When celebrities geek out over celebrities
Mark Hamill, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker, may have more experience meeting diehard fanboys than just about anyone.
But despite encountering thousands of fans and receiving even more letters throughout his career, the “Star Wars” star has always been gracious to fans, willing to sign autographs, pose for pictures and reply to tweets.
Maybe that’s because Hamill knows what it’s like to be starstruck. The 10-year-old who would become one of cinema’s greatest sci-fi heroes was stunned to meet comedy icon Groucho Marx.
As Hamill tells it, he shakily asked Marx for an autograph. Here’s what the comedian said:
“Oh, you don’t have my autograph? That’s one strike against you. What’s your name? You do have a name, don’t you?”
Hamill couldn’t get the words out. “Oh, no name and no autograph? That’s two strikes against you.” Hamill finally introduced himself. “Mark Camel? I don’t see a hump. Don’t worry, you’ll have one by the time you’re my age.”
Hamill was stunned. “The witticisms! I was choked up,” he told USA TODAY. “(Celebrities) seemed so far away and unreal.”
We asked a few other stars if they’d ever run into an idol or written fan mail. Here’s what they said:
Laura Dern (actress in “Big Little Lies”): “My first fan letter was to Jimmy Carter. I thanked him for protecting the ocean, because he was a great — and continues to be a great — environmentalist.”
Doug Jones (the amphibian man in “The Shape of Water”): “I wrote to Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett back in my early years. (The letters said) ‘I worship you. I adore you. I want to learn from your comedic timing. I want to know you.’ ”
Sean Baker (writer/director of “The Florida Project”): “Before the Internet, you would have to do it through publications, like film magazines. I remember, I wrote Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell, (who wrote and directed, respectively), the movie ‘The Blob’ in 1988. I wrote a little thing about it, and said how much I like it. And (they) sent me a signed script of ‘The Blob,’ and I still have it to this day. I was 17. It’s in my parents’ attic, safely secure.”
Baker said he still geeks out when he runs into people he admires. When his agent arranged for him to meet filmmaker and University of Wisconsin-Madison alum Michael Mann, to talk about possibly working together, “I’m just waiting for the end of the meeting where I can whip out my ‘Heat’ Blu-ray and have him sign it,” Baker recalled. “It’s terrible; it’s so unprofessional.”