Ordinary people can be surprised by extraordinary encounters, and there is power in allowing those moments to stand on their own rather than attempting to magnify them. This article is about real-life stories of people who had chance encounters with celebrities but chose to keep the information to themselves rather than reveal who they were. These stories could be about people who were star-struck but didn’t want to appear fanatical, people who were surprised to run into a celebrity but didn’t want to intrude on their privacy, or people who simply didn’t think meeting a famous person was a big deal. Scroll down to reveal the secrets!
I once sat next to Gwen Stefani on a flight after I was upgraded. I didn’t recognize her at first because she was dressed/styled differently from what she usually does when performing. She introduced herself to me after I said hello. I don’t know if she did it on purpose or if I misheard her but I got “Stephanie”. but eventually, we started chatting and she talked about her family and showed me a picture of her with her husband. I recognized Blake Shelton right away and it suddenly clicked.
Still, I kept my mouth shut and just made a pleasant conversation with her. She was friendly and down to earth, but as soon as we landed she disappeared and the passengers that were around us were asking me if I got an autograph or anything.
This happened yesterday! My wife took my son to the zoo, and he wanted to read every little plaque in the reptile area. My wife was distracted for a moment, so he asked the nearest stranger to read the plaque for him. My wife turned around to see Scarlett Johansson happily reading the info to him.
My dad and I bumped into Michael Jordan at a Walgreens near Chicago. This was back in 2006 or so.
We were picking out birthday cards for my mom, and MJ and his son came in the same aisle browsing some cards. My dad kept his cool and continued to look through different cards, giving him his personal space. I, on the other hand, was 9 years old and in awe, sort of staring at him. After MJ picked out his card, he winked at me and gave me a walk-by fist bump.
Didn’t really set in until I was older how cool that was.
I worked at a university tech store that was also an Apple Store. It was located inside of a large complex with other stores in it — you just walk into my store through the large doorless entryway. Well, it was very early in the morning and I see someone approaching and it’s Jonathan Banks, from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. I acted nonchalant as if he was just any ol’ guy. His daughter went to my university, so she was there with him. They walk into my store and with his iPad in his hand, Jonathan tells me he has a problem with it, and accessing his Gmail, and asks if I can help him with it. I tell him sure and take his iPad, flirt with Rebecca (his daughter) a little bit, and get started. Anyway, I tell them it might take a bit, and they tell me they’re off to a Starbucks inside the complex, where Jonathan asks what I want from Starbucks. I laugh, just saying that’s not necessary — but he insists, so I tell him just a black Pike Place will do. When he left, I immediately googled on one of the store’s computers how to fix the problem he had, it came up, I applied the fix. When Jonathan and his daughter returned, it was all set. I gave him back his iPad, and Jonathan Banks bought me a Starbucks.
When I was younger with fewer responsibilities I used to just drive around for the heck of it. To me, driving is a hobby. Late at night was my favorite time. The streets are empty. My uncle is like this too. I asked him if he wanted to meet at American Coney Island. We sat down in a booth. A couple of guys walked in after us and sat down behind us. Eminem, Dr Dre, and a guy I later found out was Jimmy Iovine. We paid them no attention, but we knew who they were. They finished before us and as they were walking out, Eminem nodded at us and said, “thanks for not making a big deal about this. We got you.” He and the other guys disappeared around the corner.
Oprah called me after my grandma died. She was born and raised in Chicago and was a therapist, activist and school counselor in southside Chicago for decades before moving up to Michigan, where our family is now.
Apparently, they knew each other through my grandma’s work back in the day. Oprah just basically offered her condolences and told me that my grandma helped a lot of people and that I should be proud of her.
Still, to this day, do not know how she knew who I was or how she got my number.
Worked at a hotel and Russell Crowe came in the lobby. He went to the house phoned and called the front desk where I was working. I could see him pretty easily. I answered the phone and he asked to be connected to a room so I put him through.
This wasn’t long after he threw a phone at a hotel clerk so I didn’t want to take a chance at pissing him off.
I was 10 years old in 2002 when my mom took me to the Bronx Zoo for the first time. It was a rainy day so we practically had the whole place to ourselves except for 3 British kids running around, chaperoned by a woman. My mom quickly befriended the woman while I made it like a kid and joined the hoard, looking at spiders and scorpions and sharing in the awe and excitement of the animals.
