Zach Townsend
Career
It's been a path of up and downs for Zach. He left school early after getting a degree in applied quantum mechanics to become a chimney sweep. Back then, in grimey old London, a "Chim Chim Cher-ee" was a valued professional position that carried much prestige.
He spent several years perfecting the art of sweeping chimneys, including being called to the court of King Arthur, the leading English monarch and world reknowned sudoku player of the time.
But Zach was not destined to be in chimneys for long. At the age of 23, when chimneys were outlawed, Zach joined Martin Luther King in his lifetime campaign for civil rights. Zach wasn't of African heritage alledgedly, but he couldn't be sure; and so was inspired to be instrumental in writing many of King's emotional speeches. When Luther was assasinated in 1968, Zach says he was in the washroom at the time and didn't see what happened.
Zach later went on to assist American President G.W. Bush (Junior) in writing many of his speeches, but this was a dark time for Zach. Many of the quotes Bush is best remembered for, or 'Bushisms', were down to the fact that G.W. was not always able to hear Zach clearly through his earpiece, and was forced to ad-lib. As Zach later wrote in his resignation letter, "They misunderestimated me."
The silver screen beckoned Zach from an early age, and he recently starred alongside Zoe Saldana in the 3-D box office hit Avatar. Zach was brought in to ensure Zoe was painted the correct shade of blue before each session and monitor the all-over hue during the shooting.
Zoe famously credits her blueness during the filming to Zach.
Zach originally brought the concept of Avatar, which he'd named 'Atavar', to James Cameron back in 1992, with a moving 3D demo he'd knocked up on a Commodore 64 home computer. But at the party in Southend-on-Sea where Zach attempted to show the demo to Cameron, the precious computer with all the proprietary computer code fell into the swimming pool during one of those famous drug-fuelled pool parties that Zach maintains he was not involved in. Either way, the upshot was that with all the code gone, and everybody out of their heads, the entire concept was forgotten about until Cameron many years later saw an advert on TV starring a blueberry muffin cartoon character which he later cast as Zoe in the film he renamed as Avatar.
Zach says he has plans for a book and a film about his life, aptly entitled, "Blowing in the breeze".. He originally cast Justin Timberlake to play the young Zach, but says Timberlake's bodyguard punched him in the face when he tried to pitch the role to him behind the scenes at "Dancng with the Stars" where Justin was auditioning. Zach says he might instead choose Val Kilmer or Dustin Hoffman to play the part, but he hasn't decided yet.
More on Zach Townsend's career as soon as we can prise it out of him...