Most Famous Person You’ve Actually Seen/Met in the Flesh

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Plenty of people at conventions, but if we're talking pure happenstance I saw Jon Favreau at the Ghibli Museum in Japan, around late July 2016. He was there with his family and I have no real interest in Marvel movies so I didn't approach him, kinda cool to see a legit huge director/creator in a place like that though.
 
I had some friends make a pilgrimage to L.A. once upon a time, and they stopped into the Rainbow Bar & Gtill. Spent the night drinking with Lemmy.

My Chappelle encounter was at a hotel desk. Same hotel, I crossed paths with les Claypool, Dave Mustaine, and Brian Wilson. Chappelle was the only conversation though. It was highly memorable, but difficult to recount with a language filter in the way. 😋
 
Toronto, Canada. During film festival season they’re all over the place and easy to run into if you know where to hang out, but I don’t try. My encounters were all random, at odd afternoon hours in generally open public spaces. Celebs like to walk around Toronto because we're polite here tend not to bother them.

My list spans over 30 years of celebrity brushes. Working off memory and I’m sure I missed a few, like Mike Myers who I passed twice first in 1989 when he wasn’t famous and just started on SNL and then another time in 2007 when he was too famous for words... but I still stopped him to say hello. Well, he’s a Toronto boy so you kind of expect to run into him at least once.

The encounters I listed are specifically the most casual and unexpected, where no effort was made to run into them, on average days and on pedestrian streets or in stores or restaurants where you wouldn’t expect to run into a famous person. That’s why I didn’t list conventions, signings or other formal events where celebs would be expected. If I counted those my list would have exploded to triple the size.

How about that time when I was the only customer in the basement of HMV shopping for CDs when Shirley Manson (of Garbage) walked in and started thumbing through the racks. She was right next to me. I couldn’t get over how tall and stunning she was.
Nice one!
 
I had some friends make a pilgrimage to L.A. once upon a time, and they stopped into the Rainbow Bar & Gtill. Spent the night drinking with Lemmy.

My Chappelle encounter was at a hotel desk. Same hotel, I crossed paths with les Claypool, Dave Mustaine, and Brian Wilson. Chappelle was the only conversation though. It was highly memorable, but difficult to recount with a language filter in the way. 😋
Lemmy, what a legend!
 
I can’t decide who my favorite meet is. Got my photo taken with Nathan Fillion, he was funny of course, got Robert Picardo’s autograph on a Star Trek VHS, yes I’m very old and he was very funny as well. I also got Joss Whedon to sign my Buffy book before I realised what a tosser he was. I’m sure there are a few others, those are the ones I remember. Fillion may be tops, simply because we had more time than usual at the con and I was on crutches so we had a good laugh about that.
 
I met Peter Cullen (voice of Optimus Prime at Fan Expo in Philly back in June. He is the nicest guy, and he cares deeply for his fans!!
 

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In terms of "seen," it's probably Elton John. I guess music concerts aren't the intention here, but. . .

In terms of meeting people, no real celebrities come to mind. I've walked by people here and there (was near Gabriel Byrne at a beignet restaurant once, seen others walking the streets in New Orleans) but always let them be, figuring they wouldn't want to be bothered. I've met several local politicians and legends in professional and academic circles but no one here would have any idea who these people are.
 
I don't know who's the most famous but it was an Aliens con reunion:-
Michael Biehn
Ricco Ross
Lance Henrikson
Jennette Goldstein
Carrie Henn
Daniel Kash
Cynthia Dale Scott

Also
Wayne Knight - Nedry, Jurassic Park
Maryam D'Abo - Bond girl in Living Daylights
Keith David

I think my dad may have stolen the Maryam D'Abo autograph many years ago
 
Way back in 2009 I saw Verne Troyer (Mini Me) in the MGM Grand Hotel lobby in Vegas. Two days after that William Shatner in the same lobby.