After about an hour when we said our goodbyes, my mother told me that the kid, Daniel, who I had been hanging out with had played Harry Potter in the movie that came out last year.
I met Simon Pegg when I was working as a cashier at Borders.
It was like a Tuesday afternoon and the place was empty. He came up to me with some stationery and I started ringing him up. The entire time I was thinking he looked so much like him, but I didn’t think it was him since I wasn’t in the UK and as far as I knew he wasn’t filming a movie in Chicago, so it was a pretty quiet transaction. After it was done and I was handing him his bag with his stuff I jokingly said, “Has anyone told you that you look like the guy from Shaun of the Dead?” He replied, “I am the guy from Shaun of the Dead.”
I worked at a Barnes & Noble in NY as a clerk, but once or twice I’d be called over to the in-store Starbucks cafe to help out whenever they were understaffed. One time, Alan Rickman came up and ordered something, I can’t recall what. I wrote “Hans Gruber” on his cup though. He smiled at me when he noticed it.
I used to take guided trips on horseback into the mountains in California. Came into work one day to take a group of four out for a ride at sunset. A Party of four arrives, and it’s none other than the Selena Gomez with two of her friends and one of the biggest, toughest bodyguards I’ve ever seen.
I go around the table, shake everyone’s hand, introduce myself and never indicated I knew who she was (I’m a millennial – I definitely knew who she was). They had a wonderful time and I think they appreciated that I didn’t ask for photos, autographs or even acknowledge that I knew who they were. I imagine they don’t get that very often. It just seemed like the polite thing to do.
There was a big deal about Selena and her friends posting about riding horses on Instagram a few months back. I got down off my horse to take that photo for them, and those are our horses they’re riding. It ended up in People magazine. Our horses took great care of the group and got a LOT of extra carrots that evening. Good boys!
I was working in post-production at a large facility in Studio City. This facility had a common break room shared by all of the clients renting space there. My company was working on a reality show while Natalie was in a downstairs studio directing a movie (or so I understand it). Nearby to this facility was a park that had numerous food trucks parked by it every day for lunch. On Tuesdays, the Kogi truck is parked there. If you know LA food trucks, you know that the Kogi truck is one of the most famous ones. It’s Mexican/Asian fusion food, and it’s INCREDIBLE.
So I wandered down to the food truck and bought myself a sweet chilli chicken quesadilla. That thing is The. Bomb. Took it back to the office and plopped down on one of the cafeteria benches in the break room to grub it up.
Enter Natalie and one of her co-workers. They had… salad or something? It wasn’t particularly inspired, though I’m sure it was high quality. High-quality salad is a thing, right? I don’t know, because I’m not, generally speaking, a salad eater. The only green thing I like to eat is bread. Free penicillin and all that. So Natalie, naturally, saw my amazing quesadilla smothered in sticky Asian goodness (not that kind, you pervert), and was immediately smitten. Not by me; she probably could have cared less about me, but by the intoxicating blend of odors, colors, and textures that sat in a styrofoam container before me.
“What’s that,” she asked me, just like a totally normal person.
“This? Oh, it’s the Sweet Chilli Chicken Quesadilla from the Kogi Barbecue Food Truck,” I replied, like some kind of godd*mn advertising executive bucking for a promotion.
“Looks good,” she replied in a completely regular way, just like a real mortal would have.
“It’s the best,” I said. Right here is when my brain caught up with my mouth and I realized what was actually going on. I was having a perfectly boring and average conversation with NATALIE PORTMAN. For once in my life, my brain made a good decision and shut the f*ck up so my mouth could just keep on rolling with it. Exeunt brain.
“If you want to try one – and you totally should because they’re amazing,” I told Natalie, “their food truck is at the park nearby here every Tuesday.”
“There are food trucks at the park near here?”
“You didn’t know?” I was incredulous. “That’s literally the best thing about working in this building. There is always a bevy of food trucks nearby for lunch. You can just walk down there and get awesome food every day.”
My brain stepped back in for a quick consultation. Nope, my mouth said, we were going to keep on pretending we had no idea that she was a celebrity and would be crushed by a horde of screaming fans if she so much as dared to step outside for a breath of fresh air. Suit yourself, my brain said, and left again.
“It’s a nice walk, too. You should come with us sometime.” I had to try, right?
“Sounds good,” she said (OH MY GOD), “but we’re too busy to leave for lunch. Thanks anyway.”
