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| Hugh Grant, Chevy Chase and the lads. |
A young Irish actor has returned from Hollywood disappointed, after failing to land a role in the upcoming ‘Expendables 4’ movie. Dinny ‘Dinnie’ Longshanks (61) from Tullamore, County Offaly, was in L.A. for four grueling hours of auditions, where he had hoped to star in the film alongside legendary movie tough guys such as Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Allen and the guy who plays Ian Beale in Eastenders.
Said Dinny: ‘I made it down to the last 168 auditionees for the role of ‘lad who does give Wesley Snipes a high five, only to be shot by some other lad’. It was not to be however, and his thick Mullingar accent (he just moved to Offaly in 1982), prevented him from winning a role in the film, with producers deciding instead, on an elderly woman from Longford.
Having acted since his late teens, Dinny was well-known in parts of his home town, due to his (uncredited) role in a Flahavans Oats television commercial back in 1973, and since then was twice in the audience at ‘Live at 3’, a daily TV show aimed towards elderly residents of Ireland in the 1980s, though he failed to get on camera on either occasion. Since then, his acting career has consisted mostly of his ‘adult’ mime act, working in gentlemen’s clubs throughout the Irish midlands.
Having decided to bypass Irish TV (‘A load of oul’ sh*te’), Dinny, or Dinnie, as he prefers, has ventured towards the big time, and once he landed on American soil, set out to meet his heroes, though he admits to having been ‘fierce disappointed’ to find that Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck and John Wayne had all passed away. He did however, get his picture taken with a Renee Zellweger impersonator, and bought all the Sigourney Weaver fridge-magnets that one shop stocked.
Of his recent experiences, Dinny, an occasional movie-goer, who claims to have seen over twenty films, says he was emotional when seeing one of his action heroes in the flesh for the first time. ‘I was just walking down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills looking for somewhere to have a slash, when who did I see, but the lad who played Willis, on ‘Diff’rent Strokes’, I think it was him, he was a fair bit away, and in a car that was goin’ fairly fast, but he looked a good bit like him, and sure, it’s a good story to tell the grandkids, or someone else’s grandkids, because I’ve none meself’.
‘The Expendables’ franchise, which features most of Hollywoods action-hero stars, such as Morgan Freeman, Hugh Grant, Nathan Lane and Chevy Chase, is a  comedic remake of the dark 1970s Scandinavian epic ‘Not I, Says The Raven’, which starred a young Burt Reynolds as a rodeo rider who goes on to wow the world of gaelic football.
When we asked what roles he was to audition for next, he said in a desperate, albeit miserable attempt at humor; ‘I’d love an oul’ ham and cheese roll now!’ Clearly a comedy career is not in his future either.
Words by Bosco Coppell, Picture by Dorothy’s Angling and Shooting Store (Lingerie Department)