For me it was Jeff Kinney. I was meeting a different author I love, but there wasn’t enough room downstairs and we had to go up. Turns out that’s exactly where Jeff Kinney works! He’s the author who got me into reading so I thought that was so cool
You must log in or register to comment.
Met Arthur C. Clarke in 1997 in his house near Colombo, Sri Lanka… A friend of my dad had organised the meeting…when we arrived Mr Clarke was sitting in his office watching one of the first Mars rover landings live on CNN…a moment and coincidence which i was only able to understand many years later…
I lived and worked in New York and met a ton of celebrities/big names there. James Gandolfini was really nice. Bjork was not particularly nice. Tori Amos is one of the sweetest, most open and genuine people I’ve ever met. Ethan Hawke was a gross dick. Rik Okasek smells bad but is nice. I got shitcanned with Claude Coleman, my favorite drummer. My favorite celeb I have ever met though is Joan Jett, who I have met many times and is absolutely the best. It was super funny the one time I was just hanging out randomly on the street with a group of friends and this short little muscular blond lady rushed up to me, gave me a hard hug, and rushed away and I got to be like, “Oh, that was just Joan Jett” to my friends.
My wife confirms the “gross dick” status for Ethan Hawke. She was working as a bartender back in college and he sat at the bad one night. He kept creepily propositioning her.
At the time I used to see him regularly he wore the same pair of disgusting filthy grey sweatpants every day and was rude and condescending as all hell. Pretty sure he was probably going through a rough period in life but that doesn’t give anyone a pass to be an asshole.
Wow, that’s an impressive list! Did you meet them through work? What sort of work do you do?
Believe it or not, most of the big actors and stuff I met while I was working at various big retailers in Union Square, like Circuit City (rip), Barnes and Noble, and the Virgin mega store. There are absolutely a ton more that I did not list and probably more that I have forgotten lmao. Taye Diggs (very nice, seemed shy), James Iha (super friendly and excited to meet fans), Natasha Lyonne (messy drunk), David Sedaris (nice, smells good), Elaine Aberlin (Lady Elaine from Mr. Rogers, over the moon to meet someone who recognized her as an adult, gave me lots of hugs, hard to end the conversation with haha), lots more.
I’ve always been low key and friendly when interacting with celebs, especially when seeing them while they’re just going about their business. I don’t think they’re more valuable or interesting than other people and I think most of the time that is a welcome break.
I’ve also gone to tons and tons and tons of concerts throughout my life, many while volunteering or doing activism work, and I have met a kajillion bands and performers like that. Lots of people who started out small and later made it big.
I actually met Joan Jett at a county fair, and when I saw her play again a couple months later she recognized me (and then I saw her play again like 12+ times and eventually started just bumping into her because apparently we have similar interests and hung out in similar places lol). I highly recommend going to see her at every and any opportunity. She puts on an incredible live show that feels like a party and is a super sweet and wholesome person.
That’s really cool, thanks for sharing your stories!
Isaac Asimov, who called me a few times. Very kind and patient man.
Multiple times?? That’s impressive. You two must have had a good . . . Foundation
I’ll see myself out
… but what did he call you about? I need to know more!
Dolly Parton at the Nashville rotating restaurant (on top of the Sheraton in the 90s). I was having dinner with a friend and just getting to know her better. She was explaining to me how she always runs into celebrities. She carried around an autograph book everywhere she went. We go to leave and Dolly is coming in. My friend gets another autograph. Dolly was very sweet and very short.
Edit: remove extra words
I’ve heard she’s a good and decent human being.
I am so jealous. If I could meet one person in the world it would be Dolly. She is my absolute hero. I don’t even think I’d be able to speak, I would just start crying.
Kurt Vonnegut. Met him at a Brooklyn farmers market, sitting on a bench. He seemed lonely and talked to me for so long I had to excuse myself.
Thats an awesome one! Seems like the kind of guy to have a conversation in a farmers market.
I had already clicked out of this thread when I spied your comment and came back in! Your experience is a lifetime dream of mine. Poo-tee-weet?
I think the only famous person that I have met in real life and took picture with was a gay/straight/bisexual? (Im not even sure) man porn star, it was actually funny because I didn’t know who he was, but I saw a couple of people asking for a picture, so I was like, ok let’s just take a picture with him. Then I proceeded to upload it to my social media with a text like “cant believe I got to talk with him today!!!”
