Even better than the real thing

(Dina Rudnick/Globe Staff)

For one weekend in March, Boston got caught up in a U2 fan frenzy thanks to Pavel Sfera , a 41-year-old Bono impersonator from California who was in town to perform at a birthday party and neglected to tell a few local restaurant owners that he was, in fact, not the real deal. The news reported that Bono was in town, dining in East Boston and on Tremont Street, and it certainly looked that way. Tonight, Sfera, a musician and part-time Bono look - alike originally from Yugoslavia, makes a local appearance again, this time for a party in Leominster hosted by WXLO-FM (104.5) . Sfera made time yesterday to stop at the Globe to talk about last month's madness (which he says earned him some hate mail from U2 fans), how he chooses to spread Bono's message of love (without forging Bono's signature), and how he never, under any circumstances, uses his Bono-ness to lure women.

MEREDITH GOLDSTEIN

Q You caused quite a stir last month. Did you expect that kind of publicity storm?

A I've been doing this professionally for two or three years now. Sometimes it was a spoof, pranks on Halloween. But I didn't know it would have such a profound effect in Boston. I suspect that U2 is such a popular band out here that Bono's second home is probably Boston.

Q I imagine the frenzy got you some good impersonating gigs -- like the one [tonight].

A Almost never. That kind of publicity almost never gets me that kind of work. Most of my work I get through my website.

Q It seems that sometimes you tell people you're an impersonator and other times you allow them to think you're Bono. You had the people around Boston fooled last month. How do you decide who gets to know?

A I never tell people I'm Bono. That is a given. I often tell people I'm not. In the middle of the conversation, they'll describe how they like "Joshua Tree" or want to know when my band's going to be on tour again . . . and I think to myself, "I don't have an accent. I'm not pretending."

Q So you think it's obvious to these people that you're not Bono but that they believe because they want to believe?

A The willful suspension of disbelief is profound. The celebrity draw in America is huge. Knowing full well I can create an ugly scene and have a mob scenario, for one, maybe two [people who want autographs] I sign, "All about the love," or "All about Jesus," or "Love every day."

Q But you never sign autographs with Bono's name.

A I don't sign the name. But I look them in the eye as I'm scribbling "Love every day" so that it registers. But if it's one- on- one, I say, "It's just someone I look like. I do it for a living."

Q So in a one-on-one situation, you'll always disclose you're not Bono. So that means you never use this look-alike thing to get chicks.

A OK, first of all, I can say hands - down I have five sisters. I can relate to women without all the [pause] -- I have lots of female friends. I am often a sounding board for their relationships, their marriages, their boyfriends, sometimes with their fathers or brothers. Work-related stuff. I'm on a spiritual journey with my life. I didn't want to do this Bono thing ever, even though I've been hearing it since 1979. You know what I'm going to tell you? You're a girl. You understand this just as well. I had a couple of sweethearts I really just loved, and I really love that when you really love someone you have this deeper care and respect and all these types of things. I don't see that in the bar scene. I still want to have some chivalry. I just don't get it.

Q So that's a no to the chick thing.

A I beg your pardon. I'm a little long-winded, aren't I. I guess I am like the real thing.

Lindsay Lohan says she felt safe while she was in rehab earlier this year but doesn't consider herself an addict. The 20-year-old actress said in January she had checked into the Wonderland Center in Los Angeles "to take care of my personal health." Her publicist confirmed in December that Lohan was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Lohan then said she had been going to the meetings for a year. "It's so weird that I went to rehab. I always said I would die before I went to rehab," Lohan tells Allure magazine in an interview in its May issue. Lohan says she decided to enter the addiction treatment facility at the suggestion of her therapist. Her room was "all white, with a parquet, and it was different! I just felt safe," she says. "I thought, 'I'm going to stay here tonight.' And I stayed there. For a month. It was great." However, the star of "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" says: "I don't know that I'm necessarily an addict." (AP)

The festering bad blood between movie-star exes Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger erupted yesterday when an angry phone message from Baldwin to his daughter was made public. On the recording, Baldwin can be heard admonishing his 11-year-old, Ireland, "You are a rude, thoughtless little pig. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being," he says, apparently upset that she did not answer her phone. "I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you're a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the [butt] who doesn't care about what you do as far as I'm concerned. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone." (AP)

Get ready for "Spider-Man: The Broadway Musical." Marvel Studios is putting the pieces together for a musical on the Great White Way starring the popular superhero, which will be directed by Tony winner Julie Taymor, with U2's Bono and the Edge creating new music and lyrics for the project. (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)