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ok, gang, this is my first lj post. i'm not what you would call a natural writer, ( i'm no Catsplay) my grammar is atrocious, and, as you will see, i tend to get off on tangents and am not always very good at exposition. but, i've been wanting to do this for a long time and i figure all i can do is give it my best shot.
i decided to start my posts with my memories of my encounters with alan rickman when he was directing the play, "My Name is Rachel Corrie" in 2006 in nyc, largely because i mentioned them on Catsplay's lj recently and thought it might be good to expound on those thoughts. WARNING! as i said i'm very new at this lj stuff and things may be disjointed and confusing, so bear with me.
i guess i should begin by saying i'm sort of a shy person especially when it comes to people of notoriety and i'm not sure why that is. since i live close to nyc, i've sometimes "run into" celebs or semi-celebs, and even if it's someone i admire i find it hard to say something as simple as ,"hey, thanks for all your good work." it's not that i'm star-struck or anything, i just find it hard to intrude on the persons privacy and frequently can't find the words to say what i'd like.( i find the older i get, the more inarticulate i become.) this was true when i encountered mr. rickman 2 prior times several years ago and i had decided that THIS time i was going to speak to him, i wasn't going to miss the opportunity. it wasn't so much that i felt he had to hear my pearls of wisdom, it was almost a test for myself because i had gotten so aggravated when i WASN'T able to even say,"hi" when i had seen him. i had gotten tickets for my husband and i to see MNIRC, once in october, once in november. let me backtrack a bit here to say when Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003, i was very interested in her story and was angry that not more was made of it in our media. it seemed like an interesting coincidence that someone i admired so much, not just for his acting but also particularly for his direction of "The Winter Guest," had helped create this play and was now directing it. anyway, the night of the play i was excited about seeing it, and for some reason i kind of told myself there was no way i was going to see rickman, just calm down and pay attention to the performance. i had never been to this theater and couldn't believe how small and intimate it was. megan dodds was wonderful, and both my husband and i were very moved by the whole thing. when it was over, i told my husband i'd wait for him outside while he went to the mens room, i needed some fresh air. there were little groups of people outside and in a few minutes my husband came out and started gesturing wildly at me to follow him back in. i did, and standing there in the tiny lobby was alan rickman. he was literally about 8 feet away and looked f*****g gorgeous. because of the weird lighting, his whole magnificent head of hair appeared silver and his skin was so pink and unlined and young looking.( my husband commented on how massive he was, how big his head was, and how pink he was!) he was wearing a white button-down shirt with a grey sports jacket over it and dark grey jeans. there were about 4 or 5 student-type kids talking to him and he was quite animated. i was totally dumbstruck, and just listened to the way the resonance of his amazing voice cut through all the ambient noise. my husband was urging me to go over to him but i was rooted to the ground just staring. after a few minutes i felt like the worst kind of gawker so we left the lobby. the theatre wall had these long narrow windows and if you stood outside and looked thru the first one, the inside curtain was askew so you could see what was going on in the lobby. so that's what we did, we stood watching him for about five minutes as the little crowds of people started to disperse. then we moved away into the street but still right in front of the entrance. after a few more minutes, alan suddenly came flying out the door with a gift bag in his hand. he flung the door open to Bella Vitae, the restaurant next door, went in for about 3 seconds then came out and ran back into the theater. i, was struck by how he moved, he was so fluid and fast and graceful, especially for a big guy. my husband is 6'3" and about 220 lbs and he even commented on how graceful he was, like a dancer. yet there was also this sense of contained power and something very masculine about him, too. ( i realize this is not necessarily making sense but i'm just spewing it all out here!) we stood there for about 5 minutes more and then alan came out and went into Bella Vitae. my husband asked if i wanted to go in and have a drink but i just could not. i was still in a sort of shock that i had been so close to alan and needed recovery time. so, once again, i chickened out.
fast forward to november when we return to see the play again. i was actually happy to see it again, i was able to pay attention to things i had missed previously. unfortunately, this time alan was surrounded by a huge crush of his own people and disappeared almost immediately, so i didn't have any good opportunities to stalk him. this made me decide to go into the city the following sunday by myself, not to attend the play, but to try to get the chance to see him. and that's what i did.
that particular sunday there was a matinee and an evening performance. i got to the theater as the matinee was letting out armed with one of the playbills from the performances i had attended so i could blend in and sneak into the lobby. when i got inside, alan was at the far end of the lobby talking to a woman that i think was Dena Hammerstein, one of the producers of the play. no-one was approaching them; there were a gang of giggling college girls and guys standing behind me, but they couldn't decide if they should go over to him. i stood watching him talk to Dena, i must have been staring intently or she was incredibly boring because his eyes kept flickering over to me. ( incidentally, this was NOT my imagination, one of the co-eds said, "oh my god, he keeps LOOKING at you!") i found that my wonderful occassional panic disorder was rearing it's lovely head once again and i was starting to breathe funny. i tried to control it getting more angry saying to myself, "you idiot! go over to him!!! he's practically ALONE, don't fuck up this opportunity!" so at that point i said, "fuckit!" (out loud, as it happens) and strode over to them. Dena was still chuntering on and did not even look at me tho i know she was aware i was there. i tried to say, "excuse me," because i realized how rude it was that i was just barging in on their conversation but the words clotted in my throat. he was looking down at me with an interesting expression; caution, suspicion, and slight amusement mingled on his face even as he was responding to something his companion said: "that's why there's so much shit out there," was exactly what he said as i mutely held out the playbill and a sharpie. he took them from me, signed his name with a flourish and murmured, "thank you" with a half smile. i smiled back still speechless and walked away.
guys, i KNOW i sound like the worst kind of stalking fan, and what i did was incredibly rude and i have no real excuse. i think i would've been able to beg his pardon if Dena had shut up at any time, i guess i feel pissed that she was monopolizing him when there were obviously a bunch of people waiting to talk to him. "hey lady,!" i wanted to say, "you get to talk to him ANYTIME, and the fact that he's standing out here for so long means he's willing to speak to the rest of us idiots, so shut up already!" i guess that's kind of the wrong attitude, too, and i know it sounds extremely lame to say he almost looked like he was waiting for someone to rescue him, perhaps i'm just projecting. anyway, i left the lobby and stood outside hoping to see him leave. the two of them came out and walked towards 6th avenue, then did an about face and headed towards the minetta lane tavern. i managed to get one extremely crappy photo and a tiny bit of terrible video footage with my cellphone where you can hardly tell it's him - i was actually just trying to capture a bit of that magnificent voice but was unable to.
so that was that encounter.
ok, here comes the really good one. i'll try to cut to the chase.
