Mandurah local Steve Sallur comes across as an everyday guy: he’s friendly, warm and more or less normal.
However, the image of him tearing down Sydney Harbour in a speedboat while fighting off a cartel of international criminals may belie that idea.
You see, Mr Sallur – who works for the City of Mandurah as a building surveyor – recently stuck up for a company online, a decision which inadvertently made him the new poster-child for a decidedly adventurous advertising campaign.
“I’ve been a Virgin customer for years now, and I’ve never really had a problem with them,” Mr Sallur said.
“Whenever I’ve had an issue – just minor ones – they look after me, and I can always talk to a real person, which is more than you could say for a lot of other companies.
“So when I saw a whole lot of people just saying insulting things – you know, it’s the internet – I decided to stick up for them.”
Luckily, Mr Sallur’s decision was actually what Virgin were looking for – a regular guy who, funnily enough, was a big fan of Virgin’s telco services – and the road to getting him on that speedboat begun.
“At first, they were very thankful. They sent me out some stuff: a phone charger, Richard Branson’s biography,” he said.
“But then they started asking me about my own life, what I did, that sort of thing. They said they were interested in possibly getting me involved in a campaign, and that they would get back to me.”
Mr Sallur, under the impression that his good deed might lead to a testimonial or something similar, thought little of it until he was asked to audition over Skype to a team of Virgin’s executives.
“They started asking me about myself, what I did, that sort of thing,” he said.
“But then they wanted me to get up and, like pretend I was fighting off gangsters. So there I was, in my study, waving my arms around and kicking the air. All by myself.”
Even at this point, Mr Sallur wasn’t entirely sure of what the campaign would involve. Eventually, he made it to Sydney, where he was immediately thrown into the deep end of a professional television production.
“It was pretty overwhelming,” Mr Sallur said.
“Pretty much from the moment I arrived, it was on. I had some training, some preparation, and then we were straight into it.”
Mr Sallur was exposed to all of the duties of television production – 12-hour shifts, non-stop work – but, happily, his love of James Bond kept him going.
“It was absolutely exhausting, but I’m a huge James Bond fan,” he said.
“So every time I got tired, I just remembered what it was I was doing, and how awesome it is. That kept me going.”
Oh, there’s just one other thing, in case the whole set-up didn’t seem enough like a dream: Mr Sallur took the opportunity to propose to his partner, also a die-hard Bond fan.
“I had it a little planned out, but the crew looking after us just put it all in place,” he said.
“They organised a beautiful dinner for us, and I managed to get down on one knee and pop the question.”
Of course, she said yes.
“We were looked after perfectly, everyone was just so friendly and excited for me to be there,” Mr Sallur said.
“Just for being honest and sticking up for a company I believe in.”
And, yes, the Mail couldn’t let Mr Sallur go without that most important of Bond questions.
“Sean Connery, I think,” he said.
“He’s the classic. He set all that standard – the manliness, the charm, the beard.
"Hopefully I put a bit of that into the ad myself – I’ve at least got the beard.”