And then we ate the rest of our meals in relative silence.
“Bye,” I said when I got up to leave.
“See ya,” she replied.
In the end, my takeaway is that Natalie Portman is totally normal. She’s just a reasonable person who is incredibly talented and good-looking but is in no way pretentious or stuck up about it. She was there to work, she was mildly interested in some interesting food I had, and that’s about it.
I was in a bookstore in RI and was in the horror section. Picked up a book by Stephen King, and flipped it over and saw his picture on the back (or inside the cover, I don’t really remember).
I look up, and in the next aisle over, right across the bookshelf from me, is a guy that looks exactly like Stephen King. So I hold up the book and say “is this you?”
I used to be a server at a Mexican restaurant right outside LA in the late 90s. One day Leonardo DiCaprio came in with who I assume was his mom to have lunch. This would’ve been post Titanic so really at the peak of his breakthrough mega celeb status. He was wearing a ball cap, and sunglasses and was unshaven but I recognized him anyway. I didn’t let anyone know and I wrote something like “your movies are awesome, I hope you liked our food” on his receipt when I dropped it off at the table.
After he left, I swung by and picked up his payment and he left me a note back that said “thank you so much for not blowing my cover” with a $100 tip. Sh*t was awesome I was only like 19, and I went and got some Playstation games with it after my shift ended.
My husband was vacationing in Woody’s Wharf in Newport, California killing time in a bar over a burger and a beer. A guy sits next to him and my husband has a nice chat with him. The guy leaves and my husband goes to close his tab and the bartender tells him it’s been covered by the guy he was talking to.
The bartender asks if he knows who he was talking to. My husband has no idea. Chuck Norris, it was his bar.
Met Elon Musk in a Tesla store in LA. Really wanted to meet him but didn’t want to be that guy. Decided I had a plan, so walked up to him and said, “Excuse me, do you work here?”
He replied, “I mean yeah kind of”.
I say, “Ah what can you tell me about the entertainment console of the Model S?”
He says, “let me see if I can find someone to help you.”
Was walking out of a gas station over on Crescent Heights and Sunset and heard a “hey!…hey!” coming from a cracked window on a tinted out range rover that was parked at one of the pumps. I walk over to the car to see Jeff Goldblum, who had somehow seen the gold ring I was wearing on my right hand from 20 feet away. He proceeds to tell me how he loves my ring and has been looking for one just like it and asks me where I got it. I tell him it was my grandfather’s and he asks to see it up close. I hold my hand up to Jeff Goldblum, he takes my hand, gushes about the ring for a minute and thanks me. I said sure and walked back to my apartment.
I once asked James Franco if I could borrow his laptop to copy a file from one thumb drive to another in a Starbucks, but I honestly had no idea who he was until I was done with my question, and he just stared blankly at me and said ‘no’. Somehow his refusal seemed ridiculous to me, but I realized that I was the one being ridiculous.
In the Mid 90’s I was a cab driver. Our service was like a cross between a limo and a taxi, and we serviced some fancy resorts. As I dropped off my passenger at a resort, another guy asks if I’m a taxi, and I say yes, so he tells his friend their cab is here.
His friend got in the car and said “this ain’t no cab, smells too good to be a cab” in that unmistakable Chris Rock voice.
He and his friend just b*llsh*tted with each other for the 15-minute drive to a local nightclub. There was a white kid trying to talk to a yellow-cab driver ahead of us in the parking lot and Chris Rock started imitating the kid, like “I need a ride, yeah, I’m drunk, but I need a ride”, and I was trying really hard not to laugh out loud.
He wasn’t nearly as famous yet at the time, but I had seen his stand-up routines on Comedy Central and knew exactly who he was, but didn’t go fan-boy on him.
Walked into an empty restaurant with a friend and sat next to Jimmy Fallon and his wife at the bar. I’m a bartender/waiter and know how people can get around celebrities so I minded my own business and didn’t say a word to him. Somehow he started talking to us and before you know it was in a deep conversation for a couple of hours. Really a great dude.