i went in one my own again to see the play . there were alot of empty seats and there didn't appear to be alot of people hanging around waiting to stalk, oops i mean, speak to him. he came flying down the stairs in the lobby (again, i was struck by his movement and speed) and was standing laughing and talking to 2 guys in suits that were with him. he seemed to be in an ebullient mood and i figured this was my last chance. i managed to marshall whatever inner resources i had and walked over to him. i guess it would be presumptuous to say he looked like he recognized me, but he did. (maybe he catalogues all his crazy fans in his head.) i said, "excuse me, mr. rickman, do you have a moment?" and amazingly enough the words came out almost normally. he smiled and said, "sure" and the 2 guys moved away. i gulped and told him haltingly how much i enjoyed MNIRC, how powerful it was to hear all her words. he began to tell me how that was the absolutely essential thing that he and Katherine Viner, the writer, decided they had to do when creating the production. he spoke to me easily as if i wasn't red-faced and puddling in front of him, and he was so kind that soon i wasn't. i became almost coherent and in a moment we were actually conversing. i told him that i knew directing demanded a much bigger chunk of time than acting, but that i was sorry he wasn't able to direct more because i thought MNIRC was done wonderfully, and i was so moved by The Winter Guest. he said, "what, you don't like my acting?" and i froze till he started to giggle. yes, he giggled. the fact that he teased me (OMG alan rickman TEASED me!!!) broke the ice and i was able to tell him all the things about The Winter Guest that had affected me so much. i told him that i had seen the film when it first came out at a time when i was taking care of my mother who was terminally ill with cancer, and although all the couples stories in the film moved me, the Emma Thompson Phylidda Law story especially touched a nerve. we talked for awhile about how hard it is to lose ones mother, at any age, and he said that the play was also about hope. i said i had read somewhere that Sharman Macdonald, his friend who wrote the play, called herself a "melancholy optimist," and he said, "you've done your research." he was very very sweet and funny, even a little snarky when i admitted that it took alot of courage for me to approach him. "why?! " he said, "i don't bite!" i responded by gesturing at some women who were huddled a little distance away looking longingly at him, saying, " apparantly not everyone knows that" and he said, "well, sometimes i do." i decided i had taken up enough of his time and thanked him for speaking with me. he replied by thanking me and shaking my hand (SQUEEEEE!!!!!) and i walked away. i don't remember taking the cab to Penn Station but when i got on the train i almost collapsed, everything hit me at once. i wrote down as much as i could remember on that ride home so i could go over it and relive it again.
i feel incredibly lucky and honored that he was so open and friendly and i'm happy i was at last able to conquer my shyness and speak to him.
oh, yeah, the following week i took my sister-in-law in to see the play, and afterwards she took a photo of the two of us. he and i both look like crap in the picture but i treasure it anyway.( my husband enlarged it and put it on the refrigerator. how weird is that?) AND, he remembered me and was very nice and had a nice exchange with my sister-in-law about the similarities of the play to The Diary of Anne Frank.
so that's my Rachel Corrie encounters with Rickman sort of in a nutshell. sorry if i was long-winded, it was difficult to get it all out and i know i forgot alot but maybe somebody out there can relate.
i decided to start my posts with my memories of my encounters with alan rickman when he was directing the play, "My Name is Rachel Corrie" in 2006 in nyc, largely because i mentioned them on Catsplay's lj recently and thought it might be good to expound on those thoughts. WARNING! as i said i'm very new at this lj stuff and things may be disjointed and confusing, so bear with me.
i guess i should begin by saying i'm sort of a shy person especially when it comes to people of notoriety and i'm not sure why that is. since i live close to nyc, i've sometimes "run into" celebs or semi-celebs, and even if it's someone i admire i find it hard to say something as simple as ,"hey, thanks for all your good work." it's not that i'm star-struck or anything, i just find it hard to intrude on the persons privacy and frequently can't find the words to say what i'd like.