A few weeks ago I was on a commercial shoot promoting the new Passport ID cards they (the Customs and Border Patrol people) are going to be issuing soon. It was a pretty cool shoot, we were up at a lodge in Calabasas (north of Malibu, a good way out of the way actually... haha) and we were making the place look like Canada, because that's what the script called for. So the art department guys are laying down all the fake snow and frosting up the windows. The actors were wearing heavy winter clothing (which is awesome in the warm temperatures of sunny California... more than once one of them reminded us how much they loved the layers they were wearing by using the most descriptive and colorful language possible. Gotta love these low-budget commercial actors. So civil, so polite all the time... ) Anyway, yours truly got the call to return a bunch of this clothing at the end of the shoot, and so I loaded up my Nissan Maxima (14 years running and still going strong!) and headed off to Warner Brothers to drop off the winter wardrobe. Seriously, my backseat was so full of overcoats and parkas that I'm pretty sure if you trying to crawl back there underneath it all you might end up in Narnia.
I pull up to the main gate and have to go through crazy security measures to get admitted (because you know, everyone wants to break into Warner Brothers Studios) and I drive onto the lot. Actually kinda a cool experience, not gonna lie, kinda geeked out a little bit and took a wrong turn on purpose so I'd drove around and see more of the place. Anyway, I find the costume and wardrobe department and pull into the parking garage. I take the elevator down to ground level and go all the way down to 24 hour pick-up to inform them that I have a bunch of returns. This place is like the biggest warehouse of clothing you could ever imagine. Girls, seriously, stop reading, close your eyes and imagine as many clothes as you possibly can... OK, now open your eyes and be very very jealous, because that's where I was. I got lost in the stacks of hangers and clothes everywhere... I felt my manhood slipping away with every step I took taking me deeper and deeper into this man-made (actually it had to be woman-made) hell.
Well I get down there and learn that I'm in the wrong location, so I have to find my way out of this ridiculous labyrinth of clothing and back to the ground level. From there I hop on an elevator to go back up and move my car around to where they told me to bring the returns, and I'm suddenly aware of a very large presence next to me on the elevator. I look over and have one of those "You've got to be kidding me" kinda moments. Standing next to me is Ken Davitian. If you're not familiar with the name, you're probably familiar with the roles: the guy is a character actor, and if you've seen Borat you'll instantly know that when I say he's the big fat guy named Azamat Bagatov who wrestles naked with Sacha Baron Cohen, you can't mistake this guy for anyone else. He's also in Get Smart as the dim-witted accomplice Shtarker who works for Terence Stamp's KAOS agent Siegfried. Needless to say, the guy is instantly recognizable, and I'm on an elevator with him. We make fleeting eye contact and ride in silence. When the doors open for the 3rd floor of the parking deck, he steps halfway out, looks around, then steps back in and shrugs. "I thought I was parked here" he says. I laugh and nervously reply "Yeah, I guess it's just one of those days huh?" He smiles. We strike up conversation as he tries to find his car, stopping at the next two floors and repeating his little exercise of poking his head out and not finding his vehicle. I never ask him for a photo or autograph, don't even tell him I know who he is, and he's a really normal, down to earth kinda guy in the end. Very cool. That was moment number 1 with a celebrity on an elevator, and it was just kinda awkward in retrospect because all I could think while talking to him is "Man, I've seen you naked on a giant screen before, and it's not pretty at all!" (And if you've never seen Borat, then steer clear unless you are prepared to see him naked.)
I leave Warner Brothers and go to the bank, and end up standing in line behind JJ Abrams, the guy who created Lost, Alias, and Fringe and the director of Mission Impossible 3 and this summer's upcoming Star Trek. I didn't know it was him for sure until he walked out and the teller said "Have a great day Mr. Abrams" Ahhh!! Curses! If I had known earlier, I would have totally tapped him on the shoulder and found out what the smoke monster really was, (which for those of you who don't watch Lost, you wouldn't believe me if I tried to explain it). Anyway, that story doesn't take place in an elevator, but hey why not include it here? And that's the simplest and shortest one, because it really doesn't involve any interaction with the "celebrity" in question anyway...
My final celebrity sighting on an elevator goes as follows: This time I'm in Target, everyone's favorite place to go and get everything. I'm picking up some bottled water, toilet paper, and soap (only the essentials folks!). I go to check out and stand in line behind a very slender, tiny girl. She has her back to me, and a knit cap pulled down over her head, but I can clearly see some curls of red hair coming out from beneath it. I get a quick glimpse at the side of her face and can make out the profile of a small little cute nose and large engaging doe-eyes. Her phone starts to ring in her purse, she answers it and starts to talk with a voice that has a little Avril Lavigne accented-edge to it. Before long, my mind is racing, I know I've seen this face and heard this voice somewhere. Then it hits me, I know exactly who she is. I check out and walk away, and yet - what are the odds? - end up on the same elevator as her (if I said I didn't orchestrate that I would be guilty of lying) as we take our purchases down to the parking garage beneath the Target.
It's a very slow elevator, and so I hesitantly make eye contact and she gives me a little smile, those beautiful light brown eyes flashing in my direction. I open my mouth and start to talk before I can think of what exactly to say, but it comes out sounding something like: "Hey, you're that girl from those movies... We Are Marshall and Shooter... Are you the same girl? Your name is Kate Mara, right?" She smiles and actually lets out a little laugh, in hindsight she couldn't have been more friendly or polite, considering she's alone on an elevator with a strange guy like me. She nods and says "Yes, that's me." I kinda stumble through saying something like "Oh well, I don't wanna bother you, but I think you're a good actress and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future." She smiles and says "Aww, thank you. So nice to meet a fan." I'm not sure how many seconds passed before the doors opened, (It felt like a lot... her gaze was hypnotizing), but they did, and off we go to our respective vehicles to return home. It was kinda neat, I realized that she's the same as anyone else, does her shopping at Target just like the rest of humanity, and is pretty down to earth. I didn't ask either for their autograph or a picture, and I have a suspicion that they probably are nicer and just prefer talking to fans like me when they can as opposed to doing such fan-crazed activities like pictures and autographs. Both of them really were polite, down to earth, seemingly normal people.
I guess that's what it comes down to: both instances were almost identical. Both actors were polite, friendly, even courteous. I got to speak to both of them. Both encounters happened on elevators in parking structures. They're both normal people. A friend I told these stories to later pointed out that the only difference is that I've seen one of them naked on-screen and it's not the one you would guess that most people would want to see naked either, but hey, I'm not gonna go there... better to smile and walk away than open my mouth and get into trouble here on the world wide web where everyone can read it, haha.
All in all, just a typical sighting in a very un-typical town. That's the kinda situations I find myself in out here in crazy Hollywood land.
1 comment:
I don't even have to read this before I know ...
I kinda want your life!
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