The Celeb Diaries

A Teenager's Encounters With Celebrities

[ellabennett]

Meeting Eddie Redmayne

So I’ve seen Eddie twice, but only got to talk to him once.  The first time was a little embarrassing.

But since I obviously made this blog for a reason, and do at least 12 embarrassing things daily, I’m going to share it.

It was a surprise that he even showed up.  Originally it was just a screening of Les Miserables (are there accent marks on this thing??) with the director Tom Hooper, but when it was revealed that it was the first official screening since the movie had been finished (at 2 am the day before), my dad had an inkling some of the stars might be watching.

So at the end of the amazing and already tear-jerking musical/movie, chairs were to be brought out.  At first, there were only two: one for the moderator and one for Mr. Hooper.

But then there was another.

And then two more.

And then a grand total of three more.

By then, I was practically in tears.

And then they came out:  Anne Hathaway (!!!!), Amanda Seyfried (AH), Samantha Barks (my lovely), Tom Hooper (yay), the moderator (…), and then the second I caught sight of his freakin’ shoes I bust out crying.

Eddie Redmayne.  The tears flowed, all down my face.  I was sobbing “OH MY GOD.  HE’S SO BEAUTIFUL” in like, the fifth row back, so I’m pretty sure he could see me.  And that’s what finally got me to stop.  The thought of him seeing a cry face that is reminiscent of Chrissy Teigen’s (no joke) made me pull myself together.

I didn’t get to speak to him that day, but by then my talent crush on him had just started (and yes I thought he was amazing in Les Mis I don’t care what you say).

So flash forward two years, which, by the way, is the perfect amount of time for a talent crush to seep in and grow better with age, to when Eddie is making his rounds promoting his new film The Theory of Everything.  

Let’s take a quick break for me to say how amazing that film is.  It’s probably the most seamless acting I’ve EVER seen, and it’s not just a romance film, a science movie, or a biopic.  It’s a life movie.  And both he and Felicity Jones are superb, and deserve every nomination they got.  If you haven’t seen it, do it now.  Like, right now.  I mean it.  I’ll know if you watched it or not.  Don’t test me.

After the screening and Q & A, Eddie and Felicity stayed around to talk to people.  I jumped at the chance to tell him how much I admire him.  So I went up to the little stage area and said, “I just want to say that I really admire and love your work.” At that point I realized that Ms. Felicity was smiling at me, and watching me talk to her co-star.  I decided to look over and add quickly, “And yours too, of course”, even though I admit I didn’t remember anything she had done off hand and only knew that she looked vaguely familiar (which could have been because I just saw her face for two hours on a very large screen..).  Then I finished with, “You inspire me as a young actor.”

But not before I tripped.  I told you I do at least 12 embarrassing things daily.  And you thought I was kidding.

The “little stage area” that I mentioned earlier was only about 3 inches high, so it’s the perfect size to catch the top of a very nervous fidgety girl’s boots when she anxiously steps forward.

I fell slightly forward and caught myself, making enough movement for Eddie to reach out for me and for Felicity to say something like “Oh no!”

Eddie smiled and laughed, “Don’t fall” he said.

My face flushed.  I just smiled and let the next person talk.  I slowly snuck away.

I thought that was going to be it.  A little bit more than a lot cringe-worthy memory to look back on.

The people who run the events in this particular screening room don’t usually allow pictures to be taken with the talent.  But Eddie was really nice and my dad and I could see him taking pictures with fans in the lobby when we were leaving.  My dad figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to get one.

So we did, and I’m 99.9999999% sure he was really nice about it because he knew I was nervous and felt bad that I had tripped.  But I’m glad that he was.  It made me feel better about being clumsy.

[ellabennett]

Meeting Jake Gyllenhaal

So, what I failed to mention in my last post was the fact that before meeting Rupert, I also scored a picture with another very talented person. And judging from the picture above, I’m pretty sure you know who it is.

Jake Gyllenhaal.

So when my dad and I ventured out to get a picture with Rupert Grint, we left the house at such a time that we had almost three hours to kill. And instead of waiting in the cold for one person, we decided that we could wait outside at two locations and get two pictures.

We had seen Jake’s show Constellations earlier that week after waiting for three hours for student rush tickets. The show’s running time is roughly an hour and ten minutes, and is fabulous. I highly recommend it (read: go see it, now!). But as you might have guessed, the reason why my dad wanted to go back was because we didn’t get a picture. On the night we saw it, some random drunk guy started heckling him and he got really pissed off so he walked away without taking pictures with anyone on my side.

We got to the theater roughly 30 minutes before the show got out and waited on the wall adjacent to the doors. A couple had already set up across the way, so my dad and I figured we should mark our own territory instead of risking going to their side. But when the security guards came to put the barricades out, they told us to move because the side we were on was for people seeing the show (sound familiar? I swear this is some kind of new rule that never existed before. This is just a foreshadowing of what would happen later.). As we were moving across, a lady and what I assumed was her daughter but was actually her niece appeared and took the spot where my dad and I could have gone. We would now be creating the ever hated second row behind the barricade.

