This week on It’s Ben A Week, Ben is catching up with one of his oldest and dearest friends from his Los Angeles days, Australian actress and longtime partner-in-crime Allira.

Ben and Allira met nearly a decade ago in acting class, where they quickly discovered they shared two things: a love of acting and an inability to keep a straight face around some of their classmates. What followed was years of questionable decisions, ridiculous adventures and the kind of friendship where neither person should probably be left unsupervised.

They look back at the acting program that brought them together—including brutal rehearsal schedules, unsolicited acting advice, questionable notes from teachers and the moment Ben was told one of his completely normal mannerisms was “too gay.” Allira remembers being told her Australian accent needed work, while they recall another classmate allegedly being encouraged to adopt a less Latino-sounding professional name. 

Then comes one of Allira’s greatest Hollywood stories: while working as a Universal Studios tour guide, she confidently welcomed an entire bus of roughly 160 guests, performed her introduction, delivered jokes and talked for several minutes before discovering she’d boarded the wrong vehicle.

It was the Mandarin-language tour.

And nobody on the bus understood her. 

But nothing compares to the day Ben and Allira went to a Malibu wine safari, got drunk in the middle of the afternoon and somehow decided the only reasonable next step was to fly to Las Vegas to see Britney Spears.

Within hours, Ben had booked flights and front-row tickets, they raced from Malibu to their apartments to dog daycare to LAX, continued drinking on the plane, befriended a flight attendant, arrived in Vegas carrying a garbage bag full of airplane liquor and discovered their hotel had upgraded them to a penthouse suite. 

Allira—who initially didn’t even want to see Britney—ended up in the front singing every word and having one of the best nights of her life. 

Plus: Australian wildlife, how to actually pronounce Melbourne, LA Pride, terrible wine, casino adventures, Ben’s refusal to fly economy to Australia, and the very questionable acting jobs they accepted before anyone knew who they were.

Sometimes the best friendships are built on love, loyalty and a decade of evidence that probably shouldn’t be made public.

In this episode:

• Allira’s Australian moth invasion
• How Ben and Allira became friends
• The insanity of their LA acting classes
• “Right there—that was gay.”
• Acting advice they probably should have ignored
• Allira’s Universal Studios tour-guide days
• Accidentally boarding the Mandarin tour
• The Malibu wine safari
• Getting drunk and spontaneously booking Britney Spears in Vegas
• Racing across LA to make their flight
• The flight attendant who joined their night out
• Accidentally getting upgraded to a Vegas penthouse
• Why Allira changed her mind about Britney
• “Copy that… what was that?”
• LA Pride and a $45 recovery burger
• Why Ben desperately needs to visit Australia
• And ten years of friendship and questionable decisions

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