IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALIST
Editor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on film journalism.
Our Jamie on the agony and ecstacy of seeing famous film folk in real life.
As a film journalist, part of the job is meeting famous people – actors you’ve grown up watching on screen, directors whose visions have enthralled you.
But these meets are modulated and monitored, be it 30 minutes in a swish hotel room with the PR hovering outside the door, or 15 minutes between setups on a teeming movie set. Even when the shackles are off – I went for a curry with Jessie Buckley at her local Indian restaurant, and visited Paddy Considine at his London pad – you still know the deal, turning up in presentable apparel and putting your best foot forward.
But occasionally the humble film journalist finds themselves face-to-face with an icon when they least expect it, and these chance meetings are kind of thrilling because no one is wearing their game face. It’s just two human beings interacting, one trying hard to behave like Joe Public, the other trying even harder not to scream, “OMFG!”
MIKE, MICHAEL & KATE
When I first moved to London in 1996, I found myself sitting opposite Mike Leigh on the Tube. I hid my excitement poorly, my continual ‘sly’ glances met with baleful glares. Finally I bent forward to say hello, but his flashing eyes said it all: Don’t you dare!
Eighteen months later, I was living in Oval in south London, home to one rough pub that was always heaving and a swanky new wine bar that was always empty. One night, my girlfriend and I were having a drink in the bar when a female voice said, apologetically, “Excuse me, I’ve reserved this table. I’m so sorry, but would you mind moving? It’s the only one big enough.” We looked up and there stood Kate Winslet, who, it transpired, had hired said table to celebrate her Oscar nomination for Titanic with her closest girlfriends. Before that, the most famous person I’d ever shared a room with was some bloke who played a couple of games for Bristol Rovers; I was a West Country bumpkin and my brain could not compute that Kate Winslet had spoken to me.
Likewise, my 14-year-old, Terminator-obsessed self would’ve exploded if he’d been told he’d one day go clubbing in Prague with the special-effects guys from the film set he was on, only for one of them to say, “We just have to pick up a friend.” The car stopped and in got Michael Biehn, who was filming another movie in Prague at that point. “Hi, I’m Michael,” he said, squishing next to me in the backseat.
STAR GAZING
But as far as unassuming greetings go, my favourite was when I was interviewing Gary Oldman over lunch in an LA hotel, and Richard Dreyfuss ambled by. He stopped to chat to Oldman, an old pal, then warmly shook my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Rick.” I of course acted like it was the most natural thing in the world and like he was just any old Rick off the street, not the lead of my two favourite Steven Spielberg films (no, not Always).
By this point, I’d interviewed enough stars (and bumped into enough, including Arnold Schwarzenegger twice, once at a breakfast buffet and once in a lift) that I could hide my surprise and glee. But my socks were well and truly blown off when I was staying at another hotel in LA and went to its restaurant to spend my per diem. As I walked in, wearing shorts and t-shirt, Sean Penn breezed past me on his way out, and I was then seated at the next table to Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens. I tried to be cool, I really did, but Warren locked eyes with me a couple of times and all four stared in my direction when I dropped my wineglass and it shattered on the floor.
Jamie will return next issue… For more misadventures, follow: @jamie_graham9 on Twitter.
‘THERE STOOD KATE WINSLET, WHO HAD HIRED SAID TABLE TO CELEBRATE HER OSCAR NOM’