Big Smile No Teeth

Before the final day of Screen Singapore, I was having a talk with one of my directors about how meeting celebs wasn’t a big deal for me.  I’d never been into hero worship, and though I love film, I wasn’t interested in movie stars’ personally.  I concluded that meeting Tom Hanks, one of the biggest film stars of all time, wouldn’t be a big deal for me.

I was wrong.

The photo above is me interviewing him on the red carpet, which isn’t so bad.  What I don’t have photos of is the one on one interview I did with him that morning.  I only had ten minutes to speak with him but even moments before the interview, I was calm and trolling the hall for free coffee.  No probs.  I’d already seen Mr. Hanks in person at the press conference and was confident that meeting him would be cake.

It wasn’t until I got called in the room, walked past brightly lit scrims, and saw him standing there that I became a blushing school girl. 

“Jason, meet Tom Hanks,” his producer said.

Tom turned around offered me his hand, which I took—mostly out of classical conditioning—and introduced myself, except I didn’t introduce myself, I simply shook his hand and muttered, “…tom hanks…”

What the fuck was happening to me?!?

I had to take a second to recompose myself.  I stood there, rubbing my temples and apologized to him saying, “I didn’t think this would affect me, but now that I’m here, you’re seriously flustering me.”

“Really, Jason? I’m flustering you?” he said.  Tom Hanks’ use of my name seemed to make the walls close in on me, and I managed to sit down before something catastrophic happened, like me passing out and slamming my head on the coffee table between us. 

When the interview started, I went back to normal and Tom Hanks was just a funny and down to earth as you see on screen.  I wish I hadn’t degenerated into a goofy fan boy at our meeting.

Prior to this the biggest star I’d ever seen was Lou Gosset Jr, of Iron Eagle fame, which compared to Tom Hanks, is sort of like getting to meet a homeless person.  So I suppose this was a first for me. 

Next time I’ll be prepared.

Oh, and one other thing I learned was if they give you ten minutes to talk to someone—sit down and start talking.  They begin timing you when you walk in the room.  My little implosion wasted four minutes, and I only got six minutes for the interview.  Good thing, I didn’t pass out.