Irish Lad Fails 'Expendables 4' Audition

Hugh Grant, Bill Cosby and the lads.

A young Irish actor has returned home from Hollywood (the Californian city, not the take-away in Wexford Town) disappointed, after failing to land a role in the upcoming 'Expendables 4' movie. Dinny 'Dinnie' Longshanks (61) from Tullamore, County Offaly, was on America's west coast for four grueling hours of auditions, where he hoped to land a role in the film alongside legendary movie tough guys such as Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Bill Cosby.

Said Dinny: 'I made it down to the last 168 auditionees for the role of 'lad who does walk up to Wesley Snipes's character and gives him a high five, only to be shot in the shoulder 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 for the role.

Having been involved in the acting business since his late teens, Dinny was quite 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 length and breadth of Ireland's midlands (and Carlow) region.

Having decided to bypass Irish drama productions ('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, Steve McQueen 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 key-rings that one shop stocked.

Of his recent experiences, Dinny, an occasional movie-goer, who claims to have seen over twenty films in his lifetime, is said to have been 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, but he looked fairly 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 has featured 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 earned a degree in Nuclear Science and went on to wow the world of high finance.

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!' He then added, completely unnecessarily, and in doing so, hammering his lame joke to death; 'But not tuna, I developed a rash on my elbows last time I had that, on me lunch break in the Tesco car-park in Ballymun.'

Words by Bosco Coppell, Picture by Dorothy's Angling and Shooting Store (Lingerie Department)