An aspiring movie star believed they were starring alongside Tom Cruise in a space film (Picture: Steve Cho Kyewoong/Penta Press/REX/Shutterstock)
On an otherwise unremarkable day in 2019, jobbing actor John Taylor* received an email that would change his life forever.
He did not initially recognise the sender’s name but a quick Google search revealed Doug Liman was a huge Hollywood director, behind blockbusters including The Bourne Identity.
Doug said he was looking for undiscovered talent for his latest movie set in space starring Tom Cruise and John had been recommended by a producer he had previously worked with.
‘It was surreal, exciting, and weird,’ John recalled after receiving the offer; global superstardom, it seemed, was now in touching distance.
But first John needed to get in shape for the physically intense role and was instructed by Doug, and Donna Langley, the chairperson of the film’s producer Universal, to undergo martial arts training.
He was asked to pay $800 (£638) upfront for the teaching which, at the time, ‘didn’t seem like a huge deal’ to John, who had been paying for acting classes. It was another skill to add to his arsenal.
Doug would also call him multiple times a day, for hours on end, and ask him to watch dozens of films back-to-back, from dusk until dawn, and write analyses of the characters.
The actor believedhe had been contacted by Hollywood director Doug (Picture: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Eager to impress, John recalled to the makers of the Apple TV Plus documentary Hollywood Con Queen: ‘The whole time I was waiting for my phone to ring to do whatever they needed.’
But then John’s prescribed preparation took a horrific turn.
He was told Donna wanted to make sure he could perform a specific scene in the film and was made to jump on a Skype call. Her camera was switched off.
Donna asked him to act out chatting up and then kissing a ‘beautiful’ woman. John did as instructed but her feedback was not positive. She said she didn’t feel that he ‘believed’ it.
‘She was right,’ John recalled. ‘It was incredibly awkward and I didn’t believe it and it was uncomfortable and I didn’t want to do it.’
John also mistakingly thought he had been speaking to Donna (Picture: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
After an hours-long break for John to ‘loosen up’, they reconvened on Skype and Donna asked him to reenact the scene with his trousers off.
John said he obliged as he was wearing underpants and his waist downwards was not visible on the camera.
But then he was asked to touch himself.
‘And then I snapped,’ John said. ‘I was like, “No, this is ridiculous. This is not OK what you’re doing.”
‘It was the strongest combination of anger and of feeling upset I’ve ever felt – to the point where I was literally shaking. I was completely disrespected.’
However, the Hollywood Con Queen (pictured) had been impersonating the two Hollywood executives (Picture: Apple TV)
When Doug apologised to John for Donna’s behaviour, only to ask for more money minutes later, it dawned on John he had been scammed.
A con artist had been impersonating the Hollywood power players and swindled $5,000 (£3,989) out of him.
After the realisation, John said: ‘[I thought] this is a really horrible person who uses people for sport.’
Donna and Doug had been impersonated by one man, Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani, also known as the Hollywood Con Queen, whose crimes have been explored in the Apple three-part series.
Scott first broke the story for The Hollywood Reporter (Picture: Apple TV)
Tahilramani had pretended to be multiple Hollywood executives to dupe more than 300 victims out for more than $1m (£797,999) by offering them non-existent film work in Indonesia between 2013 and 2020.
With the help of The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Johnson, who first broke the story, filmmaker Chris Smith, who also directed the Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, has turned the extraordinary case into a gripping documentary.
For the three-part docuseries, Tiger King executive producer Chris even spoke to Tahilramani, who was born in Indonesia but had been living in the UK, via Zoom, as he recounted to Metro.co.uk ahead of its release.
On his first impression of Tahilramani, Chris said: ‘He was very in control of the way that he presented himself and the way that he revealed information.
Fyre Festival Chris has turned the saga into a documentary series (Picture: Bafta New York/Joe Sinnott/BAFTA via Getty Images)
‘I think he was attempting to manipulate and control our dialogue and communication.
‘But what makes him so masterful is that it felt very genuine and real. I sympathise with the victims.’
Chris also said that during the making of the Hollywood Con Queen, he had concerns he had been sucked into Tahilramani’s web of manipulation.
He added: ‘By the end of the series, we found ourselves in Indonesia exploring all these things that he wanted us to explore.
‘We realised that maybe we had fallen prey to the same sort of manipulation that his victims have fallen prey to.
Tahilramani was arrested after an FBI investigation in Manchester (Picture: Apple TV)
‘It was hard to understand always what was real, and there’s part of him that feels very relatable and genuine.
‘But it was trying to disentangle what was real, and what was not real, that was the constant push and pull of the process of trying to make this series.’
What also emerges from the Hollywood Con Queen is that Tahilramani’s motivation was not purely financial.
‘It’s hard to say [what his main aim was],’ Chris, who worked on the documentary for four years, explained.
‘He was living a good life in London and had nice clothes and went to nice restaurants. I don’t think the money was immaterial.
‘But from our perspective, it felt like it wasn’t the primary motivation, it felt like it was more about something else. It was about psychological manipulation, and destroying people’s dreams.
‘I don’t think we can ever fully know.’
Tahilramani was arrested following an FBI investigation on November 25, 2020 in a £60-a-night Aparthotel in Manchester.
On June 6, 2023 a British judge ruled that he be extradited to the US to face trial for his crimes.
Tahilramani remains in the UK and is fighting extradition.
*Names have been changed.
Hollywood Con Queen is available to stream on Apple TV Plus from May 8.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.