I used to work as a hostess in a fancy hotel near a place where these huge concerts were being held during the summer. I was at the hotel lobby, just getting ready to start working and I see a whole bunch of black people entering (it was a german hotel chain in a Balkan country so it was pretty weird to see any other race than white there) and just going to their rooms. A few hours later, a huge bodyguard type of guy storms out of the restaurant and refuses to pay(for a meal he ordered, but didn’t like) and I try to chase him with no luck (cause of heels)… Behind him is Wiz Khalifa and I go to him and tell him that a guy from his team refused to pay and that it is not ok and he just says: it’s ok, I will pay, I’m sorry he caused you problems. I take his card, give it to the waiter so he can charge the meal, go back to Wiz and thank him for paying for his friend. I was nervous as f*ck but kept my cool.
Not sure if this counts but when I was 15 I was really into playing Starcraft (being a 3-month-old game at the time) on battle.net. I did mostly 3v3 games. After finishing this one, a particularly epic match (close game, we won), we all got into a chat room to talk about how fun that was until one of them says something to the effect of “not sure if you all care but you just beat Ben Affleck.” Of course, we all ask him to prove it, so he told us to wait a minute and visit his official website’s message board (benaffleck.com or something like that). He had just made a post in red (red being Ben Affleck himself) about just losing a game of Starcraft.
I worked at a movie theater in Albuquerque at the time they were filming the first Avengers film. Captain America was about to come out, I remember because we had the huge standee of him in the lobby. I was reading in the box office when three people came up. Guy asked for 3 tickets to Bridesmaids. It was dark out and he had a green baseball cap and sunglasses. He paid with a credit card. Christopher Evans. I stared at the card after I swiped it. Handed it back. “I need you to sign the receipt” he did. And then he walked in.
Robin Williams used to walk around my lone childhood country town near SF. I saw him once (after hearing many rumors about his sightings, not entirely unlike Bigfoot or Nessy sightings).
My brain didn’t fully comprehend what it was seeing. But I could tell he was trying his very best to remain incognito and not draw any unwanted attention.
We locked eyes. He smiled, I smiled and nodded back, and we both went our separate ways.
I met Justin Timberlake and had no idea it was him until someone told me afterwards. Went to a basketball game with my dad and we stopped by the bar area in the arena first. The game had just started so it was pretty empty except for the bar itself. My dad goes to the restroom and I walk up to the bar to order a beer. There’s only one seat at the bar next to a guy in a baseball cap and sunglasses. I politely ask if the seat is taken and he just says “nope, it’s all you, man.” We shoot the sh*t for a couple of minutes. He’s sitting on my right and eventually, he says he and his wife are going to go to their seats. He extends his hand and asks my name. I tell him and ask his name. He says, “Justin. Nice to meet you dude, have a good night.”
He and his wife leave and the bartender comes up to me and says, “You know that was Justin Timberlake, right?”
I immediately did a double take and couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize him even with the hat and sunglasses. I told my girlfriend at the time who was a huge Justin Timberlake fan and she couldn’t believe I met him without knowing it was him. She wouldn’t let it go for like a month.
I was sitting at the Genius Bar at an Apple store one day and a very large man with dreads came and sat next to me. He was bringing his phone in to get fixed because he dropped it and didn’t have a case. I overheard an employee jokingly say, “you wear a helmet when you play football, shouldn’t your phone have the same protection?” I knew it was Larry Fitzgerald, but I didn’t want to be a fanboy so I started asking very broad questions about what he did as a profession to stay engaged in a conversation with him. Larry Fitz is, to this day, one of the nicest, most humble people I have ever met.
My friend’s mom (over 70yrs old) owns a small Asian grocery store. Post Malone came walking in with his girlfriend and his mom had no idea who he was. A few cute things happened:
She was nervous because of his tattoos, but happy/not worried once he bought a lot of food. She had no idea he was a celebrity.
She gave him a free snack for buying so much food and told him to come back for lunchtime for cheap and tasty gyoza (he did come back the next day!)
She was worried he would get mugged going to his car because of 3 big men outside so she followed him outside (they were his bodyguards)
She really liked his “cool car” (it was a Lamborghini)
She told my friend about the encounter that evening and he pulled up a youtube video based on the description – it was him. When Post Malone came back the next day for Gyoza she got a selfie with him (it’s on my friend’s phone so I don’t have the picture available right now). The whole thing is adorable with how innocent his mom is.
Years ago, like 20 years ago, I went to see Adam Sandler stand up at a small comedy club. Clearly, I knew who he was because I got tickets to his show. My date and I were running a smidge late and ran into a guy in the lobby. A guy I used to work with, so I was like, “Hey! Danny, how are you doing, what have you been up to?” He was like, “I’m good, how are you?” I responded that I was good, but running late for the show, had to run and he said, “ok, have a good night” and walked off. As my date and I walked into the club, he said, “you know who that was?”
