You have three weeks left in which to write a seven-page script for next year’s Jameson First Shot film competition. Go get your Gyllenhaal on, writes

are home to a significant number of Jameson drinkers, but that could be a triple-distilled coincidence).

The guidelines on the competition website say “your story should be around the great and/or unexpected things that can happen when you fear less and invite life in”.

Each year an A-list Hollywood star (generally one described as “quirky” or “bats” — in other words a very fine actor) is chosen to star in the three winning films. Spacey, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody and Uma Thurman have all had a turn.

The competition does not necessarily catapult the winners to stardom, but they do get catapulted to LA to meet Spacey and make a short film of their script, produced by Dana Brunetti of Trigger Street Productions, before being catapulted back to their day jobs in their home countries.

In previous years there were three prizes — one for a film from the US, one from Russia and one from South Africa. This year there are still three prizes but the boundaries have been extended to include the UK, Ireland, India, Australia, Canada, Bulgaria and Kenya. So the competition will be stiffer.

What would you make Maggie do? Given the sponsor, some entrants might be tempted to write a script that calls for her to do nothing but drink a case of Jameson in attractive increments for seven pages until the credits roll.

Forget about it. The competition rules state: “Scenes that depict drug taking or drug references, drunk driving, excessive violence or excessive drinking will not be accepted.”

So you can’t get her drunk, but you might earn points with Gyllenhaal by making her the love interest of the piece. Last year she told Wrap magazine: “There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time. I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

She would not be averse to comedy (have you heard that laugh?) but she would probably prefer something deeper than the bottom