Job Interviews with Ben Foster, Star of "The Laramie Project"

I keep going on job interviews with actor Ben Foster in the audience, or in the next room.

In January 1985, when I living in Texas but back in  Rock Island for the holidays,  I applied for a job at a boys' prep school affiliated with Maharishi International University (my friend Corey from Augustana went there).  They called me to campus, gave me a tour, had me teach a sample class, and I never heard from them again.  Ben, then aged 4 1/2, was enrolled in the preschool, so I probably saw him during the campus tour.

In 1996, I applied for a job at Disney Studios.  Ben, age 16, was then starring in the teencom Flash Forward.  (It was actually filmed in Canada, but he spent a lot of time in Burbank).



In 2003, when I was living in Florida, I applied for a job at the University of Tampa.  During my interview, Ben was on campus filming The Punisher.

Ben specializes in playing scruffy, craggy sociopaths (and the superhero Angel in the X-Men series).  But gay audiences might know him best for The Laramie Project (2002), based on the Montana hate crime: he played Aaron Kreifels, the bicyclist who discovered Matthew Shepherd.




He also has some gay and gay subtext work:

Six Feet Under (2003-2005): Russell Corwin, a straight guy who has sex with men.

The remake of The Mechanic (2011): a retiring hit man (Jason Statham) teach his craft to his apprentice/boyfriend (Ben).









The Beat Generationmurder mystery, Kill Your Darlings (2013): gay writer William Burroughs (right, with Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg).