21.
A couple of years ago me and my sister were at Comic-Con. You tend to see some a lot of famous people there, but it’s usually with them in booths with guards and stuff (with the exception of Seth Green).
Anyway, me and my sister were at one of the booths waiting for their giveaways when a man suddenly came up beside me all excited and in a bit of wonder. He told us how great everything was there and how much of an experience it was for him there, all in a while I was probably looking at him strangely because of how familiar his accent and his voice and his face and his blond hair was. He asked where we got our poster tubes, and that’s probably when I remembered who he was but decided to just not mention it because I was kind of still in disbelief and pointed him to one of the far off booths where they sell poster tubes.
The man was Owen Wilson. I hadn’t been sure it was him, because I always thought he’d be a lot taller. It was kind of warming to see how excited he was to be there in the crowds.
22.
One of my best friends doppelganger is Ethan Hawke. Like it’s scary how much he resembles him, to the point that during those stupid facebook challenges he just changed his profile picture to him and nobody realized it. Also his favorite story was one time at San Diego Comic Con he actually confused Rosario Dawson at a hotel bar.
Anyway one night I’m walking home from work in NYC, and I see who I thought was my friend, John just walking on a kind of secluded part of of 9th ave around Hells Kitchen, and I yell “JOHN!”
He doesn’t turn around.
So I decide to yell it again, and instead of responding his pace quickens. I decide the best thing to do is to run at him which seemed to terrify him as keep in mind it’s late and there are very few people around. Anyway I catch up to him and say “Oh, you’re not John” and then walk away from what was a very frightened Ethan Hawke.
23.
My cousin rode a ski lift with Jack Black in Vail. Just the two of them. Her husband and I were in the lift behind them, freaking out. When we got off the lift they’d gone their separate ways. We made our way to her she was like “wow, that guy on my lift was so nice.” We were like NO S**T THAT WAS JACK BLACK. She was like “THE SCHOOL OF ROCK GUY?!?!”
She was so embarrassed. She said she rambled on about living in Iowa for most of their conversation. We laughed our asses off.
24.
When I was younger with fewer responsibilities I used to just drive around for the hell of it. To me, driving is a hobby. Late at night was my favorite time. The streets are empty. My uncle is like this too. I asked him if he wanted to meet at American Coney Island. We sat down in a booth. A couple guys walked in after us and sat down behind us. Eminem, Dr. Dre, and a guy I later found out was Jimmy Iovine. We paid them no attention, but we knew who they were. They finished before us and as they were walking out, Eminem nodded at us and said, “thanks for not making a big deal about this. We got you.” He and the other guys disappeared around the corner.
25.
I served Daniel Radcliffe brunch one time. All the other servers were freaking the hell out that he was in our restaurant, so, given I don’t care much about actors and would remain professional, I was chosen to take care of him. He ordered the eggs Benedict, no sides, extra Benedict. I dubbed it “The Quad Benny”. He was incredibly polite and appreciative, tipped well, and his accent was downright intoxicating. After that experience, I became a big Radcliffe fan.
26.
My dad and I bumped into Michael Jordan at a Walgreen’s near Chicago. This was back in 2006 or so.
We were picking out birthday cards for my mom, and MJ and his son came in the same aisle browsing some cards. My dad kept his cool and continued to look through different cards, giving him his personal space. I, on the other hand, was 9 years old and in awe, sort of staring at him. After MJ picked out his card, he winked at me and gave me a walk-by fist bump.
Didn’t really set in until I was older how cool that was.
27.
Used to work at a posh hotel and we had wedding there all the time. I was pretty young at the time, say 15.
David Tennant was at one wedding, Doctor f**king Who and I was pouring him coffee.
At first I was sat there thinking is he/isn’t he so I was playing it cool. I went back to the kitchen to top up more coffee in my coffee jug and the staff were talking about it too before deciding it actually was David Tennant.
Spent the rest of the night playing it cool because I was in that yeah whatever stage of teenage life. Inside I was freaking out.
28.
Jared Leto. I work in an outdoor goods store in Boulder CO, which for those who don’t know is one of the biggest climbing towns in the US. He came into the store to get some stuff as he’s known to travel here and climb with other big pros, notably Alex Honald who is a buddy of his. He had been outted in the middle of the footwear department by a coworker on mine in front of a big group of customers so by the time he got over to the climbing area where I work he was really on edge and unfriendly. I walked up to him and honesty just acted like he wasn’t hot s**t. I acted like I didn’t really know who he was and just spoke to him like any other customer even breaking conversation with him at several points to answer questions for other folks as opposed to giving him my full undivided attention.
After about 5 minutes of that he totally relaxed and his entire demeanor changed. He went from being somewhat rude and cold to being very chill, calling me bro etc. and I ended up walking around the store with him for like 25-30 minutes helping him shop. The only time I implied I knew who he was was towards the end as I was ringing him up. He asked me to recommend some climbing spots close to town like the flatirons. It was a beautiful Saturday and I said to him that those places are great but he’ll get bombarded by people if he goes there and I recommended some spots just outside of town instead. He sorta leaned in and thanked me for my discretion and that was it. It seemed like he really just wanted to be treated like a normal guy.
29.
My father has the best one.
He was coming back from work and was stepping around a bus that was outside the Port Authority in NYC. As he’s coming around, someone else is coming the other way and they bump into each other. My father apologizes and the guy just gives him a smile, letting him know it that it’s cool. As walks away, he looks back again and realizes that it’s Henry Winkler, AKA The Fonz, and he almost knocked him on his ass. This was before cameras in phones were a thing.
30.
Not sure if this counts but when I was 15 I was really into playing Starcraft (being a 3 month old game at the time) on battle.net. I did mostly 3v3 games. After finishing this one particularly epic match (close game, we won), we all got into a chat room to talk about how fun that was. Iirc, one of them says something to the effect of “not sure if you all care but you just beat Ben Affleck.” Of course we all ask him to prove it, so he told us to wait a minute and visit his official website’s message board (benaffleck.com or something like that). He had just made a post in red (red being Ben Affleck himself) about just losing a game of Starcraft.
We briefly chatted with him and that was it.
