Stars

Interacting with famous people now takes on a new sheen in the Without. There don’t seem to be any in-between reactions. Famous people either know and respect you or you get the cousin-from-Ohio treatment. The straight-arm, “I don’t want to know you, I don’t ever want to know you” treatment. You’re not getting the leper treatment anymore. No, now it’s just respect or it’s shit. The respect is great. I love e-mailing, or DMing on Twitter, people whose work I respect. I never do it to get a response, but sometimes they will respond with a “Oh hell! I love your work too! We should do something together!” That’s tight.

The flip side of that is a blank look and the condescending tone reserved for annoying fans. And maybe if you’re an annoying fan, you don’t notice, but I notice, because I USED TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT. Not that I spoke condescendingly to people back then, but I know what it’s like to be on the other side and to be in a situation that would warrant that reaction. I also know the body language of a famous person who’s bulldozing through. The absence of eye contact, the furtive looks around themselves, to avoid any approaching fans. I get it; I’ve been there. So, it’s really weird when someone does it to you, having been famous before.

I once saw actor Aaron Eckhart coming out of Pottery Barn a couple of years ago. Now, this is not a dig on Eckhart. This is about me, not him. I see him come out of the store as I’m walking toward it. We meet eyes for a second. I realize it’s him and my instinct is to, I don’t know, say “Hi.” I liked his work a lot, so I fell into that well-worn “Wassup” mode for a moment, even though I was squarely in the Without of Fame. While I was thinking about that, I could see that he had very quickly looked away from me, with that, “Oh shit, I just met eyes with someone; they’re going to try to talk to me” look. BULLDOZE. BULLDOZE, BULLDOZE.

And he rushed past me. I don’t fault him. He doesn’t need to know who I am, but sure, it felt like shit, because I was suddenly cast in the cousin-from-Ohio role. I was the cousin-from-Ohio who came to Los Angeles to see movie stars.

Sometimes you know the celebrity a little, but you don’t want to see that dreadful forgetfulness look on their face here in the Without, so you don’t say anything. Maybe I remember meeting them better than they remember meeting me, so I don’t want to risk it. I even resort to the old, “Hey! It’s Justine!” when I’m standing right in front of those I know fairly well. Just to jog their memory, so I don’t have to see them trying to put a face and a name together. Maybe it’s ridiculous for me to do that, but I don’t feel like taking the chance. Hell, I can remember all kinds of people coming up to me when I was very famous and trying to get me to remember meeting them before.

In the beginning of my Fame, they’d say, accusingly, “You don’t remember me,” or, “Oh, we’ve met before” (which launched my other, almost-patented “It’s nice to see you” when being introduced to someone, instead of the traditional “Nice to meet you”). So, they’d say this to me, and me, being young at the time, I went ahead and felt ashamed that I didn’t, in fact, know them. Later in the Fame, I would flat out ask them, partly because I was curious where we’d actually met, and partly because I thought they were full of shit.

There was one guy, I must have been late 20s, one guy responded with a vague, “Remember? New York?” I said that New York was a big place where I’d spent a lot of time (not to mention having been born there). Then, for “clarity,” he adds, “New Year’s Eve?” Yes, now I see it. You mention the busiest town in the country, on the craziest night of the year. So, no. I don’t remember you. We have never met before.

Not too long ago, I was leaving a gated community after visiting a friend. On the way to the front gate, I see musician Gwen Stefani pushing a stroller. I know her a little bit, so I was going to say “Hi.” But, as my car gets closer, I notice that she has that avoidance body language and that furtive look. She has every right to it. She’s in her private community, walking her baby, and she probably tenses up every time she hears a car come up the street. Hell, I would. Now, maybe this sounds stupid, because if I had said, “Hi,” that tense body language would have probably slid aside and we would have had a nice exchange, but I drove past. I didn’t want to take the chance that she’d forgotten when we talked at her house party, or when she’d given me some backstage passes to her concert. I just didn’t want to risk being looked at as the cousin-from-Ohio. I just couldn’t risk getting that awful look. (Gwen, if you’re reading this, I swear I’ll stop and say “Hi” next time.) (And some cousin from Ohio is freaking out right now. It’s just some state I picked. Nothing personal.)

* * *

There’s this other time that sticks with me. I don’t know if I was in the Descent yet, maybe just the Slide, but I’m in a movie theater, there by myself. I notice that a very famous actress is sitting in the row in front of me with her friend. She’s sitting just a few seats over in the row in front of me, and this is a pretty big “sighting.” I lurch forward (really, I do) and tap her on the shoulder.

“I love your work,” in a loud whisper.

“Thank you,” she smiles back.

Now, I don’t like her work at all. So why did I do that weird thing? Why didn’t I just sit there and wait for the movie to start and watch the film and then leave and go home? What was with the sycophantic “I love your work” from me? I sat back in my seat, amazed at myself, at my lurching, my shoulder-tapping. I could have sworn, even, that the actress’s friend had given me a look, like she knew I was full of shit or something. A knowingness that I was fully prepared for her to call me on if we ever crossed paths again in town. Yeah, what the hell was that about? Sure, regardless of my opinion of her work, she was still spectacularly famous. I guess I did that thing that we do sometimes, when we’re face to face with Fame. I guess I just reached out compulsively, because it was there, right in front of me.

I’m not the only one. It happens. It happens. Writer/actor Buck Henry told me about this time he was at one of actress/producer Colleen Camp’s famed parties at the Sunset Tower. Lots of actors and actresses there. He’s talking, chatting, and then finds himself face to face with a very tall, very famous blonde. He’s introduced. He says that a few minutes later, he felt like he was “having an out-of-body experience.” He was there, outside of himself, watching himself, prattling on and on with this woman who didn’t know who Buck was. Seems impossible. The prolific Buck Henry (Saturday Night Live, The Graduate, Catch-22, What’s Up Doc?, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Heaven Can Wait, Defending Your Life, The Player, etc.)? Impossible. So there he is talking, can’t stop talking to her. Outside himself, watching himself go on and on to her. Her, not knowing who he was, annoyed maybe that he was talking to her. Feels like shit. I know the feeling. Buck said it pissed him off that he couldn’t stop talking. For the next 48 hours he was pissed at himself for that.

* * *

I’ll tell you about this other “encounter.” This is me, in the Without. I’m in a private restaurant/club. It’s daytime, and I think I’m probably working on this book, ironically. Probably transcribing the hours and hours of interviews I did with other famous people. Anyway, I’m at this place where a fair amount of famous people spend time. People are working on their laptops or having lunch or coffee. There are dining room tables and coffee tables and chairs and couches. The place is full, as usual. I get up at one point to go to the bathroom or something, and I start to navigate around the tables and couches. I turn one way and then another until I’m near a couch. I turn to my right to go around a table, but someone is coming that way, so I turn back to my left to walk past the back of the couch. Standing there now is a guy, a somewhat-known actor. I assume he’s going to step aside so I can move past. That’s what a normal person would do. But, that doesn’t happen. He locks eyes with me and then perches on the back of the couch. He extends his long legs to block my path, and folds his arms, and looks at me, as if to say, “Do you think you can get past this?” Are you fucking kidding me? And no, he wasn’t smiling. This was not a flirtation or a “fun game.”

Now, you don’t know me, but I’ll tell you. If this had been in a normal situation, I would have had a different response. If I had not been in this particular restaurant/club, and if this had been a regular guy and not a somewhat-known actor, I would have said, “Are you fucking kidding me? Move.” But, Jesus Christ, I’m in the Without and he, maybe not so much, or at least he doesn’t seem to think he is, and it would have been a fucking scene had I said something. And honestly, if I were more famous at the time, he would have never tried that shit on me. That’s the fucked-up part. So, I turned around and wound my way back through, to find another route to the bathroom. Yeah, that was a weird one. I wasn’t willing to have my Fame temperature taken there in the middle of that place, if he, deciding he’s more famous than me, started filling the room with an embarrassing conflict. He had his posse with him. I had none. Sounds lame, maybe, but that’s what you get sometimes, in the Without.