Ray (Chris O’Dowd) has been fired from his job as a costumed guide in a theme park attraction called “Star Ride,” after he goes too far into character and terrifies a group of young children. Ray’s good friends Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton) also work in the theme park, as costumed dinosaurs passing out coupons to a restaurant called “Dinoburger.” That evening they all go to the cinema, later complaining about how “crappy” the film was on their way to the pub.
Once at the pub, they compose a “Letter to Hollywood” with tips on how to stop making so many bad movies, on the back of a sheet from Toby’s “brilliant ideas” notebook. Ray meets an American girl named Cassie (Anna Faris), with dark brown hair, who claims to have a time machine built into her body and whose job is to find and repair “time leaks.” When he sarcastically says she should use her time machine to kill Hitler, she tells him about time-criminals called “editors.
Editors are people that go back in time to kill famous artists immediately after they’ve created their greatest work, to avoid their later decline in quality. Cassie insists her job is fairly boring, but one of the perks is getting to meet famous people from history, like him. She claims that future books will be written about him, and refers to him as “Ray the Great,” indicating she is not only a fan but has a bit of a crush on him. Ray assumes that his friends have set him up with Cassie to make him feel better after losing his job. But after a brief conversation Cassie leaves. When Ray relates this entire story to Pete and Toby, they think he’s invented the entire encounter – which is what Cassie told him would happen.