Personal Encounters With Celebrities

Etoniichuan

Being in the spotlight celebrities get a lot of attention for bullshit things, like Christian Bale's temper tantrum, but they they can also be awesome people just by doing some cool shit. The thing that so many celebrities forget is their fans are the reason why they are so famous, and lose what makes people like them by becoming assholes. Sometimes celebrities do something that really make you think they are awesome. Not like giving money to charity, or doing a great movie or show, but just by being cool people to meet.

Jim Gaffigan is a pretty funny guy, but what is really cool about him is after a show, he will generally hang around and do a meet and greet with the people at the show. I must have waited in line for like two hours for the chance to meet him and shake his hand, but goddamn he was a pretty cool, down to earth guy.

Tim Dorsey is an author of the Serge A. Storms books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_A._Storms) and a pretty great guy. I went to a book signing of his, and since there weren't a lot of people there I got to chat with him, and he was pretty cool guy. We talked about his books, and then we shot the shit about all kinds of stuff. Meeting him made me like his books a lot more.

So, post your personal encounters with celebrities that made you like them even more.

Burning Beard

-Ron Glass: Ron Glass played the Preacher on Firefly and a Detective on Barney Miller. I was lucky enough to spend six or so hours with him, just chatting about stuff as he signed autographs. He's a Buddhist, volunteers extensively to get inner city black kids to college and other good works, plus he just a really chill guy.

-Ray Park: You know, Darth Maul from Star Wars? Yeah, he's Scottish and really likes old Hong Kong karate flicks. I almost saw him go nuts on a nerd who insulted his intelligence and the entire time he was just very calm. I would not fuck with this man. Also, he is very willing to engage in lightsaber duels with fans.

Mostly D-list I suppose. But, you know, it's all I got.

Randomosity

I was at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in NYC during their huge improv marathon last summer. It's 2 or 3 in the morning, the place is hot and sweaty from 400 people crammed into a basement comedy theatre. Everyone is drunk, including myself. I needed to pee.

I slid over to the bathroom and Ed Helms (Daily Show, The Office) comes out.
"The bathroom is full. I am next in line. If you try to cut ahead of me, I will pee on you."

At this point, I think 3 things:
1. Holy shit, Ed Helms!
2. My girlfriend loves Ed Helms!
3. You're at UCB and it's an unwritten rule that you play it cool around the random celebs that show up.

These 3 thoughts coalesce in the worst possible way.
I respond, "You know, you should pee on me, my girlfriend would love that."

Without missing a beat, he replies, "She's a keeper. Marry that girl."

Then we peed next to each other. THE END

(I broke up with that girl, after 4 years, about 3 weeks ago. She spent the last year cheating on me. )

Three Red LightsMy uni has a lot of open hall space so they rent it out regularly to theatre productions for rehersals and such. One time my friends and I were sitting around in the canteen and Patrick Stewart comes in.

I think its cool, but I dont really want to bother him. My friend though goes up to him goes, "Mr Stewart, I just wanted to say I'm a really huge fan of your work". And Patrick Stewart just shoots him this stone cold fucking glare and goes "which work?"

So my friend starts talking about how he saywthe one man production of A Christmas Carol he did and a bunch of Shakespeare act and Stewart laughs and apologises for being testy. Its not a big deal but I have a bunch of sympathy for him imagining what it must be like to be mobbed by Star Trek fans every day of the week.

Grumbletub
Rikard, the keyboardist for Evergrey, snuck onto the roof of a hotel with us while drunk. We all sat around smoking weed out of the pages of the hotel's gideon bible. Rickard was a cool swede.