It wasn’t Danny. It was Adam Sandler. But, gotta say, he played the part of Danny well. One of his better roles.
My mom is a big sports fan. One time she was shopping and saw a really large, fit-looking man who she didn’t immediately recognize but seemed familiar. She thought it must have been a professional football player or something, so she went up to the only other person in the shop, who was this smaller weird-looking guy, and asked him if he knew who the athletic-looking man was. The short guy looked at my mom and said “That’s my bodyguard, I’m Elton John.”
One of my best friend’s doppelganger is Ethan Hawke. Like it’s scary how much he resembles him, to the point that during those stupid Facebook challenges, he just changed his profile picture to him and nobody realized it. Also, his favorite story was one time at San Diego Comic-Con he actually confused Rosario Dawson at a hotel bar.
Anyway one night I’m walking home from work in NYC, and I see who I thought was my friend, John just walking on a kind of secluded part of 9th ave around Hell’s Kitchen, and I yell “JOHN!”
He doesn’t turn around.
So I decide to yell it again, and instead of responding his pace quickens. I decide the best thing to do is to run at him which seemed to terrify him as keep in mind it’s late and there are very few people around. Anyway, I catch up to him and say “Oh, you’re not John” and then walk away from what was a very frightened Ethan Hawke.
Parking lot in downtown Vancouver BC: go to the machine to punch out from parking to pay, see a guy getting frustrated because the machine he is trying to use isn’t working says something along the lines of “these stupid f*cking machines!”I laugh and go “yeah I know right?!” As soon as I’m about done I say “hope you have a good rest of your day!” He says “thanks, you too”. I look at him… is this Michael Buble?! I say ” you know you look a lot like Michael Buble!” He says with a very cheeky grin on his face, “yeah you should hear me sing!” I met Micheal Buble in a Vancouver parking lot!
Ashley Tisdale. I was her waiter…a 36-year-old guy who was the furthest thing from her “target market”. I didn’t let on that I knew her cause I didn’t know who she was. Took care of her and her date the whole time. A couple of times when I was explaining the menu and asking if she’d been there before she had a smirk on her face. Looking back I guess she was probably thinking “I guess this guy doesn’t know who I am.” Later that night I was watching TV and there she was. I was like WTF?! I just waited on that girl tonight!? GF was like…yeah that’s Ashley Tisdale.
Used to work at a posh hotel and we had weddings there all the time. I was pretty young at the time, say 15.
David Tennant was at one wedding, Doctor f*cking Who and I was pouring him coffee.
At first, I sat there thinking is he/isn’t he so I was playing it cool. I went back to the kitchen to top up more coffee in my coffee jug and the staff were talking about it too before deciding it actually was David Tennant.
Spent the rest of the night playing it cool because I was in that yeah whatever stage of teenage life. Inside I was freaking out.
A couple of years ago I and my sister were at Comic-Con. You tend to see a lot of famous people there, but it’s usually with them in booths with guards and stuff (with the exception of Seth Green).
Anyway, me and my sister were at one of the booths waiting for their giveaways when a man suddenly came up beside me all excited and in a bit of wonder. He told us how great everything was there and how much of an experience it was for him there, all in a while I was probably looking at him strangely because of how familiar his accent and his voice and his face and his blond hair were. He asked where we got our poster tubes, and that’s probably when I remembered who he was but decided to just not mention it because I was kind of still in disbelief and pointed him to one of the far-off booths where they sell poster tubes.
The man was Owen Wilson. I hadn’t been sure it was him, because I always thought he’d be a lot taller. It was kind of warming to see how excited he was to be there in the crowds.
My cousin rode a ski lift with Jack Black in Vail. Just the two of them. Her husband and I were in the lift behind them, freaking out. When we got off the lift they’d gone their separate ways. We made our way to her she was like “wow, that guy on my lift was so nice.” We were like NO SH*T THAT WAS JACK BLACK. She was like “THE SCHOOL OF ROCK GUY?!?!”
She was so embarrassed. She said she rambled on about living in Iowa for most of their conversation. We laughed our asses off.
