British comic Russell Brand is the secret star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, playing the oversexed yet hard-to-hate rock star who takes up with the ex-girlfriend who the hero can't get over. Brand recalls that his character "was originally meant to be an author, very bookish. They very kindly, and fortunately for me, rewrote the part on our first meeting, when I was dressed thusly, in this sort of sexy-licorice, S&M, Willie Wonka, rocket-scarecrow attire. That worked out incredibly well for me." Brand, who was encouraged to improvise in the role, admits to having modeled his performance in part on the battling brothers of Oasis, Noel and Liam Gallagher. He also modeled it in part on himself. As Jay Clendenin of the Los Angeles Times summarizes his career highlights, Brand is "a proud three-time winner of PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian of the Year, the Sun's two-time Shagger of the Year and GQ's Most Stylish Man in 2006 and Least Stylish Man in 2007. He's also a recovering heroin and crack abuser whose bestselling memoir, My Booky Wook, opens in a clinic for sex addicts -- or, as he wrote, 'the terminally saucy.'"
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