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.
Wow, that’s an impressive list! Did you meet them through work? What sort of work do you do?
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.
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.
Dizzy Gillespie. Way back in high school our school jazz band opened for Dizzy at a festival/contest. I was heading to the rehearsal room and saw our director chatting with him, and the director waved me over and introduced me. He said “Hey man, it’s cool to meet you” and shook my hand.
I died.
James Earl Jones. He was doing a book signing in his small hometown, not far from me, when his autobiography was published. As it was such a small shop he spent time talking with everyone who came by. Hearing Darth Vader’s voice coming from such a humble and relatively soft-spoken man was an amazing experience.
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.
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.
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
Neil Armstrong. Got to shake his hand at a symposium where he gave a talk.
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.
I met all of you cool guys here. Witness me!
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.
Pope John Paul II.
I was working catering in the Vatican for some conference, and they kind of forced me to go to the audience with the Pope. Sort of shook his hand, but he was already late into Parkinson's.
So what you're saying is his hand was shaking without your involvement?
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.
The best I can say is that I was MSN Instant Messenger buddies with someone who now has 2.4 million Twitch followers, before they started streaming.
Which is to say, I've never met a famous person.
Worked for the animation studio that did Clone Wars (TV series ) long time ago , met George Lucas there once. Super nice guy.
No body knows him but I yesterday I went to the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist where do I get a ticket for the line. Some old guy behind me said its over there, I said thanks and went to get it. When I got back, I saw that the person who answered me was a very famous guy in my country, who hosted talk shows and have multiple gold record from the eighties and now run commercials.
That was wild to me lol
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.
When I was a little nipper, Mother Theresa patted me on the head and said I was a very handsome young man
She was just saying that, obviously
I met Quinton Tarantino. Even did a movie with him. Really likes giving pedicures.
But now I just see him out of the corner of my eyes everywhere I go now. It's weird.
The only celebrities that I met and had a moment to converse with were Nathan Fillion and Jon Huertas.
My wife and I met them at a release event for a small electric car company in 2011 or 2012. I had just gotten a copy of "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along blog: The Book" and it was the first time he had seen it. So basically we flipped through the book together and Nathan pointed out things in pictures and talk about who made them or what they were made of.
Jim Lahey, Trailer Park Supervisor at the best f'n trailer park in the world.
John Dunsworth was a beautiful human. May he rest in peace. ❤️
DMX. I was working at a cell phone store in Western New York in 2016 and he had just gotten out of prison and wanted to get a new phone for his daughter. He had quite the eccentric entourage with him! He was actually quite nice and took pictures with everyone in the store and had some convos with people. I have a picture with him where I look like an idiot lol.
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.
I've met a few:
Richard E Grant - lovely
Ray Harryhausen - I was a bit awestruck
Salman Rushdie - scary levels of security
Wilfred Thesiger - weird experience as it felt like meeting someone from another age
I've seen a lot (doing high-end retail in LA) who have all been pleasant and polite with me but I'd have to say my favorite is Julie Andrews because I've also interacted with people who work for her and they genuinely love her warmth and kindness.
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.
I met Prime Minister of Economics and Innovation of Lithuania, Aušrinė Armonaitė, back in the days she was just a politician. She tries to be very tactical and friendly person (as most politicians do). Nevertheless, she is one of the most hated politicians right now, probably.
I met Chris Hadfield briefly when I was a kid. That was pretty neat. He was doing a book signing for a relatively small room of people
Chris Hemsworth. He was on holiday and very quiet, keeping to himself. I was staff aiding with his transport.
Harry Anderson came to my local library when I was a teenager to present to the Society of Young Magicians. Dude was awesome. Glad to teach. Funny.
Probably António Raminhos. He's a Portuguese comedian, ran into him at a hotel.
John Waters. I met him at an exploitation movie convention and he was everything I hoped he would be
Years ago I went to the Philly ComicCon with some friends. On the first day we're walking in and I see this huge shadow come up behind me and then over top of me and then I see the tallest person I've ever seen walking directly in front of me. Turns out it was Peter Mayhew. He literally walked over my small 5'0" self. It was surreal.
Terry Pratchett. It was at a book signing. He stayed very late, until every last person got their book signed. Generous and warm with everyone in line.
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