Let me explain to you why I hate the second row so much in five words: so close yet so far. The people is the front usually get so defensive that anyone behind them is lucky to get an autograph let alone a picture. So you can imagine by bitterness.

But turns out the lady and her niece were pretty nice and the girl was skinny so she let me on the side of her so I could be in the first row with my dad right behind me. We all got to talking and turns out the lady likes to get pictures with celebrities too, only she skips the important part; she doesn’t see the shows. That annoys me because it’s basically what a paparazzi person does, except less aggressive. But I got over it because she had some pretty cool ones. A highlight being Leonardo DiCaprio (!!!).

The girl and I decided that we would take each other’s pictures with Jake because the angle when your family member is squished up behind you makes your head look huge and just overall not attractive. And how are you supposed to post a picture with an awesome celebrity when you look like crap?

I mean, I’ve done it before, but still….

So Jake finally came out and walked right over to my side. He quietly signed some playbills and when he got to me I asked for a picture. “Sure, sure” he said, and took off the huge, round, brown sunglasses he was wearing so his face could be seen in the picture. The girl (who looked like a mixture of Kendall Jenner and Hailee Steinfeld) took a really good picture and when he moved on to her, it was my turn to take a picture of her.

Now a lot of you might not have a really good sense of my character from the previous blog post, but maybe it’s time for you to know that I’m very clumsy and often falter under pressure. So the girl had an iPhone 6 which I’ve never operated before, and maybe you can guess what happened.

So I pressed the button and the camera did a thing and I tried to take another, but it took forever to focus. So Jake (from State Farm as my dad calls him) walked away thinking I had taken one and I handed the phone back to the girl and asked if it took.

Of course it didn’t.

So then I entered a downward spiral of embarrassment and stupidity. I apologized profusely, but I could tell that the girl and her aunt thought I was some absent-minded 12 year old. At that moment, my dreams of fitting in with the cool people melted away and I was left feeling as old as my baby face makes me look.

But I guess it turned out okay because her aunt got Jake to come back and she took another one. So we both walked away victorious.

I mean, yeah. So that was a total recap of the day I met Rupert and Jake!

[ellabennett]

Meeting Rupert Grint

So a couple of weeks ago, my dad took me to see the Broadway show It’s Only A Play.

You know, that sold out star-studded show?

Yeah, that one.

My dad found tickets on StubHub, and suddenly I was going to able to see Rupert Grint, Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, F. Murray Abraham, and Stockard Channing all alive, breathing, in real life, simultaneously.  (Cue freak out).

The show was amazing (I mean.. duh.).  It was laugh-out-loud funny, but also raised some poignant questions like, “Where is Broadway going?”, “Where are all of the great modern American playwrights?”, and “Do critics really matter?”

Now, I’ve been seeing shows for a while, and I know what it takes to be front and center for autographs at the stage door.  Judging by the cast, I knew my dad and I would need to leave the theater right before the curtain went down.  But of course, on this one occasion, I really, really, really, really needed to use the restroom before I stood outside in the cold rain for an hour.

So I ran.  Yes, you read that right.  I shoved my jacket and purse at my dad, whispered, “I have to go” and ran for the nearest restroom.  I was washing my hands by the time the all of the old ladies with small bladders and the moms with small children who also have small bladders were making their way through the doors.  When I left, I was immediately swallowed into a crowd of people, all slowly dragging themselves out of their seats and down the stairs.

And I couldn’t find my dad.

Now, let me share this: I’m barely 5’1 and being in any type of crowd is generally like being in a moving forest.  But normally, I’m able to find my dad who is almost a foot taller than me because he’s tall enough for me to see on my tippy toes and he’s also the only familiar face.

But he wasn’t there.

I wasted a good 3 minutes looking around for him, until I finally realized that I had the gift of technology in my back pocket.  I called him only to find out he was in the lobby waiting for me.

I ran.  Again.

By the time we got out, there were rows and rows of people standing behind a barricade right outside of the theater.  I felt my heart drop.  There was no way in heck I was going to be able to get an autograph.  Or take picture of someone.  Or even see a cast member.   But my dad was smart.  He was able to see over the sea of people and their umbrellas to discover that the other side of the stage door had significantly less people, mostly because everyone was getting stuck right here, outside of the theater doors.

We ran.

I snuck my way around expensive cars and load of really slow people to find the only spot behind a column of people that were not carrying umbrellas.  Unfortunately, I was a grand total of four people behind the barricade.  So close, yet so far.  Lucky me.

But before I could wallow in my selfish self-pity (I mean, I got to at least see the show, right?  Not everyone could have done that…) people started to point up behind me towards the fire escape.  There was a figure in a blue coat smoking on the fire escape.  Someone decided to take the plunge and enthusiastically yell, “RUPERT!” into the air.  The figure looked down, revealing a mop of red hair and eyes still covered in eye shadow and eye liner from the show. He gave us all a big smile and waved.  Before he turned around, the same person shouted, “Are you going to sign?!” and to this Rupert gave us all a reassuring thumbs-up.

