(This is the story of how I met Dan Aykroyd shortly after finishing my Gb3 screenplay back in 2006   -B).

Dan Aykroyd is as cool a guy as you could imagine. I’d never considered myself a stargazer but when I met Dan, man did I feel like a kid again. Dan is a Canadian icon. A warm, generous and personable fellow who brightens any room he’s in. While I only spent a half an hour with him, I do have the proud distinction of having offered him a piece of gum. Oooh Aaah. Oh … and I convinced him to take my screenplay…. -B

Boyan with Dan. Seconds from handing him my screenplay.

The circumstances of my meeting him were fortuitous. About a week after I’d receive my coverage report back from screenwriter Simon Barry (Art of War), Simon called up out of the blue and said, “Boyan, you’re not going to believe this – Dan’s going to be in town tomorrow at a liquor store promoting tequila.” Stunned, I asked naively, “what do I do?” Simon not surprisingly answered, “Go see him!” and hung up.

But alas, while the thought of handing my gb3 screenplay to Dan Aykroyd at a liquor store not 20 minutes from my house was tantalizing, I’d heard bad things happen to people who bypass protocol and skip an actor’s agent. So after some serious googling, I tracked down Dan’s business manager who gave me his agent’s name and number. I left a message, not expecting to hear back from Mr. Specktor (perfect name for a Ghostbuster’s agent).

Five minutes later – I got a call.

A quavering voice, like someone who’d just been physically assaulted said, “Ah, Mr Blocka, Mr. Specktor’s on the line for you.”

This was exciting for me. Dan’s agent was on the phone! Praise Gozer.

Then Dan’s agent Fred Specktor tore me a new one.

Fred Specktor (aka. Dr. No)

(In retrospect, I now understand that I’m part of a large fraternity of verbally abused Fredites. Maybe we should make T-shirts?)

If you can imagine what a bulldog with tarot’s syndrome might sound like, you can imagine what Dan’s agent sounds like.

Unable to get a word in edge-wise, most of my sage and practiced rhetoric was quickly extinguished by questions like:
- Do you have any awards? Oscars?  Umm, no.
- Do you have any writing credits?  Me: Well, I’ve written advertising for ten years so I’m not a complete newbie.
- How much money are you putting up?  Me: Money? Um, I think you misunderstand.
… and so on.

We concluded the conversation with me asking, “so how then does a potentially good idea get past an agent to a decision maker?”

His response, “over my dead body.”

Ouch.

In retrospect I wish I would have seen a few episodes of “Entourage” at that time so I’d have known what to expect. Man did I feel like a dolt.

So, what does one do when one’s just been told off by a big hollywood agent? One goes and sees Dan anyways, that’s what. I mean c’mon, it’s Dan.

So off to the liquor store I went – essentially pushed by my wife who would (God bless her) not let me give up.

We got there an hour early. Dan came an hour late with a posse of biker buddies/entourage/teamsters?  He drives a chopper and seems to really have a fun life. I on the other hand stood there caffeinated and nervous as hell.

Erin (Wowzers) Cebula of ET Canada

Dan sat down at a table and began signing bottles of Patron tequila. Erin Cebula of ET Canada was their as was the local media. Dan was relaxed, funny and gracious. At one point he even saw me chewing gum and bummed a piece. Surrounded by his biker entourage, I was pretty intimidated to even speak with him. Finally, with my copy of Ghostbusters 1 & 2 in hand, I went up and met Dan. The minute, I said ’screenplay’ and opened my satchel, his friend/manager/body guard Wally instantly intervened.

Dan, however, now feeling comfortable with me (after all we were now ‘gum-brothers’) told Wally to chill. Wally (who looks sort’ve looked like a protective and angry Danny Devito), begrudgingly backed off.

Dan was polite but obviously not too keen on me giving him a screenplay (who could blame him; I could’ve been trying to serve him legal papers or otherwise publicly trying to embarass him, it was risky). But he instantly relaxed when I told him I had a difficult conversation with his agent Fred.

Dan laughed, “ohhhh, you spoke to Dr. No did you?” Clearly aware of Fred’s ability to tear apart any would be screenwriter.

After that he warmed up and took my screenplay. He passed it to Wally and told him to put it in Dan’s personal saddle bag (which, I watched and saw Wally thankfully did).

Andrea and I thought my dreams would come true that night. We went out to dinner. We laughed and did what all young couples do – we hoped for a brighter future bigger than the two bedroom apartment we called home and office.

But alas that would not come to pass. And big dreams would stay just that.

A couple days later I received a call from the Fours Season Hotel. The manager there told me that a guest had left a package for me and that I was to come pick it up.

I knew. I knew what had happened.

So I drove there and picked up my unopened screenplay envelope. Feeling the way a father might feel going to identify his child at the morgue.

When I got to the hotel, the message Dan left for me was simple. The unopened screenplay was, “not required.”

This took the wind out of my sails. In fact I live in a directionless quasi-depression about it for a year.

In that time I pondered many things about what happened both with Dan and Fred.

I’ve come to the conclusion that who you know does matter.

I believe that famous people who are solid, good people are faced with unsavory choices every day and so need to have people around them in essence to protect them from those decisions.

I also wonder if my screenplay might have offended Dan. Afterall, I knew Dan had been trying to get his own GB screenplay project going for years – so why should my idea get a shot, no matter how good I thought it was?

But I rolled the dice and that day I lost the game.

But who knows? Maybe I still have game? Maybe one of you might be that extra hand I need to get seen. To get read.

7 Responses to “How I met Dan … and his agent Dr. No.”