Years later, I was fapping away and watched a video of him, and I was like, wait he looks familiar, and then it hit me.
Alan Rickman - lovely guy but didn’t take shit from anyone.
Karl Urban - didn’t really speak to him, but his PA was very rude.
Kate Mulgrew - amazing lady, very funny and also absolutely lovely.
You met Janeway? Was it at a con? I’m legit jealous as I would love to meet her and Jeri Ryan.
Bill Nye (the Science Guy). Total jerk, unfortunately.
Nei Degrasse Tyson on the other hand is the nicest guy. Used to live near him and had a few short conversations. Always made time for people and is a genuinely cool dude.
He really is.
Shame he ends up being the- “well achsssually” guy in online Twitter interactions. Sort of blunts the humble effect.
He strikes me as a highschool teacher that’s really out of touch and can’t turn off their job.
Weird Al. He’s a nice and personable fellow.
That’s who I’d like to meet. Not really a big star person but I’d really like to meet weird al.
Have you seen his new movie? It’s amazing 😆
It was fantastic. “can’t you please stop being yourself and doing what you love” 🤣🤣🤣
Penn & Teller. Really nice guys. Penn is ridiculously tall, and having a conversation with Teller is one of the most surreal experiences I’ve had.
I’ve also met tons of metal bands, too many to list. I’ll say the chillest/coolest I hung out with were The Black Dahlia Murder or GWAR.
They always spend like an hour in the hallways outside the Penn and Teller Theater after shows meeting fans. The people who crowd around Teller are often magicians because he is notoriously generous when it comes to helping other magicians. They both are really, but I think a majority of successful magicians in the US have a trick in their repertoire that Teller helped out with in some way or another.
I just love that, after being silent all show, he comes out and talks enthusiastically with fans and colleagues.
Neil Armstrong. Got to shake his hand at a symposium where he gave a talk.
I’m some form of science hermit, so I measure these things by degrees of separation. So I meet people by proxy. Some long after they are deceased, I suppose.
I have two degrees of separation from Paul Erdos (and of course his mother), several prime ministers of Vietnam, Kevin Mitnick, and Keanu Reeves. Three from John Von Newmann and most world leaders.
I also probably have an Erdos-Bacon number. It would be quite large though.
Well, I’ve met Kevin Bacon so now you’re a 2.
Funny story really, I live in West LA… I was watching my kids play in the park and saw a familiar-looking dad watching his, so I wandered up and said, “I feel like I know you but I can’t remember from where, do your kids go to (local school) or (local play gym) or (local swim classes)?” And he said" … Umm, I’m Kevin Bacon." So I said, “Oh I’m sorry, of course you are!” and let him alone to enjoy being a dad.
Haha nice! These things have a funny way of happening.
I met a colleague of Paul Erdos by walking up to a complete stranger on a train and simply asking if they were a mathematician and if they knew Paul Erdos. He turned out to have a lot of lovely anecdotes to share.
I’m not sure what possessed me to specifically do that, but I probably won’t do it a second time and risk losing the 100% hit rate for colleague-of-Paul-Erdos divination.
I’ve shaken Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hand back when he was running for governor of California.
It was surreal as fuck because I only ever knew him from movies, when I was a kid, so I was shocked that he didn’t tower over me. I was actually a bit taller than him.
No idea. Picture it: Late summer, 1998.
I was working on the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World, and had a VIP group get on my boat with one instruction: no Brazilian guests could share the boat. Nice enough dude, built, good lookin’ dude.
As we moved down the dock to load the rest of the guests, a Brazilian tour group saw who was there and COMPLETELY LOST THEIR MINDS. Americans, including me, had no idea who it was.
Went through the ride, they got off the boat, left via the back way.
This was similar to an experience I had years ago.
Was at a summer class at a school in NYC, and one of my classmates was a lovable idiot with a British accent who was very down to earth and nice despite often saying incredibly dumb things.
One day we’re out in one of the parks for a project, and a group of middle school girls wearing uniforms lose their fucking minds.
Apparently they were foreign students from the UK, and it turns out my classmate was one of the members of a huge boy band extremely popular in the UK, but not very popular or well known here.
Weird how relative fame is.
(For example, I have several answers to the OP question ranging from dinner, birthdays, or going to private clubs with different very famous musical artists, but my personal fan experience was meeting Todd Howard at E3.)
I met all of you cool guys here. Witness me!