Within the next half hour, Rupert finally came out.  I couldn’t see him at first, but my dad grabbed my phone and tried to take pictures of him from above.  I patiently waited for him to get closer so I could try to get my Playbill signed, and while I did, I could see him taking selfies with fans.  I wanted to cry.  I kept feeling that if I hadn’t stopped to pee, or if I hadn’t wasted time looking for my father, I could be getting a selfie right now with someone who defined my childhood.  But no.  I had to be super slow on the one night it mattered.

I was still brooding when I felt my Playbill slip out of my hands.  I hadn’t even realized that my arm was in the air, my hand holding my program over the shoulder of the guy in front of me.  I looked up and saw that Rupert Grint himself, yes, Ron Weasley, had taken it from me and was signing it on his knee.  We had a moment of eye contact and he smiled, before putting my program back in my hand.  He moved away from me, and the section of the mob next to me swarmed forward, cameras flashing and bodies pushing.  He was completely engulfed from my angle.

I stayed to collect Matthew Broderick’s signature, but that’s a story for a different day.

I hadn’t gotten a picture.

Yet.

The next day, while I was still recovering from the excitement of the night before my dad came to me and said, “You know, It’s Rupert’s last day in the show tonight, and the performance starts at 3.  We could try to get a picture tonight and get you home early for school tomorrow.”

I had never gotten ready so fast in my life.  I threw on a cute, but warm outfit and splashed on some makeup so my complexion would look even in the picture.  I had to look good.  Like, great.

Before I knew it, we were racing over to the theater awaiting the end of the show.  There was already a barricade set up on the same side we were the night before, but it was full of people.  My position there was even worse than last night’s.  I couldn’t see a thing, even on my tippy toes.  My dad decided to have us leave and stand on the side closest to the theater, even though the barricades weren’t set up yet.  A scruffy security guard came out to tell us that we couldn’t stand there because this side was reserved for people who were seeing the show.  My dad had us leave the area and hide near Elephant Man, which was running next door.  We waited with open eyes for any sign of movement.  I noticed some people slowly trickling out of the doors and standing in the now set up barricades.  I made my way over, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

The security man came up beside me.  “You see the show?” he asked.  I showed him my blank Playbill that my dad had taken as an extra from the night before.  “Do you have a ticket?” I looked at him with a blank expression on my face as I tried to comprehend what he had said.  Boy, he talked fast.  And he had poor articulation.  He looked me in the eyes and walked away, suddenly disinterested.  He began to ask others around me, “You have a ticket?” and even though I had gotten by, my heart was racing.  What if he found out I didn’t have a ticket from this performance?  Would he take me to theater jail?  Did he know that I hadn’t said the truth, let alone anything at all?  Why had he let me go?

The show ended and everyone packed in again, but this time, I was front.  Just like the night before, people noticed Rupert on the fire escape and asked him the same question.  I assume his response was the same because he eventually came out of the stage doors.

But before that, I was excitedly texting my friend Adele telling her where I was and what I was hoping to get.  Right as I was getting my phone ready to take a selfie with Matthew Broderick (!!) Adele texted me:

Adele: Ask him to kiss you.  I would.  (This was a in reference to a certain red haired someone, not Matthew Broderick).

Me: I could get arrested… I’m just going to take a picture

Adele: I would kiss him

Me: I bet you would

My camera started to glitch and I was worried that the picture wouldn’t take or I wouldn’t be able to properly practice selfie taking.  Because lets face it: just because I’m a teenage girl doesn’t mean I’m good at taking selfies.  It usually takes me fifteen shots to get a good one, and this time, I only had one.  I had to make it count!

Luckily Adele stopped texting me just in time and my camera worked.  The picture came out good!  I felt confident that my picture with Rupert would be good too.

Then, the doors opened, and the crowd went wild.  Rupert Grint was standing inches away from me, starting to sign.  My heart was fluttering as he stepped closer.  He took hold of my program and smiled at me, his eyes still covered in makeup.  His hair no longer spiked up.

Me: You were really great.

Me: Can I take a picture with you?

Rupert:  Sure! Just hold on a minute.

I hadn’t realized but all of the girls behind me had shoved their Playbills above my head, enveloping me in paper and making it impossible for him to take a picture.  I waited patiently for him to sign the massive amounts of Playbills.  Just as he was about to move on, he looked back at me.  “Wait.  Did I take the picture with you?” he asked.

“No..” I blushed.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he said and came to one side.  He bent down (a whole 7 inches) so we were practically the same height and put his head against mine.  As I fiddled with my phone, I couldn’t help thinking, Oh my gosh his hair is soft! It was almost as if I could feel the gingerness (is that a real thing?  Is that weird?  Yeah.. it probably is…).  I quickly snapped the picture, and with one more smile, he was off, ready to give attention the rest of the screaming girls.

So, yep.  That’s the really long story of how I met Rupert Grint.  It was really worth it, and I still can’t believe I met the person who was a major part of my life when I was growing up.