If you caught newly-minted best picture winner Green Book in theaters this season, you might have noticed something about the film’s opening scene. Doesn’t that guy sitting next to character actor Joe Cortese look like he knows an awful lot about D.C.’s music scene? If you did (and please let me know if you did—I would love to add you to my trivia team) you’d be right: It’s Seth Hurwitz, co-chair of I.M.P., the D.C. music empire that includes 9:30 Club, The Anthem, and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The one-scene role actually isn’t Hurwitz’s first brush with Hollywood stardom, according to the Washington Post. The concert promoter, 60, has been sending off audition tapes for parts in shows and movies ever since he scored a bit part on HBO’s series Treme back in 2010. His big- and small-screen successes both appear to be the result of having friends in high places: His pal George Pelecanos—a local crime novel author—is one of Treme’s creators, and he got his audition tape in front of Green Book director Peter Farrelly after grabbing lunch with Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, who’s friends with Farrelly. (“I owe it to Ted,” Hurwitz says of that particular acting gig.)

Otherwise, he says, he rarely even gets a response from his audition tapes. “This has been an amazing lesson for me in humility because you can’t negotiate your way in here, you can’t charm your way in,” Hurwitz told the Post. “You have to act your way in.”

According to IMDB, Hurwitz’s other roles include a 2006 episode of The Wire, where he played a poker player, and as “corporate henchman” in a 2010 movie called Babylon Central. That film was directed by Eric Hilton, best known as one half of D.C. band Thievery Corporation and one half of the duo that owns a handful of local nightlife spots, including Marvin, The Brixton, and American Ice Company. One of his bars, Satellite Room, happens to be right next door to 9:30 Club. Babylon Central, set in D.C., follows the adventures of an aspiring DJ who gets mixed up in an oil deal with a Saudi prince. The one review we could find for the movie calls it “torturous.”

But back to Green Book. In his small role, Hurwitz plays a mobster named Johnny Randazzo, and shares one scene with Viggo Mortensen, who plays Tony Lip, nightclub bouncer and driver to pianist Don Shirley during his tour of the American South during the 1960s. The part began with some improvisational chatting, and Hurwitz’s major line was, “Who had the balls to clip Gio’s hat?”,  according to I.M.P. spokesperson Audrey Fix Schaefer. Hurwitz, who tells the Post he saw the movie on opening day at the movie theater, says his role was cut down. He didn’t get much sympathy from friends: “You’re in the movie, shut up,” he says they told him.

In addition to receiving the Academy’s highest honor on Sunday night, Green Book also walked away with awards for best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali, who plays Shirley, and a trophy for its original screenplay, which was co-written by Lip’s son, Nick Vallelonga. The film has also been dogged by a slew of controversies, including a condemnation from Shirley’s family, a resurfaced Islamaphobic tweet from Vallelonga, Mortensen apologizing for saying the n-word during a panel, and Farrelly apologizing for flashing his genitals on the set of past movies.