An old friend of mine named Zach Helm is the screenwriter for the movie Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Thomapson. The story of how he got "discovered" is pretty remarkable. He graduated a year behind me in the Acting Program at DePaul. Not bad for a first movie, huh? His second movie is due out next year. He directs Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman. Again, not too shabby. (And I just discovered on his IMDB site that our birthdays are one day apart, and it looks like he also was a year ahead in school, if the birth year is correct. I'm gonna have to ask him about that. Kind of strange...not necessarily stranger than fiction, however).
Zach organized a screening of the film last week for Theatre School students and alum, and I got to go down to the city and see it. And I got to catch up with two old DePaul friends I hadn't seen in 10 years and with Zach, who thankfully is so gracious and friendly and not the kind of guy you'd expect he'd be after working with such big shots.
Anybody saw the movie and care to comment? I really enjoyed it.