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His name is Jason, he was Brad Pitt's body double

2 March 2007, possibly 4.13pm… Jason quietly takes a chair from a nearby poker table and finds a place within a seated circle of a random group of work colleagues. He settles and watches as three separate conversations merge into one.

 

This first work party for the year has only just started, and the merged conversation is a little early-in-the-night awkward. A company partner in a designer black wrap-dress and red lipstick sits to Jason’s left. Two new recruits and a young, super-bright project manager sit directly opposite. A fellow business analyst, with who he shares a pod with, sits to his right.

 

The young project manager dressed in black vest, black pants and white shirt in homage to ‘Oddball’ from the early Bond films, had earlier revealed to one of the new recruits that Jason was once Brad Pitt’s body double.

 

“He even has it on his CV,” the project manager had said with obvious admiration.

 

The very female new recruit, a 30-something writer, immediately looked to where Jason stood with a small, very male group by the bar. “I thought Brad Pitt would be taller,” she had said. The project manager nodded. “Angelina Jolie isn’t very tall either,” was his informed reply.

 

Jason leans back into his chair, lifts his right leg and hooks his ankle over his right knee. His loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans hide any evidence of whether or not a Fight Club-era body lies beneath. His face is expressionless and his body is still – he shows no desire to hog the limelight.

 

“I hear that you were Brad Pitt’s body double?” the writer asks. Those not in-the-know turn to Jason with open mouths and questioning eyes, while his male pod-mate smiles and nods. “It’s a great line to use at a bar,” the pod-mate says with a wink.

 

Looking from face to face, Jason shows no sign of embarrassment or discomfort at being so suddenly at the centre of attention. “Really?!” asks the other very female new recruit, a spunky early-20s computer science graduate.

 

“I was the right height and shape,” Canadian Jason with the mid-length, not quite Brad Pitt-blonde hair says in anticipation of the questions to come. “Body doubles are used when the lead actor is out of shot. It saves the film studio money.”

 

“Which film?” someone asks. “Jessie James,” Jason casually replies, but does not take the obvious opportunity to gloat about superstars met, exotic film locations and potential glitzy movie premieres.

 

“Jason was also on a Canadian reality TV series,” the pod-mate says to continue the conversation. “There is an episode on the intranet if anyone wants to watch it.”

 

“It was a dating show,” Jason explains with ego-free ease. “There were 10 girls and 10 boys. We travelled around, completing tasks.

 

 "We had to pair up. There was a lawyer, an accountant, a hairdresser, a nurse and an artist. I chose the artist. After a while I realised that I liked someone else, and that my partner also liked someone else. When the person I liked was voted off, I kind of gave up.

 

“But my partner and I decided to work together and try to win. The money we made per episode kept going up the longer we were in it. We came third. It turned out that the girl who won actually had a boyfriend – she tried to take him along on the holiday she won. She was meant to take the partner she won with. I think there’s a court case now.”

 

The conversation pauses for Jason’s story to be absorbed. “I just can’t believe that this is the same quiet and easy-going guy I’ve sat near for the last three weeks!” the writer says with hands raised in the air.

 

“That’s why he was picked for the reality show,” Jason’s same-age pod-mate says in response. “Many of the other types were big-ego jock types who tried to dominate everything – Jason was the calm alternative.”

 

Jason’s 29 year-old face lights up with a rare smile while watching his well-suited pod-mate beat his Bond tux-covered chest in demonstration of “big ego jock types”.

 

“One day a girl gave me her immunity,” Jason begins. “We were sitting around a campfire, surrounded by cameras. One of the film crew asked me how I felt about being given her immunity. So I got up, walked over to her, kissed her, and sat down again.

 

“The director comes over and says that he didn’t get it on camera and asked for me to do it again,” he says, shaking his head at the memory. “But it was an in-the-moment thing.”

 

Gradually the group disbands as the party grows. More at ease talking one-on-one, Jason reveals how a university drama teacher had offered him practical advice upon graduation.

 

“He said that I had a choice. I could devote my life to acting and quite possibly never make quite enough money to live on, or find something else to do and live a comfortable life.”

 

He shrugs and casually nods his head when told that success can often have more to do with “luck” than anything else.

 

“Yeh,” he says, while looking across the room for a poker table to join. “A friend of mine who is about the same height and shape as me recently won a leading role in a big film.”

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