I saw Patrick Stewart this past December in Toronto during his book tour. The bugger didn’t do any book signings or pictures, his schedule was “too tight”.

IMG_0868.jpeg
 
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I have met a lot of celebrities at local comic cons, Jeff Goldblum, the guys who worked on super troopers, Rick Moranis, The entire cast of the craft, including Neve, met a stuntman for the Scream movies, I’ve talked to Arnold S., billy Dee Williams, Peter Mayhew(RIP), I saw David Prowse at a distance but he was having problems and they had to wheel him out. Billy Zane, a lot of power rangers from the OG to some newer ones. I did manage to get Michael Madsen and Ian Mcdarmid to sign me some stuff before.

I fly in to LAX frequently and you always catch them in the wild just chilling. Picking up my bags at terminal 3, I ran into ice cube with his posse. Recently I saw Jason Momoa walking out of the Delta Lounge with his girlfriend Eiza. I got a quick conversation right before his bodyguards told me to back off lol.

The most recent one was last month, I was doing the WB studio tour in Hollywood and while talking to the tour guide, they asked us what movies we are interested for the tour, and my daughter said Barbie. The tour guide mentioned that Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were doing a private screening for award audiences right now, like the golden globes and Oscar’s inside the WB theater. We just saw them outside after the screening was done, but we couldn’t take pictures lol, my daughter was extremely happy though. The funny thing is that my guard is down when I’m in public, so it takes a while for me to register who I saw, but I saw Justin Theroux doing the VIP tour with a couple of his friends at Disney california adventure, they used the fast pass lane and were up front by like three people when they cut the line.

The longest conversation I’ve had with a celebrity unfiltered, was Anthony Michael Hall at a local movie theater promoting a screening for some of his older movies. I didn’t know he was Godfather to RDJ’s son Indio and gets to hang out with them frequently in the Hamptons but he said he was happy for him and was talking about the millions he raked in from the MCU. He told me some stories about how they became good friends after Weird Science, I could go on, but we talked about Sixteen Candles, Lampoon, all the way to the dead zone and the dark knight. Part of the screening ended up being a Skype conversation with AMH and RDJ about their careers and a fantastic Q&A session afterwards.

I wish I could meet mark hamill but his con prices are insane and with good reason. RDJ needs to go on a book Tour so he can sign my copy of Cool Foods (getting it delivered tomorrow 1/23) and I would totally sneak in an iron man figure.

I haven’t met a celebrity who’s been rude to me, yet, aside from body guards, but they just do their jobs and I back off.
 
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Muhammad Ali in Beverly Hills
Robert De Niro in West Hollywood
Woody Allen on Sunset Blvd.
John Belushi in an elevator on the Sunset Strip
Chita Rivera at the Music Center, Los Angeles
George Kennedy filming the TV series Sarge at a Catholic school
Keanu Reeves at a coffee shop in Montebello CA
Michael Jackson at my nephew's day care center. :ROFLMAO: Not really. Sorry Michael.
 
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In terms of "seen," it's probably Elton John. I guess music concerts aren't the intention here, but. . .

In terms of meeting people, no real celebrities come to mind. I've walked by people here and there (was near Gabriel Byrne at a beignet restaurant once, seen others walking the streets in New Orleans) but always let them be, figuring they wouldn't want to be bothered. I've met several local politicians and legends in professional and academic circles but no one here would have any idea who these people are.
Did you ever meet Bobby "The Brain Heenan" ?
 
Did you ever meet Bobby "The Brain Heenan" ?
If only! I did have 3rd row-ish tickets to the 2001 Royal Rumble. Probably the closest I've been to seeing high profile rasslers in the flesh (minus some bingo halls where I saw guys like Cactus Jack and "The American Dragon" [masked] before they hit it big).

I never cared about conventions and meet-and-greets. In fact, I don't care much about meeting celebrities in general. I appreciate their talent in providing entertainment, but it doesn't need to go any further than that.
 
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