “suggest” that I give her daughter a call. I had a choice, I could sit there and endure it, or I could be very rude and move to a different chair. I chose to endure it.

The whole rest of the day, I was called mega-star, sexy, and the Patrick Swayze. At the end of the day, she made me honestly promise her that I would not forget her when I was a famous mega-star. Which she predicted would be in November. I just saw her today and she called me mega-star once again. I wanted to remind her that it was November and I still wasn’t a mega-star. But, I didn’t and I also didn’t feel guilty about having forgotten her name.