It’s probably safe to say that enough students at UCLA
have had or will at some point have some kind of personal encounter
with a movie star.
Whether you went to the “Saved!” screening Tuesday
featuring Mandy Moore or saw Julie Andrews and Diane Keaton at the
same restaurant, there are simply too many famous people living in
the L.A. area to go a full four years at school and not see any.
But the question right after “Who did you see?” is
“What did you say?”
We put a strange sort of pressure on ourselves to take advantage
of such opportunities by talking to the people we encounter and
saying something interesting. But what do you say to Julie Andrews?
I wasn’t about to walk up to her and say, “You’re
Mary Poppins,” in a cockney accent that really sounded more
Australian.
I wasn’t about to say anything to her, as she was eating
dinner. But if you’re in a situation in which it’s
appropriate to talk to someone, the answer to the question
“What did you say?” should be a question. Not only does
asking a good question show the person you’re talking to that
you’re not just some crazed fan hoping for an autograph, but
it gets the person talking so you don’t have to.
But there’s nothing more nerve-racking than asking a
question. What if it’s a bad question? What if the person
doesn’t want to talk about it? What if the person asks you a
question back and you don’t know the answer?
Last Monday night, the class of an English seminar I’m
taking had the chance to interview Al Pacino, who would rank highly
on anyone’s list of celebrity encounters. A few days before
the interview, a friend from the class said she was feeling nervous
about meeting Pacino. I told her the following story, which I tell
anyone nervous about meeting someone famous:
Around the time “House of Sand and Fog” came out, I
did a group interview with Ben Kingsley about the film. I had never
met a movie star before, and I was nervous. This was as close as I
was ever going to get to interviewing Gandhi.
I went to the hotel where the interview was to take place, and
as I was led into the room to wait for him, his publicist said to
me, “He goes by “˜Sir Ben.’ If you don’t
call him “˜Sir,’ he may not answer your
questions.” If I was nervous before, I was petrified after
that.
I waited for a few minutes until I heard the door open and he
walked in, so I was in the same room as (Sir) Ben Kingsley. He was
wearing nice, charcoal-gray wool slacks, shiny black loafers and a
black cashmere sweater. His head was shaved, as it always is, and
his deep brown eyes shone brighter than anyone else’s
I’ve ever seen in my life. He sat down in the chair next to
me, picked up a cup of tea (on a saucer, of course), took a sip,
looked at me, and said “Let’s begin.”
I can’t think of a more intimidating way to start your
first conversation with a bona fide movie star. And with everything
I had to think about, the hardest part of the entire ordeal was
looking down at my notes, and asking the first question. After
that, we were just talking.
So what’s the moral of the story? Ask questions.
Granted, I was with Kingsley and Pacino to interview them, but
the idea can be applied to any situation. Questions start
conversations and humanize the person you’re talking to.
When it comes right down to it, movie stars are people too,
despite having their faces plastered on screens bigger than life
itself. And if you ask a good question, more often than not,
you’re going to get a good answer. After the
conversation’s over, you’ll come away with a better
story than you would if you told Pacino how much you love his
work.
Tracer wishes he had asked Julie Andrews why she
wasn’t in the film version of “Camelot” after she
had done the play on Broadway. Ask him anything at
jtracer@media.ucla.edu.