Aaron Tracy
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
His juices are flowing in a way they usually don't.
When Neil answers, he doesn't make small talk.
He barely tells her who's calling.
He just jumps in and asks her to dinner.
Remembering how incredibly rude he was to her the night before, Neil can't compute this.
She takes a pause long enough to light a cigarette, rejects him outright, and then hangs up.
But of course, rejection doesn't really bother Dahl.
Remember how many times he's going to fail in Hollywood before James Bond comes around?
He's decided this is what he wants.
This is the rare woman he can actually imagine committing to.
But all his suaveness and swagger elude him.
Dahl waits two days and calls Neil again and asks her out again.
She decided at the dinner party that Dahl was someone not to know.
It honestly never occurred to him that she might reject him.
It's just not how life has gone for him so far.
It reminds me of the story my favorite director, Mike Nichols, tells about casting The Graduate.
He wanted his main character, Benjamin Braddock, to realistically be someone who strikes out with women his own age, which leads him to have an affair with his mother's friend, Mrs. Robinson.