Jonathan Goldstein

Because The Messenger got a colossal amount of press, when the truth came out, Quincy received a proportional amount of backlash.

Similar to how the tidal wave of The Messenger's success hit Michael, the bad news about The Messenger's failure hit Quincy.

He was at the airport, reading that day's newspaper over someone's shoulder.

How were you coping?

Which brings us to the question of why.

Why swap a random old man for Thomas E. Jones?

To explain, Quincy starts with how he came to the story of the messenger in the first place.

And it was literally one sentence.

One sentence in parentheses in the middle of a thousand-page book.

And I thought, Todd, what an amazing story.

But, Quincy thought, you know what would make it an even more amazing story?

If he could find Thomas E. Jones, interview him, and include that interview in the movie.

And in Quincy's telling, he did look for Thomas Jones.

So the death certificates felt like enough.

Quincy concluded that the Thomas C. Jones he was looking for probably was dead.

And in the absence of the real guy, the next best thing was a fake guy.

For this role, there was no casting, no auditions.

In fact, the part of Thomas E. Jones wasn't played by an actor at all.

Quincy had asked a work friend from the museum to do the job.

In the aftermath, Quincy left the film world for many years.