Monday, September 11, 2006
Don't forget your milk crate
I'm not a stalker honestly but if I know of a time and a place where some A-list celebrities will be then you can bet that I'll be there too. We are in Toronto this week staying with our friend Angela who we met on that memorable 27 hour train ride to Hong Kong all those months ago. Unbeknown to us our trip coincided perfectly with the start of this year's Toronto Film Festival. We had spent a few days in the city sightseeing but at the same time secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of a film star running into Starbucks or other such glamorous locations. When I heard that the film 'All The King's Men' was to be premiered on Sunday night we decided (or I did and Rhod got dragged along too) to join the masses and loiter with intent outside the theatre where it was showing. When you read the cast list you'll realise why I chose that film: Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn and Kate Winslett among others.
It's a strange crowd that attend film premiers; some slightly suspect types with overly large cameras, others who say nothing but just stare at the red carpet even hours before the stars are due and others who talk/boast loudly to no one in particular about films they have seen recently. But all of them I'm pretty sure only drag themselves away from the DVD player and emerge from their rooms for these 2 weeks of the year to hunt down celebrities. I must be careful how much I say here as I realise that for those few hours Rhod and I became one of these freaks too!
On arrival we realised that we were missing one vital piece of equipment...a milk crate. Not for use by people at the back to see over others' heads, oh no. People as far forward as the second row were standing on milk crates just to get that perfect shot and some told us that they had been there since 7 in the morning. (The premier wasn't until 9:30 at night!) Whatever happened to the manners you learn when you're young about letting shorter people to the front or shifting up so everyone gets a chance to see? One of the milk crate hoarders, who I'm convinced was about 6 ft anyway, actually turned to a girl behind him and said, "I'm going to be up here all night so you're not going to see a thing!" Charming.
Anyway, when the stars started arriving it was each to their own as a frenzy ensued. It was a case of elbows in ribcages, people standing on each others' feet and cameras in the sides of people's heads as they were held aloft and snapped continuously. I even found myself joining in with a chorus of "We want Kate!" but then stopped when I saw Rhod's disapproving and slightly terrified look. As you can see from the pictures, it was the Brits who came up trumps and mixed with the plebs to sign autographs and pose for photos. We arrived so early that we even caught the stars going in to the earlier 6:30 film; Samuel L Jackson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Eugene Levy
So call me a stalker if you wish but I bet there are some of you just a little bit jealous that we were that close to the likes of Jude Law and Kate Winslett that, should we have wished, we could have reached over and ruffled their immaculately coiffed hairstyles!