The Rock was at the Gold Coast, Australia to film San Andreas. He came into the place where I worked in Surfers Paradise with a woman and a young child. He was kind of in disguise, had his head covered and had something partially obscuring his chin.
I served them and didn’t recognize him at first. The woman handled the talking, and he just kind of hung back quietly. I looked at him once, and probably wouldn’t have given him a second thought, but his eyes widened for that split second (possibly he was wondering if I’d recognized him and was about to cause a scene, it was a packed centre) and it just clicked in my head to connect the eyes with the news of the Rock being in town.
Once I made the connection, it was totally obvious who he was, and since I was still looking at him, I could tell by now he knew he’d been spotted.
Then I just wished the group enjoy their day and half-smiled at him, and he gave me a nod, and they went about their business.
I didn’t tell anyone at work, because I didn’t want the dude to get swamped when he was trying to spend time with his family. I didn’t tell anyone I knew, because it’s really not that much of a story. In fact, this is the first I’ve ever shared this story with anyone.
My good pal of a dog, Huxley, and I were hiking in an off-leash area and he ran up to try to greet/slobber on the ladies ahead of us.
Turns out he was trying to slobber all over Kate Hudson and her friend. She was wearing a massive hat and oversized sunglasses so she definitely wanted privacy. I didn’t let on that I knew who she was. We dog mom talked for a bit and then parted ways as Hux wanted to prance ahead.
She was incredibly nice. I’ve met other members of her family on other occasions and they were all equally as kind.
Met Nikolaj Coster Waldau at a fitness center a couple of weeks ago. I am a huge GoT fan, but didn’t want to approach him as he was working out with a friend and seemed happy that nobody noticed him.
Also helped Nikolaj Lie Kaas find the right fit for his children’s Halloween outfits when I worked at a toysrus.
I did Freshman orientations during college, and one of my colleagues walked up to a lady bringing her son to campus. He said, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Diana Ross?”
She smiled and said, “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
A few minutes later, our boss came around to warn us that Diana Ross was bringing her son for his Freshman orientation and our orders were to treat her like everyone else, not acknowledge her fame, and basically let her have a normal day with her son, not altered by her celebrity. We all broke down in peels of laughter as my colleague turned redder than a Soviet beet farm.
I worked in a pub in Toronto, ON. It was the end of my shift and I noticed the owner was creepin’ on a customer, as he usually does. Then I noticed the customer was Rachel McAdams, she’s been known to go to pubs in the area according to my coworker. I joined the conversation and had a blast actively c*ck blocking my boss. “How are the kids, Tom?” “Did you do anything with your wife on the long weekend?” Rachel knew what was up, but I don’t think she knew I recognized her. We left her alone after that to enjoy her drink.
My brother and I saw Shaq at an airport. He was obviously trying to hide who he was by wearing his hood over his face and trying to cover his face. Not sure how he thought he could considering how huge he is… but anyway, we looked up at him, saw it was Shaq, and we got all wide-eyed. Before we could say anything, though, he put his finger over his mouth to “shhh” us and smiled. We laughed and went along our way. Was a pretty cool experience because we are both huge basketball fans.
I was out for drinks at a bar with friends from school on a Tuesday night. We had all been at this mining conference networking night where there was free beer, so naturally, we were all pretty drunk by the time we got there.
I was standing with a friend, looked over at the bar and there was Cole Sprouse. I leaned over to my friend and said “there’s Jughead”. The next thing I remember, I’m standing next to him, striking up a conversation about something (I have a very fuzzy memory from that night). We just chit-chatted about things like his degree and why we were all partying on a Tuesday and did some shots, meanwhile, my friends kept coming up to him and talking about Riverdale and stuff. I played dumb the whole time and said I didn’t know who he was. It wasn’t until I made a little comment that let on that I knew who he was and he was out of there without a word.
I met Bill Clinton. I was working at a cafe and Bill, along with his secret service entourage, came in. He talked to me and my coworkers for a few minutes and even took a picture with us. A coworker asked if he still plays the sax. He replied, “Oh, I get around to it from time to time.” He was very nice and super chill.
Nothing major, but cracked me up in hindsight. Maybe six years ago?
I was working at a regional chain record store in a big mall in Providence, Rhode Island. You deal with hundreds of customers a day, and PVD is a fairly eclectic city because all the schools in the area draw a fair amount of international students.
