Jeff Portnoy, an attorney who has represented The Advertiser and other media organizations, is having a not-so-cool Hollywood moment.
Actor Jack Black’s character in the blockbuster “Tropic Thunder” is named “Jeff Portnoy,” which might be fun except that the character was described by a film critic as “an obese substance-abusing comic trapped in a series of flatulent cross-dressing comedies.”
The movie, written and directed by Ben Stiller and shot on Kaua’i, is about the filming of a war epic that goes wrong when the actors square off against a real militia.
Black, speaking of his character, told Orlando Sentinel critic Roger Moore:
Look, a lot of him is me, obviously. I haven’t done multiple-character comedies that are all about farting. But I do fart in some of my movies, and I am fat, in, well, pretty much all my movies. So I understand this guy. There’s a little Chris Farley-John Belushi, a little angry Tom Sizemore in there, too. I’ve phased the excess partying out of my life. But the guy is not a long trip for me to take.
Portnoy said he heard his name might be a character in the movie during filming and tried to get a film publicist to let him on set to talk with staff or at least make light of the situation. No deal.
“I don’t know Stiller and don’t have any idea where they got the name from,” he said. “It’s not a common name, but there are a few Portnoys in NY and LA,” he said.
One bummer is that Portnoy’s Google search listings have been pushed downward by the Black character. Another? “Not only didn’t I get paid, but they simply did not capture the real me,” he joked.
