Jake & Will: CONTEST WARRIORS

During a shoot for Fox Searchlight promoting their film 500 Days of Summer I met Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I remember playing a game awhile ago with Will about who I would have to dinner and who I would date. I chose Joe Levitt and then said I would date Zooey Deschanel, so getting to meet both of them unexpectedly was a wonderful surprise.

I agonized over what I would say to them, especially Zooey D, and I thought of all sorts of ways to start a meaningful conversation with her. I thought about wearing a t-shirt of her favorite band, or saying something very out out of the ordinary, but my favorite idea was planning an elaborate plot to save her life. It would go like this. I would loosen a light and at the exact right moment it would fall and I would push her out of the way taking the full brunt of the 30 pound light on my back. Glass would shatter, people would scream, and I would stand up, bleeding a little of course, and say, "that was a close one, you alright." And she would at least give me her number, even though she's engaged. Brilliant!

Well what I ended up doing, which took a ton of courage, was asking her when her new album was coming out. She told me that Matt Ward just released an album so they were going to wait. The new she and him album is almost finished and will release later this year. I said, I had heard in the interview that she was writing a lot of music and that's why I asked. She said yeah, smiled, and then it was over and I got back to work. Overall a pretty great day, and after all is said and done I would still invite Joe Levitt to dinner and date Zooey Deschanel.