Well, one day a particularly stunning brunette girl was browsing through the racks of CDs, so with the energy, I always afforded pretty ladies, I decided to pull my ace in the hole: “Can I help you find something today?” She responded with what I would actually call a heart-melting grin and said, “Yes, can you point me toward MIA?” in a totally unexpected British accent.
I guided her over, left her to look around for a while, and then shared a minute or so of chitchat as she checked out. My coworker was absolutely floored that I had shot the sh*t so casually with Emma Watson.
David Bowie bought me an egg salad sandwich at the Iceland Airport in the late 90s.
I was 10, flying with my dad to Finland from Canada. I literally didn’t know who David Bowie was. There was an electrical storm that grounded all flights, it was actually a ghost town because of the time of day and my dad starts freaking out, pointing at this guy with orange hair. My dad made me go over to get his autograph. David could tell I had no clue who he was and asked who the autograph was for and I said my dad (sorry dad). After waving my father over, he asked simply, roast beef or egg salad? These happened to be the only kinds of premade sandwiches left, David BOWIE bought my father and me (and his entourage of about 8) sandwiches, and we sat cross-legged on the floor and talked about my trip… Still to this day, my dad talks about how mind-bending that was. David Bowie was extremely kind, showed interest in our lives and spent almost an hour talking to a random Canadian 10-year-old while the kid’s dad semi-tripped out. Later in life, I was drawn to and began appreciating the music. Guy was a legend and that experience truly instilled the fact that nothing is below me, ever. And that egg salad sandwiches are a great sandwich. And that David Bowie was the man.
46. Sensing like a Member of Steven Tyler’s Family
This one time I was out to dinner with my family (I was maybe 10 years old) and before the check came my sisters decided to go wait in the car. After a minute or so I get up from the table and say “I’m gonna go with them!” and end up kinda tagging along with this other family that was walking out. Not joining them, just happened to be leaving at the same time.
Well, it turns out that the family was Steven Tyler’s family. Apparently, he turned, looked at my mom and dad, pointed to himself and mouthed “with me?!” with a little smile.
47. The Origin of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Hideous Face
I grew up in the same town where Arnold Schwarzenegger lived while he was governor. He would frequently be spotted biking in the community but most people were respectful of his privacy so most of the time so he didn’t bother wearing a disguise. Well, one day, for a school project, I had to film a post-apocalyptic zombie short film. I was on the beach with my friends in full-on apocalypse makeup. Fake blood and scars and all that. At the end of our shoot, I was waiting in the parking lot for my dad to come to pick me up when I see three big burly guys biking towards me. As they got closed I realized the guy the in center was Schwarzenegger. Not wanting to bother him I looked away, completely forgetting about my horrific-looking face. The dude almost crashed his bike into his bodyguards staring at me. So I can officially say I almost terminated the Terminator.
So my middle school principal was Michael Phelps’ mom. Every now and then she would let the students know her son was visiting. I knew about Michael Phelps just didn’t know what he looked like at the time.
So one day I was late and running to class when this tall lanky dude asked me where’s the library. He was dressed really nicely and sharply so I’m thinking he’s a substitute teacher or something. I had a hard time giving directions back then so I said I’d walk him there. He gets there and outside the library was my principal. She walks up and gives him a hug before holding open the door for him. He goes in and my principal thanks me for helping him.
I didn’t understand why she was thanking me, I just thought I was helping a lost teacher.
My mom moved to New York City 2 years ago and was at a coffee shop reading a book. The place got crowded and a woman came up to her and asked if she could sit there since everywhere else was taken. They had a conversation about the book my mom was reading and other books they liked. My mom asked her what she did (for a living/job) and she laughed and said “you don’t watch much TV do you?” And my mom was like “I don’t know, I mostly read books, are you on TV?”
It was Blake Lively, my mom had a half-hour coffee with Blake Lively. Mom didn’t even tell me about it for a year, but it made sense that she was suddenly into Gossip Girl for seemingly no reason.
Met Jason Statham in NYC one time. He was having a cigarette in an alley near Silvercup Studios in Queens. He must’ve seen my eyes widen involuntarily or something cause he kinda turned away and muttered “aw f*ck” under his breath so I just said “sup” as I walked past and carried on. I totally understand not being in the mood to talk to anyone… I bet actors don’t get afforded that dignity often so I just called that my way of saying “I’m a huge fan and dig your stuff” in a way that respected his privacy and right to have a d*mn smoke break-in peace.