( i find the older i get, the more inarticulate i become.) this was true when i encountered mr. rickman 2 prior times several years ago and i had decided that THIS time i was going to speak to him, i wasn't going to miss the opportunity. it wasn't so much that i felt he had to hear my pearls of wisdom, it was almost a test for myself because i had gotten so aggravated when i WASN'T able to even say,"hi" when i had seen him. i had gotten tickets for my husband and i to see MNIRC, once in october, once in november. let me backtrack a bit here to say when Rachel Corrie was killed in 2003, i was very interested in her story and was angry that not more was made of it in our media. it seemed like an interesting coincidence that someone i admired so much, not just for his acting but also particularly for his direction of "The Winter Guest," had helped create this play and was now directing it. anyway, the night of the play i was excited about seeing it, and for some reason i kind of told myself there was no way i was going to see rickman, just calm down and pay attention to the performance. i had never been to this theater and couldn't believe how small and intimate it was. megan dodds was wonderful, and both my husband and i were very moved by the whole thing. when it was over, i told my husband i'd wait for him outside while he went to the mens room, i needed some fresh air. there were little groups of people outside and in a few minutes my husband came out and started gesturing wildly at me to follow him back in. i did, and standing there in the tiny lobby was alan rickman. he was literally about 8 feet away and looked f*****g gorgeous. because of the weird lighting, his whole magnificent head of hair appeared silver and his skin was so pink and unlined and young looking.( my husband commented on how massive he was, how big his head was, and how pink he was!) he was wearing a white button-down shirt with a grey sports jacket over it and dark grey jeans. there were about 4 or 5 student-type kids talking to him and he was quite animated. i was totally dumbstruck, and just listened to the way the resonance of his amazing voice cut through all the ambient noise. my husband was urging me to go over to him but i was rooted to the ground just staring. after a few minutes i felt like the worst kind of gawker so we left the lobby. the theatre wall had these long narrow windows and if you stood outside and looked thru the first one, the inside curtain was askew so you could see what was going on in the lobby. so that's what we did, we stood watching him for about five minutes as the little crowds of people started to disperse. then we moved away into the street but still right in front of the entrance. after a few more minutes, alan suddenly came flying out the door with a gift bag in his hand. he flung the door open to Bella Vitae, the restaurant next door, went in for about 3 seconds then came out and ran back into the theater. i, was struck by how he moved, he was so fluid and fast and graceful, especially for a big guy. my husband is 6'3" and about 220 lbs and he even commented on how graceful he was, like a dancer. yet there was also this sense of contained power and something very masculine about him, too. ( i realize this is not necessarily making sense but i'm just spewing it all out here!) we stood there for about 5 minutes more and then alan came out and went into Bella Vitae. my husband asked if i wanted to go in and have a drink but i just could not. i was still in a sort of shock that i had been so close to alan and needed recovery time. so, once again, i chickened out.
fast forward to november when we return to see the play again. i was actually happy to see it again, i was able to pay attention to things i had missed previously. unfortunately, this time alan was surrounded by a huge crush of his own people and disappeared almost immediately, so i didn't have any good opportunities to stalk him. this made me decide to go into the city the following sunday by myself, not to attend the play, but to try to get the chance to see him. and that's what i did.
that particular sunday there was a matinee and an evening performance. i got to the theater as the matinee was letting out armed with one of the playbills from the performances i had attended so i could blend in and sneak into the lobby. when i got inside, alan was at the far end of the lobby talking to a woman that i think was Dena Hammerstein, one of the producers of the play. no-one was approaching them; there were a gang of giggling college girls and guys standing behind me, but they couldn't decide if they should go over to him. i stood watching him talk to Dena, i must have been staring intently or she was incredibly boring because his eyes kept flickering over to me. ( incidentally, this was NOT my imagination, one of the co-eds said, "oh my god, he keeps LOOKING at you!") i found that my wonderful occassional panic disorder was rearing it's lovely head once again and i was starting to breathe funny. i tried to control it getting more angry saying to myself, "you idiot! go over to him!!! he's practically ALONE, don't fuck up this opportunity!" so at that point i said, "fuckit!" (out loud, as it happens) and strode over to them. Dena was still chuntering on and did not even look at me tho i know she was aware i was there. i tried to say, "excuse me," because i realized how rude it was that i was just barging in on their conversation but the words clotted in my throat. he was looking down at me with an interesting expression; caution, suspicion, and slight amusement mingled on his face even as he was responding to something his companion said: "that's why there's so much shit out there," was exactly what he said as i mutely held out the playbill and a sharpie. he took them from me, signed his name with a flourish and murmured, "thank you" with a half smile. i smiled back still speechless and walked away.
