Since I've moved to Toronto for university (for the last two years), I've had opportunity to meet some famous faces. Especially because for whatever reason, a lot of movie and TV shows like to film at my residence. For example: a scene in Harold and Kumar was filmed there, parts of the Fringe series premiere were filmed there, a TON of the second Hulk movie was filmed there, apparently some of Good Will Hunting... the list goes on. I thought it would be fun to discuss the famous people that everyone has met, and share the stories around them. I have a few good ones, I think.
The first time I went to a Raptors game, I met Chuck Swirsky, who at the time was the play by play voice. The second time I went, it was the season opener, and I got my picture with Bryan Colangelo (I hope you've heard of him). He is really tall, and treated me like an old friend: "How's it been going, buddy? How you been doing?" I told him I'd just finished a midterm (which I had. Physical chemistry).
I chatted with Rick Mercer (a Canadian celebrity, you may not have heard of him). It was after a filming of his show I attended. We got confused and ended up last in the line to meet him, which meant we got to spend extra time with him.
One night I was studying in my res's common room. It was about midnight, and the subject was organic chemistry (ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh). I see someone coming up the stairs, I thought it was a fellow resident. It wasn't. It was Joshua Jackson (Pacey from Dawson's creek, now a star in The Fringe). He said "Do you know where I could find an accessible washroom?" Well, me and my friend (who is a medical student, and I am a pharmacy student) both had the same medical thought - why does Joshua Jackson need a (handicap) accessible washroom? But he just meant one that... he could access. Now this story got funnier, because my friend and I both kind of stared at him, more out of confusion than anything... but it was March, which meant I was participating in a moustache march (can't shave your moustache for the month). But I can't grow a moustache, so I just looked like an angry pedophile. Joshua Jackson saw this and kind of went "Sorry if I"m not supposed to be in here..." but then the girl with us jumped up and took him into the residence. He did his business in a dirty washroom on the third floor. The worst part was that we had been goofing around with cameras earlier and they were sitting on the table, but no one thought to ask for a picture. If only he hadn't said "Accessible" ! (I did miserable on that exam, btw. My worst mark of the year. I blame Pacey).
We spied on Richard Gere and Hilary Swank out our windows once, but security guards kept shooing us away.
We almost got to meet Colm Feore (another Canadian actor... played the President's husband in 24 this past season). But then missed him.
I walked across the set of Being Erika (a Canadian show) with my underwear over my pants. It was a charity thing for class. It was slightly embarrassing. The director asked if I had lost a bet.
Now, the last story, and my favourite: one day I had blown off physiology, and was working on an assignment in my friend's room. He happened to have the day off too. So I was on my laptop, and got bored and decided to surf the web a bit. I had recently found out that on "twitter" you could "follow" celebrities, and about two days before had started following some Star Trek: The Next Generation actors on there. (total coincidence). So, I decided to read recent tweets. I went to LeVar Burton's page (he played Geordi, the guy with the visor. He also hosted The Reading Rainbow) and saw his most recent tweet said that he was going to be at this bar in Toronto in about 1 hr. I asked my friend if that bar was close... he said it is about a 15 minute walk. I said, do you want to go meet LeVar Burton? We decided to take a chance on him actually showing, the twitter thing being real, etc etc. We had NO idea what to expect. So we get there, and there are some other people hovering around the place (and this is in the middle of Canadian winter, so it ain't warm) and we somehow got talking with them, and found they were there for LeVar too. So we all ended up upstairs... and after a little while, LeVar walked in. I was on the outside, and the first person he said hello to. Then more people came and we all had beer on the upstairs patio. TV and newspaper were there too; we were on the local tv news (my friend more than me though) AND I got quoted in the Globe and Mail (a national newspaper). I actually got a whole little paragraph to myself in the article. It's online, if anyone's interested. That was so much fun... having beer with Geordi from Star Trek.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my stories. I sure had fun living them... and that was only over about a 16 month period. Can't wait to see what happens this year!
Please share your stories as well
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