guys, i KNOW i sound like the worst kind of stalking fan, and what i did was incredibly rude and i have no real excuse. i think i would've been able to beg his pardon if Dena had shut up at any time, i guess i feel pissed that she was monopolizing him when there were obviously a bunch of people waiting to talk to him. "hey lady,!" i wanted to say, "you get to talk to him ANYTIME, and the fact that he's standing out here for so long means he's willing to speak to the rest of us idiots, so shut up already!" i guess that's kind of the wrong attitude, too, and i know it sounds extremely lame to say he almost looked like he was waiting for someone to rescue him, perhaps i'm just projecting. anyway, i left the lobby and stood outside hoping to see him leave. the two of them came out and walked towards 6th avenue, then did an about face and headed towards the minetta lane tavern. i managed to get one extremely crappy photo and a tiny bit of terrible video footage with my cellphone where you can hardly tell it's him - i was actually just trying to capture a bit of that magnificent voice but was unable to.
so that was that encounter.
ok, here comes the really good one. i'll try to cut to the chase.
i went in one my own again to see the play . there were alot of empty seats and there didn't appear to be alot of people hanging around waiting to stalk, oops i mean, speak to him. he came flying down the stairs in the lobby (again, i was struck by his movement and speed) and was standing laughing and talking to 2 guys in suits that were with him. he seemed to be in an ebullient mood and i figured this was my last chance. i managed to marshall whatever inner resources i had and walked over to him. i guess it would be presumptuous to say he looked like he recognized me, but he did. (maybe he catalogues all his crazy fans in his head.) i said, "excuse me, mr. rickman, do you have a moment?" and amazingly enough the words came out almost normally. he smiled and said, "sure" and the 2 guys moved away. i gulped and told him haltingly how much i enjoyed MNIRC, how powerful it was to hear all her words. he began to tell me how that was the absolutely essential thing that he and Katherine Viner, the writer, decided they had to do when creating the production. he spoke to me easily as if i wasn't red-faced and puddling in front of him, and he was so kind that soon i wasn't. i became almost coherent and in a moment we were actually conversing. i told him that i knew directing demanded a much bigger chunk of time than acting, but that i was sorry he wasn't able to direct more because i thought MNIRC was done wonderfully, and i was so moved by The Winter Guest. he said, "what, you don't like my acting?" and i froze till he started to giggle. yes, he giggled. the fact that he teased me (OMG alan rickman TEASED me!!!) broke the ice and i was able to tell him all the things about The Winter Guest that had affected me so much. i told him that i had seen the film when it first came out at a time when i was taking care of my mother who was terminally ill with cancer, and although all the couples stories in the film moved me, the Emma Thompson Phylidda Law story especially touched a nerve. we talked for awhile about how hard it is to lose ones mother, at any age, and he said that the play was also about hope. i said i had read somewhere that Sharman Macdonald, his friend who wrote the play, called herself a "melancholy optimist," and he said, "you've done your research." he was very very sweet and funny, even a little snarky when i admitted that it took alot of courage for me to approach him. "why?! " he said, "i don't bite!" i responded by gesturing at some women who were huddled a little distance away looking longingly at him, saying, " apparantly not everyone knows that" and he said, "well, sometimes i do." i decided i had taken up enough of his time and thanked him for speaking with me. he replied by thanking me and shaking my hand (SQUEEEEE!!!!!) and i walked away. i don't remember taking the cab to Penn Station but when i got on the train i almost collapsed, everything hit me at once. i wrote down as much as i could remember on that ride home so i could go over it and relive it again.
i feel incredibly lucky and honored that he was so open and friendly and i'm happy i was at last able to conquer my shyness and speak to him.
oh, yeah, the following week i took my sister-in-law in to see the play, and afterwards she took a photo of the two of us. he and i both look like crap in the picture but i treasure it anyway.( my husband enlarged it and put it on the refrigerator. how weird is that?) AND, he remembered me and was very nice and had a nice exchange with my sister-in-law about the similarities of the play to The Diary of Anne Frank.
so that's my Rachel Corrie encounters with Rickman sort of in a nutshell. sorry if i was long-winded, it was difficult to get it all out and i know i forgot alot but maybe somebody out there can relate.
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